is Superior Drummer better than BFD3?

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jancivil wrote:
Nothing is better than BFD3. :)
That be my feeling, I like to actually own each product and give them a fair shake with extended use, as apposed to just trying time limited demos. I own SD2 and all available expansions, BFD3 and all available expansions (Plus many other drum vsti's), for me there is no comparison between BFD3 and SD2, it's BFD3 hands down without question.
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The digital vault cymbals are my favorite drum sampler libraries.
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Well of course it is, says so on the tin, innit?

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Aleatoriac wrote:Well of course it is, says so on the tin, innit?
hmmm ... always thought it was BIG, but I guess BEST works too.
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Have both... I use SD a lot more.
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jancivil wrote:Nothing is better than BFD3. :)

Does SD have modeled cymbal swell and splash with total control?
That is a killer feature eh?


For sure SD 2 does not have it (used to own it before got BFD) and from what I have heard neither will SD 3.

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Yeah, they really achieved what they set out to do. This is one of those 'on paper' or 'in theory' things one might be skeptical about how much difference will it make, it's pretty major.
I'm not certain about where this first appeared in the BFD line, but this articulation of stomping on the hihat pedal to get a splash is new to me, and I just love it.

I've been automating the degree of room and/or ambience rather than a reverb send outside of it lately, I really like the room sound of it and there's a sort of synergy here. I do that usually with cymbals.
This is more than a mixer of drums in 'reality' would maybe think to do but it really suits me.

Also note the [modeled] resonance of toms vis a vis the kick drum here.

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EvilDragon wrote:
SJ_Digriz wrote:Too many awesome choices sometimes.
You can say that again.
+1

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jancivil wrote:Yeah, they really achieved what they set out to do. This is one of those 'on paper' or 'in theory' things one might be skeptical about how much difference will it make, it's pretty major.
I'm not certain about where this first appeared in the BFD line, but this articulation of stomping on the hihat pedal to get a splash is new to me, and I just love it...

Also note the [modeled] resonance of toms vis a vis the kick drum here.
Agreed. The cymbal swelling is great and brings a nice life/realism whenever you're riding on a cymbal. The tom resonance is nice too. I actually think the hihat splashing has been around since version 1, if not, definitely BFD2. I've never used SD2 or 3, but it's a shame that they don't have something comparable. I was watching an SD3 sample video and the cymbals sounded very static on repeat hits due to the lack of any kind of swell modeling. I heard the effect of it before I even knew that they didn't have it.

All that said, some folks are going to prefer the sound of the default SD3 library over the BFD3 library and vice versa. I think BFD3 has the better underlying engine, but the sound of the libraries is another factor entirely.

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jancivil wrote:Yeah, they really achieved what they set out to do. This is one of those 'on paper' or 'in theory' things one might be skeptical about how much difference will it make, it's pretty major.
Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:I was watching an SD3 sample video and the cymbals sounded very static on repeat hits due to the lack of any kind of swell modeling. I heard the effect of it before I even knew that they didn't have it.
The thing I had to do before swell modeling was use a cymbal that has a lot of velocity layers and use a lot of variety here to get a viable roll. anti-machine gun only goes so far when there's too few layers.

If I wanted that classic mallets swell, I would always go to VSL with a single key in a patch, and a fair amount of time-stretch. I'm really glad to be able to have control of it.

Someone asserted that SD has it now, but I checked the demo and it's crossfading layers in fact.
Last edited by jancivil on Sat Jan 12, 2019 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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V interesting hearing everyone's views.

Makes me feel more comfortable with BFD3, so thanks :)
Member 12, Studio One Pro 7, VPS Avenger, Kontakt 8, Spitfire, Sonible, Baby Audio, CableGuys. Recent best buy - EZ Drummer 3 with Bandmate

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Toontrack site is down atm for me.
Can anyone log in?

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Any of these (SD3/BFD3) have really dry, dampened 70s kits ala Steely Dan-ish? Or are both of these mainly geared towards metal?

From what I remember of BFD2, most of the drum kits were too "roomy" even with the room mics off.

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seamoss wrote:Any of these (SD3/BFD3) have really dry, dampened 70s kits ala Steely Dan-ish? Or are both of these mainly geared towards metal?

From what I remember of BFD2, most of the drum kits were too "roomy" even with the room mics off.
My initial reason for going with BFD is that it had "drier" kits to start from and I don't do metal at all and SD seemed to be centered around that. However, over the years both have released kits across a huge array of styles and processing. I don't know that either is really stuck with either "metal kits" or overly wet defaults.
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Smasha wrote:Toontrack site is down atm for me.
Can anyone log in?

504 Gateway Time-out
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