Need help choosing between Drumcore and BFD for use in T

[flanneljammies]

Platinum -- I'm down with you.
Barbarossa -- Take it Off-Topic please.

[Barbarossa]

Sorry, but his sig is off-topic and provokes such discussions. The principle of actio and reactio.

[FoxV]

Thanks. I just wanted to give platinumears (who I've found to be very generous and helpful) a kindhearted and gentle ribbing. Hope he takes it that way. platinumears?

Yeah. raised a little giggle actually.

So glad to hear it!

[flanneljammies]

Sigs are almost always off-topic.

[stash98]

check me out..I have no sig!!

anyway, I use BFD also. I noticed a few things..if you use the overhead mics as your hihat mics you will get a more realistic sound. so, basicaly, lower the hihat mic down A LOT. I also use this on cymbals too.

i agree that too much reverb is a bad thing..so go easy on that...but for now, I don't know any other prgram that gets the drum sounds that BFD does.

[bassface]

Good to hear all the positive opinions on BFD.

Have you guys checked out Drumcore, however? It's got some pretty cool stuff going for it.

Any ideas on which would be more T-friendly?

And would somebody be willing to give me the most basic rundown on how you integrate BFD in Tracktion?

(I'm a virtual instrument total newb, remember?)

[djsubject]

if you dont beleave in god then you WILL go to hell!!!!!

now if some of you mother f**kers will pay a pention now to live nice later, then why cant you live good now to have nice after life?

i mean how long is forever in the after life?

sounds like a long time to burn

may the faith of our creater live on!!

& the word god & lord both come from words that mean worthless idol! so maby plats sig is right after all

oh! & i would get BFD (wot dose that stand for? big fuking drums?)

[aldi]

allthough i think bfd is great i have to tell you that many users have many different problems with bfd. check the fxpansion forum here on kvr.

[stash98]

have 2 gigs of RAM on a fast DAW and BFD works fine. Get a 3rd samples drive for even more smoothness.

when you load it, just open BFD all as a filter. Then right click it and wrap it as a rack. Then drag 14 or so instances of that rack to different tracks and you will have individual drums you can effect and mix however you want.

[FoxV]

when you load it, just open BFD all as a filter. Then right click it and wrap it as a rack. Then drag 14 or so instances of that rack to different tracks and you will have individual drums you can effect and mix however you want.

I still can't get my head around how that works--that is, how you have each track only play one instrument when you wrap a synth or sampler in a rack. I've got to give it a go and see what's up!

[Slacknote]

So.. at the moment I am using the following, simple setup and in my tests it worked better (and easier) that all the other solutions I tried.
<snip>
Good luck!

Thanks that was very helpful!

I do have some questons though:

-How would you group your instruments? Make one rack for hats, with compression eq, delay etc, one for snare with eq, compression, reverb, one for kick, one for toms etc etc
-What is the best order for the fx? first eq then compression, or the other way around?
-How do the aux sends fit into all this?
-Are live midi files a worthwile investment? If yes can you recommend some?

Thanks!

[timmyo]

when you load it, just open BFD all as a filter. Then right click it and wrap it as a rack. Then drag 14 or so instances of that rack to different tracks and you will have individual drums you can effect and mix however you want.

I still can't get my head around how that works--that is, how you have each track only play one instrument when you wrap a synth or sampler in a rack. I've got to give it a go and see what's up!

I'm guessing you just have one track with just snare midi notes, one track with just tom1 midi notes etc etc ?

[chico.co.uk]

& the word god & lord both come from words that mean worthless idol! so maby plats sig is right after all

I'm not getting involved in this discussion, but that's the second time you've said something along those lines, and i'm afraid you're factually incorrect. Try a google for "Etymology of the word god", and try not to just believe everything a bloke down the pub tells you just because it sounds good.

[Slacknote]

As for the whole discussion on God, I suggest you read this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 1?v=glance

[sonicsmurf]

Thanks that was very helpful!

Glad to read that

-How would you group your instruments? Make one rack for hats, with compression eq, delay etc, one for snare with eq, compression, reverb, one for kick, one for toms etc etc

Um... no. No, this is not at all my concept. I do not usually need to do that. What gives me best mix results is if I use one of the outstanding soundfonts that I mentioned. These drumsets are already panned and completely ready to be used in your recordings without any further processing or effects! Okay it helps if you add some effects, but these realistic sounding drumkits are ready to be used as they are. I can only recommend you would first choose the one drumkit that fits your own style of music, either: "NS-7" from Natural Studio for soft music or Jazz, "GoldDrums" for Pop and R'n'B and Country etc., and finally for Rock and heavy Jazzrock the "Ruffrider" and "Easyrider" kits by Kingston which are ultimately realistic, unprocessed and rough sounding drumkits.

All of these three drumkits sound very, very realistic. They were made by absolute experts in their field, and with a strong concept.
I quickly checked your website and I assume that for your style, the perfect drumkit would be "Ruffrider".
So, to give you a feel for the concept behind it (and to show you that this is acoustically something different than BFD), the only thing you can do is read the short "Introduction" text by the maker of the Ruffrider kit:
http://kingstondrums.bombsquad.org/about.html

Or if you hate to read, listen (and *listen to the crash cymbals* for example, you will never find them so totally unprocessed in other virtual drumkits!):
http://kingstondrums.bombsquad.org/demo ... o_live.mp3

So let's see what we know: In order to have a sampled drumkit that sounds realistic and at the same time can really be used as part of a virtual band, you should take a sampled drumkit that was recorded in a neutral way (as described in the website mentioned), and leave the drumkit as unprocessed as possible. But... you will also find that: In a virtual band it helps to boost the midrange frequencies of the drumkit so the drumkit does not lose its punch in the midst of other instruments. But now, to keep it from sounding muffled, you partly compensate this effect again by adding effects like "Blockfish" and "VintageWarmer" that will make the drumkit sound more open and more alive.
Back to your question: How to group the drums? Of course you are quite right, usually one would distribute the instruments to individual tracks. But you see, I want things to remain compact and simple, otherwise I would not have switched from Cubase to Tracktion. My story was that my creativity and joy for making music was pretty much ruined over the years -- simply because I worked with all these things that gave me thousands of possibilities all the time. But I have learned that if I find compact concepts, the results are way better. Consequently, I do not group my drum instruments in Tracktion - usually.

What I do is much simpler: When making a new song or tune,I usually have a first track with rhythm guitar that was already recorded and waiting in Tracktion. It could be 5 minutes long and have the structure of a new song. The guitar was recorded with a click-track. Now I simply make a new track, insert my preset rack called "Drums" (which contains the soundfont player bs-1, the soundfont GoldDrums, the EQ for drums, the Blockfish compressor, and the VintageWarmer all active over *the complete drumkit*), and so I record the drum patterns through MIDI pads or simply through the keyboard for 5 minutes. Then I check how it sounds and add the bass, and so on. Sometimes I realize that the snare needs a bit more reverb, so I use the Tracktion MIDI editor to extract the snaredrum notes and make a new track just with the snare. Or I extract the hi-hats and apply some humanizing (randomizing) to them, or I play with groove templates. And I add a little ghost track with hand drumming, just to make the drum track sound more alive and "human".

So you see, my concept is very simple. For me there is a very big reason for that! I have done such things for many years and found out that the final mixes sound much better if I do not play *too much* with the drums, and if I try to do all my drum tracks with just one or two drum kits.
You see, if you have one "perfect" drumkit that sounds realistic and is recorded/sampled in a natural way (not over-processed - which BFD maybe is!!), there is really not much else to do. Just put it on the drum track, record the rhythms and fills, add a few effects (on the complete set) and that's it.

Yes, I have checked out BFD and I have one friend (a keyboarder and composer) who uses it. Well now... sounds great of course. But, and yes I have a problem with it: First I do not want it to eat all my RAM of my computer! Because I absolutely hate it when the internal fan of the computer starts going faster and gets too loud to cool down the CPU! No sorry, I do not have one of those PC's with watercooling. But yes, I should have bought one of those instead! I have the newest Dell workstation and fast harddisks and good equipment, but my experience is that with large VSTi's which require *huge* amounts of harddisk space and CPU power, such as BFD, the result is always the same:

Either I have to buy an other harddisk (and just for BFD, some ppl bought new harddisks if you check the forums here)! Or the huge VSTi crashes Tracktion! Or it gives me hell and problems when trying to mixdown a complete song! Or, just as unnerving when making music, Tracktion cannot be started anymore because one of the VSTi's make it hang (usually one of the large VSTi's). I could tell you more situations and problems.
Therefore, if I can fulfil my requirement for a perfect virtual drumkit with a simple soundfont/player that is easy on my CPU and will work for hundreds of recording sessions without ever crashing my system or eating up my resources, then why not? And if it really possible to find a soundfont (or sample bank) with just one drumkit that sounds perfect, so be it.

What do I need? First, I only need one or two great drumkits. So why do I need BFD that needs a new harddisk or will probably not even work on my Laptop if I ever want to make recordings on the road? And I hate seeing these nice photographs of drums inside the BFD interface. I only need the sounds, no pictures and no CPU-hungry interface crap. I know how drums look like, i was a drum teacher! Just give me the sounds, please! And I do not want to play with all the microphone positions for days and nights. I want one perfect setup, please leave me alone with all the gimmicks that will not help me make music! Does anybody understand my problem? And I hate it when I load all the big VSTi's into Tracktion, and my CPU indicator goes up and the fan inside the PC starts going like an effing vacuum cleaner! So, therefore, I am walking the road of simplicity: I check out all the best sampled drumkits, and then, to my surprise, the best are actually those 3 soundfonts I mentioned (and not BFD and others), so I only add a simple soundfont player and a few effects, and thats *it*.

Boah, what a rant that was! Sorry, English is not my language.

-What is the best order for the fx? first eq then compression, or the other way around?

First the EQ. Then the compression. And if I have other dsp fx after the EQ, the comp always comes in *last* in my chain.

-How do the aux sends fit into all this?

Sorry! I have no idea because I really do not need this. You see: I have Tracktion. I do not have a mixer. Noooooooo! So why do I need aux sends, I used them for years in other systems. It's again a matter of "I have a SIMPLE concept because it results in better music"

-Are live midi files a worthwile investment? If yes can you recommend some?

Since one of my (real) instruments is drums, I would not need MIDI files recorded by real drummers playing. I would think that these must be great! But... I cannot recommend any. And you know what? I would never use them, even if my drumming was not as good. Because.. why the heck should I, for one of *my own* songs and compositions, want a drum recording by Steve Gadd and other drum-gods??? Hey. If this was really what I wanted, I could just as well buy all the instrument tracks, and just throw them into Tracktion.

Or I could buy one of these stupid cheap little Casio keyboards that play like a whole band and even make automatic guitar chords. Really... I want to make *my own* music, and my own drum tracks, and do everything the way I feel it (but not like Steve Gadd or any super-drummer!!). It should be MY music. This, after all, is the only reason why I am doing it. You see?

And even if I work with Tracktion and VSTi's, I want to go back in time somehow: I want my *process* of making music to be like it was when I played in a teenage band: Each member had one instrument, one he selected carefully in the store until he found the perfect one, and we just sat down and made music. --Today, I have many friends who waste all their TIME and CREATIVITY playing with the parameters and settings of their one million instruments.

Boah

Oh, and this morning I made many comparisons and tests with the E-Piano VSTi. Again I wanted to find the best one and then keep one I can really use. The result was: I threw out LoungeLizard 2 (even though I bought it but now it turned out it was a mistake and wasted money!), I threw out MrRay22, and I decided to keep the "MrRay73" E-Piano. Which is free. So I got rid of something I bought, because I found something free that is.. yes: better.
Why? Simple! Test it in mixes, in various styles from R&B to Fusion and Rockjazz, and you will find: The MrRay73 sounds the best when played in a mix. It makes the most music, if I can say so! It's true, make some comparison mixes and then ask a few musicians which sound they like best, it will be MrRay73. I am sure. And it does not even have nice little photographs or a nice little GUI, but why should it?? It simply sounds absolutely great. I have tested it in an old tune (something by the band Passport) in which there is an E-Piano solo, which will normally give you goose pimples if it's played with a real Rhodes. I tested all three. Only the recording with the MrRay73 was acceptable. The truth is: Only that one created emotions. So I keep only that one. And throw away LoungeLizard (which has nice sounds, but it will never make goose pimples when you play a solo with it).

Even with VST instruments, some of them have "attitude". And some have none, but those only a few "perfect" samples and a nice GUI, and hundreds of buttons. Now it's all about finding those virtual instruments that have an attitude and can generate emotions. Only a few can.

- This is what I meant: I really do not care, at all, what the "expensive" solutions are supposed to be or do. I do not care. Because I realize in a few cases that the cheap, simple solutions give the best results.