Scarbee vs BFD

[Emoshag]

You don’t have to hang around these forums for very long to realize just how subjective and individual our perception of sound is. I realize this is a bit of a cop-out but in the end it’s only you who knows what fits with your music.

Yes, that being said, I am not referring to how it fits with the music. I am referring to the sonic quality.

I’m not a drummer (and very much a beginner at programming drums) but to my ears DFHS has a slightly drier, up-close sound which I like.

Now we are getting somewhere. For being primarily a rock engineer, when I hear guitars recorded, if I know what kind of amp and guitar were used, I can usually tell if a SM57 or a MD421 were used and where the mic was placed, typically. I mean, recording as many times in a rock band in numerous studios as I have recorded others in mine... you just get a feel for the characteristics of an instrument/mic.

Thats probably preaching to the choir... Anyhow, when I ask how the sounds differ, I am looking to find out what equipment was used (BFD has a good page on what stuff they used) and DFHS has a little... but how they used the stuff makes a huge difference.

For instance, do the kicks in BFD lack a small band of EQ around 400Hz? Do the cymbals in DFHS seem to be too crisp in the 14-14.5Khz range? Do the drums overall sound like they didn't use rim muffles or did they flatten them out too much?

Man, I am really sorry. I think I might be acting too anal at this point... I appreciate the help.

If I am going to spend the kind of money for BFD +XFL, I could easily go to one of the studios I have been to before and work on making my own module like I have been doing. I just would only have my 1 drum kit, albeit perfect for me, limited to that 1 kit... after 2 months of full-time work to get it up and running....

These are subtle differences, though and I would definitely not go so far as to say the BFD samples are sub-par – could you elaborate on that?

Yes. The sample sets, despite having unprocessed and processed examples, are all of weak beats that don't really highlight the true capabilities of a drum module. If you listen to the Toontrack samples... they are full songs written to sound like the band the kits emulate. Especially "Licking What You Have Bled." It sounds IDENTICAL to the album version, just a bit slower and without vocals.

[Yossarian]

For instance, do the kicks in BFD lack a small band of EQ around 400Hz? Do the cymbals in DFHS seem to be too crisp in the 14-14.5Khz range? Do the drums overall sound like they didn't use rim muffles or did they flatten them out too much?

I’m afraid I’m hopelessly inadequate to answer this kind of questions – it’s way above my head. Have you tried the Toontrack forum?

The sample sets, despite having unprocessed and processed examples, are all of weak beats that don't really highlight the true capabilities of a drum module. If you listen to the Toontrack samples... they are full songs written to sound like the band the kits emulate. Especially "Licking What You Have Bled." It sounds IDENTICAL to the album version, just a bit slower and without vocals.

Ahh, I misunderstood you. By ”samples” I thought you meant the actual sample set of BFD, not audio demos.

/Yoss

[Emoshag]

Yeah, I could have used examples from the very getgo.

Basically, I appreciate the help. The Toontrack forum doesn't seem to hold a candle to the forums here (which I only discovered yesterday) and because I have not heard a response to a email asking for information from the Toontrack guys... I am afriad thats a dead end as well.

Sooooo.....

Thanks for the help. If anyone has anything else, I could use all the help I can get.

[iDavid]

Since Superior doesn't stream, how much ram does an average set take?

[Yossarian]

Since Superior doesn't stream, how much ram does an average set take?

I just did a little experiment and configured a big kit with kick, snare, hats, 5 toms, 3 rides and 3 crashes with all possible bleeding options checked. It ended up at over 4 GB!

Fortunately, the bleeding isn’t really necessary for programming. The same kit without any bleeding was just over 500 MB. You can trim this down even more by making a smaller kit and/or removing some of the multisamples.

If you want to hear your programmed sequence with bleeding before you bounce down to audio, there’s a cached mode which only loads those samples which are called on by the midi file.

/Yoss

[Aleatoric]

DFHS runs great on my 1ghz 1gig of ram powerbook g4. With the convient cache feature it is unbeatable. I simply play a kit on my drumKAT than turn cache on which than frees up any samples not triggered which is usually like 2/3 of the kit (think about all those velocity layers that sit there and you never use). Than I will start mixing and adding bleeding and ambience mic's. Than bounce. Flawless. I hear of folks funning DFHS on a g3 with 500 mhz of ram without any problems.

[bitcrusher]

Ill add my 2 cents to this thread just since I recorded all the sound content for BFD and approached FXpansion with the inital basic concept.

Nothing will ever sound more real to me than BFD when it comes to the sound content (besides BFD XFL hehe). I've done a good half-dozen albums at Eldorado Studios.. If you want to hear albums with drums recorded in the same room/mics/gear, look for these CD's:

"Big Wreck - The Pleasure and the Greed"
"Pitchshifter - Deviant"

Our BFD demos for the most part are poor in ways, the demos I made are intentionally sparse performance-wise, because I checked out some other demos for older drum products and for my tastes they were much too busy (with programmed flams, paradiddles, and other drummer-business) to really "hear the trees through the forest" (to misuse an old cliche).

I have witnessed many people that don't "get the BFD experience" until they load it up and start hitting drums and moving faders.

From my brief expereince checking out DFHS at NAMM, I must say I was relieved to hear it being so different, as it was instantly obvious to me that there was room in the market for both.

DFHS has EQ and compression committed to the samples, this is a no-no in my book, being an engineer. You don't commit EQ to a recording unless you are sure you want it, as it is hard (well impossible) to undo. Compression is a tool most suited for post-performance, not placed on each sample. It flat-out ruins the true dynamic response of the drum.

With that said, I like the DHFS sound for some things but I don't own it- I can really get a plenty similar sound with BFD by muting the room mics/PZM's in BFD and applying some hi shelf EQ to the close mics.

Aside from that issue, the other is BFD was recorded in my favorite drum room and has a a nice ambience. DHFS does not seem to have a pleasant room tone to my ears. It comes down to personal taste, but I try to avoid artifical reverb on drums (it gives you no true stereo imaging, but can be nice for extra ambience on kick and snare in mixes of course).

BFD is hands-down the better software engine and I don't think that part is even opinion. I can't take any credit for that part beyond a feature-request or two.

Sounds of anything (from synths to guitar tones to drums) is of course subjective, again I opted for mic selection and placement (versatility) over EQ etc (prefab commitments to tones).

Don't hesitate to PM me if you have any questions. Im back in the studio with 'A Perfect Circle' again so I might not be following these forums for a while.

Best,
Steve Duda

[iDavid]

FXpansion sampled Stewart Copeland's actual kit from the Police days for the XFL library. The hihat alone has something like 100 different velocities sampled, how rad is that?

btw, it may be worth noting that the drummer from Meshuggah played on the DFH library. Maybe that's why the library sounds so hard rock!

(j/k, Erik, I absolutely agree with your point about no two players sounding the same on the same kit)

which kit is that?

I bought BFD XFL, but since my PC is in the shop, I can't play it yet

[Yossarian]

DFHS has EQ and compression committed to the samples, this is a no-no in my book, being an engineer. You don't commit EQ to a recording unless you are sure you want it, as it is hard (well impossible) to undo. Compression is a tool most suited for post-performance, not placed on each sample. It flat-out ruins the true dynamic response of the drum.

Are you sure you’re not confusing DFHS with the old DFH sample library? DFH had pre-processed ”out of the box” drums but from everything I’ve read about it, DFHS is all about ”raw”, un-processed drums - pretty much like BFD (though with a slightly different ambience).

/Yoss

[electro]

I can't believe that DHFS has EQ and compression built into the samples. I guess some people want it that way, but I certainly dont. I have BFD and like it. I have listened to the Scarbee SID demoes and it sounds good.

BFD for future expansion packs should use the full velocity range (127 samples) per hit for snare and hat, and have rim shots and separate bottom and top mic samples for toms.

Even if all 127 velocity layers are not included, they should be recorded so that they can be released later on.

[iDavid]

FXpansion sampled Stewart Copeland's actual kit from the Police days for the XFL library. The hihat alone has something like 100 different velocities sampled, how rad is that?

btw, it may be worth noting that the drummer from Meshuggah played on the DFH library. Maybe that's why the library sounds so hard rock!

(j/k, Erik, I absolutely agree with your point about no two players sounding the same on the same kit)

which kit is that?

I bought BFD XFL, but since my PC is in the shop, I can't play it yet

well?

[Uncle E]

The samples labelled Paiste 602.

[Yossarian]

DFHS has EQ and compression committed to the samples, this is a no-no in my book, being an engineer. You don't commit EQ to a recording unless you are sure you want it, as it is hard (well impossible) to undo. Compression is a tool most suited for post-performance, not placed on each sample. It flat-out ruins the true dynamic response of the drum.

Are you sure you’re not confusing DFHS with the old DFH sample library? DFH had pre-processed ”out of the box” drums but from everything I’ve read about it, DFHS is all about ”raw”, un-processed drums - pretty much like BFD (though with a slightly different ambience).

/Yoss

I just checked the Toontrack website. This is from the DFHS features page:

...recorded with the best mics from Royerlabs, Neumann, AudioTechnica, BeyerDynamics, Earthworks & Sennheiser through some of the best pre amps on the market without any pre or post processing of the sounds.

/Yoss

[dreammaka]

I'm using DFHS and it doesn't have any EQ or Comp.

they are just raw samples and I like it very much.

before saying something is better than other you have to
really use both. otherwise it's just not accurate opinion.

so that's why I can't comment on BFD.
I'm sure it is a good product but after listening to a BFD and DFHS
I decided to go for DFHS.
It was very cheap(musiciansfriend.com has $200 DFHS) and
it offered more drums.

And DFH and DFHS is totally different product you can't really
compare them.

[iDavid]

The samples labelled Paiste 602.

So, that is the high-hat, which ones are the rest of the kit... Tama perhaps?