FXpansion BFD2 Master Class

Jul 29, 2010 4:56 PM, By Eli Krantzberg

           
 

GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS TOP-NOTCH DRUM SAMPLER

FIG. 1: Subtle positive Vel to Damp and Vel to Pitch settings create realistic nuances when kit pieces are triggered at different velocities.

BFD2 is arguably the most advanced acoustic drum-production environment around. The standalone and plug-in versions are nearly identical, and they’re equally well-suited for playing, mixing, and sequencing. BFD2 packs a lot of punch, and I’ll show you how to really power up this multifaceted drum instrument.

BFD2 is built around a collection of kit-piece slots. The kit pieces are made up of one or more articulations or hit types, each including multiple velocity layers. Each layer has been recorded with 12 different microphones: three pairs of stereo ambience mics, a direct mic, and bleed signals from top and bottom kick and snare mics (two on the snare top).

Kit-piece and articulation parameters are controlled in the Kit Piece Inspector. They are mixed on the Mixer page, programmed into patterns on the Grooves page, and mapped on the Keymapping/Automation page. You can save settings for each page separately. Presets contain the settings for the entire state of the BFD2 interface and are used to save and load settings for all of the pages at once.

WORKING WITH KIT PIECES
BFD2’s large library of pre-assembled drum kits (and optional expansion packs) are loaded from the Kit Chooser panel. But the real fun starts when you mix and match different kit pieces and kit-piece settings. Use the Kit Chooser panel’s slot-load switches to mix and match which kit-piece slots will be loaded and which will remain unchanged when loading in new kits. The Load Audio Only button will leave the individual Kit Piece Inspector settings unchanged.

You can access individual kit pieces from the Kit Piece Chooser, available on most pages of the interface. Click the Sticky button to leave the Chooser open for quick auditioning of kit pieces. On the kit page, press the kit piece’s slot-load button or double-click anywhere in the slot to access the Kit Piece Chooser. Use the Inspector’s quick-load controls or Control-click directly on a kit-piece slot to bypass the Chooser and load or swap kit pieces directly.

On the Mixer page, double-click directly on the channel icon (when the FX Sends view is disabled) to bring up the Kit Piece Chooser, or use the Inspector’s quick-load controls. Double-click in the kit-piece or articulation lane on the Grooves page to access the Chooser there.

ROLL YOUR OWN
Use the Kit Piece Chooser’s Import button to create your own custom, multisampled kit pieces. Once you’ve set the file pathway, name, and kit-piece type for your new creation, press the Add Layer button to load in 44.1kHz WAV file samples. Start from the quietest samples and repeat until they are all added. Correct any mistakes with the Move Layer Up/Down buttons, and finally press the Import button to copy the samples to the new directory and create the kit piece.

BFD2 maps the velocity splits automatically. If necessary, tweak the response further in the Kit Piece Inspector with the Velocity to Amp control. When it is set to 0 percent, there is no amplitude scaling. Either negative or positive values are available, and you can set a default value in the Synth Engine section of the Preferences page.

Dampening, tuning, and dynamics for kit pieces, and individual offsets for each articulation, are controlled in the Inspector. A small positive offset on the Vel to Pitch slider yields realistic and musical results. Louder triggering results in a slight increase in pitch like you sometimes get when hitting a drum harder.

Similarly, a subtle, positive Vel to Damp setting with a modest Damp Amount setting dampens the articulation slightly more the louder it is triggered. This is particularly realistic on kick drums and toms (see Fig. 1 and Web Clip 1).