BFD 3.5 is frustrating

[Amberience]

Yeah, I'm very sorry. But I'm no longer with BFD. I tried to make it a success. Failed. Management. No-one had any idea about software. No respect for the users. I had to get out. For my own sanity more than anything. Spent 18 years with BFD from FXpansion, to ROLI, to inMusic, and it just never got any better.

Again, I'm sorry. I really tried.

Bummer about BFD and InMusic, Drew. But I hope you landed on your feet and are off to better things. I'm thankful you stuck with BFD as long as you did and tried your best to right the ship.

Thanks dude! Currently freelancing, developing plugins.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Yeah, I'm very sorry. But I'm no longer with BFD. I tried to make it a success. Failed. Management. No-one had any idea about software. No respect for the users. I had to get out. For my own sanity more than anything. Spent 18 years with BFD from FXpansion, to ROLI, to inMusic, and it just never got any better.

Again, I'm sorry. I really tried.

Bummer about BFD and InMusic, Drew. But I hope you landed on your feet and are off to better things. I'm thankful you stuck with BFD as long as you did and tried your best to right the ship.

Thanks dude! Currently freelancing, developing plugins.

It's a shame you had to leave ll that work behind

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Finally reinstalled BFD and expansions after having left it for a couple of years. So far, all is running smoothly. Find the UI colour much easier on my aging eyes, and the whole thing seems to be running very smoothly. No crashes yet.

Not bothered about the 90-day business, as I'm already used to it with Roli's software. It's so easy to just launch it on a random day, to fulfil the requirement. And the check performed upon instantiation doesn't cause me any grief, either. If I were a full time composer, working to deadlines, it might be a different story. But even then, just loading up a template on the way to the kettle, or toilet, should easily solve that issue.

Thanks, Drew, for leaving it in such a great state.

[jancivil]

I didn’t update to the last update they released because I had heard of many issues with it.

Is there a way to get the last working version before the current one? I’m not sure if keep the last few versions ir not.

A year ago this was doable. It was just a matter of running the legacy License Manager and locating it d/ling it and running the installer. LM had to be quit out of before installation. I don't have it on my system anymore. I just checked, it still lives at fxpansion.

[Clearscreen]

I haven't used it for months. I haven't updated to the latest version with all its problems, but today I tried to run BFD License manager and got an error message saying it was unable to process the request. So it thinks my license is invalid.


error.jpg

Had this error recently too. It's annoying but logging out of license manager, re-booting and logging back in fixed it...

[twolegstoneworks]

Tried using it yesterday... It needed reauthorization - again! - and then it didn't show any content, even though no folders were moved since last time i tried using it. After a lot of back and forth I managed to open the plugin with a list of kit pieces, only to find that it started an endless rescanning of the folders, which rendered the plugin useless.. after 30 minutes, my inspiration had gone, and this plugin is SO close to extermination!

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Tried using it yesterday... It needed reauthorization - again! - and then it didn't show any content, even though no folders were moved since last time i tried using it. After a lot of back and forth I managed to open the plugin with a list of kit pieces, only to find that it started an endless rescanning of the folders, which rendered the plugin useless.. after 30 minutes, my inspiration had gone, and this plugin is SO close to extermination!

Perhaps I spoke too soon, and this experience is waiting for me. Strange that we all seem to be having different experiences.

Have you considered a completely fresh re-installation?

[plexuss]

I've been using BFD from about the same time. I migrated to the latest version etc. I have ALL the FXP expansion plus many 3rd party. Everything was and is working fine on my system: old 5,1 Mac Pro with Reaper. Just a data-point.

[Examigan]

I haven't used it for months. I haven't updated to the latest version with all its problems, but today I tried to run BFD License manager and got an error message saying it was unable to process the request. So it thinks my license is invalid.


error.jpg

Had this error recently too. It's annoying but logging out of license manager, re-booting and logging back in fixed it...

That fixed it, thanks!

[Cubehog]

I updated to the latest version 3.5.

If someone is in the process in deciding what drum software one should choose I´d give the advice to stay away from BFD. Unfortunately on my pc it crashed 15-20 times when I made a song with it. I ran the installation process and what bothers me is all this software center bloat and yet another installation "manager".
Also this 90-day-check thingy. What is this? Who thought it might be a great idea to treat customers like potential thieves? I don´t see the motive here.

BFD 3.5 crashed on the simplest tasks like extending a groove from 1 to 2 bars. Dragging a groove into arranger time line. Saving the preset led to a crash of Reaper. Numerous little tasks made this flaky thing quit out of the sudden. I saved every little progress.

It´s a pity that Drew doesn´t take care of this software product anymore. Thanks to Drew for hanging in there and trying to get things on the right track.

I really liked the flexibility and the raw sounds. You could treat the drums like you´d do in a "normal band context".
I did mostly rock drums with it and bought the Steve Albini collection. These roomy and raw sounds mixed with eg Modern Drummer Snare Selection were top notch and you could coax a lively sound out of them. I liked the cymbals too.

I´m mainly fed up with InMusic´s installation and registration processes. Greedy corporate bean counters. Too bad. I´ll probably need to buy Superior Drummer instead.

Is there someone who uses/d both? Are there similar problems on the toontrack platform or is it more of a smooth ride and a productive drum programming environment?

Sorry for letting my frustration out. It lingered for a while but somehow it needed to get out.

[Clearscreen]

I'm having similar issues. It's a HUGE ram hog and when I reach the edge of my physical ram with it the DAW crashes out hard... can't run more than one instance really, and by the time I load a few sample libraries things get dicey.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Is there someone who uses/d both? Are there similar problems on the toontrack platform or is it more of a smooth ride and a productive drum programming environment?

I use both.

Superior Drummer is a much smoother experience. I still prefer BFD3 for quite a few things (Evil Drums, Andy Johns, Cymbal Swell modeling, tom resonance modeling), but Superior has some really incredible sounding packs too these days.

Ironically, I MUCH prefer using EZDrummer to Super Drummer for one big reason: the song creation features are further along in EZD3 compared to SD3. They're actually very useful for quickly building up a drum track. Much better than anything BFD3 dite . And it's been the case that EZD3 has been better at that than SD3 for years now. So this isn't the case of "oh, I'm sure the next SD3 update will improve that." Nope. They're clearly holding stuff back for SD4. Which is idiotic. They should call it Inferior Drummer because the flagship is lagging behind the "cut down" version.

And the newer EZD3 packs have a good number of hits and velocities. I really just wish Toontrack merged the two product lines or just finally added bandmate to SD3. But I digress.

Overall, the experience with EZD3 and SD3 is much better than the current state of BFD3 IMO.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I'm having similar issues. It's a HUGE ram hog and when I reach the edge of my physical ram with it the DAW crashes out hard... can't run more than one instance really, and by the time I load a few sample libraries things get dicey.

Big drum sample libraries tend to be. There are some workarounds to improve RAM usage (BFDFLAC) and various engine settings. When cymbals ring out for several seconds each and you're playing many, at a variety of velocities, with round robins/AMG, you're going to burn through RAM. I always keep that in mind when building an audio PC. For comparison, I can't say SD3 is better/worse in that regard. I don't feel the RAM hit from either.

[Mr Arkadin]

Is there someone who uses/d both? Are there similar problems on the toontrack platform or is it more of a smooth ride and a productive drum programming environment?

Ex-BFD 3 user here (starting from BFD 1). Had so many issues, plus I didnt like the 90-day bollocks so switched to SD3. Absolutely no regrets. Solid product, sounds great, no crashes, doesn't treat me like a criminal. Job done. Not putting up with any inMusic crap from now on.

With Black Friday coming up it could be good time to buy Superior Drummer.

[Smasha]

Something happened in Windows 11 Pro.
Presets are blank and the working presets have missing drums.
On my third reinstall.
Used registry to remove BFD 3.5 and deleted folders then started again.
Still the same problem.

Only the Core library works.

The expansions are broken with presets ,drums,cymbals missing.

I actually took 3 hours re positioning each drum and cymbal for each slot until all my 12 expansions were working but after loading again,the next day,everything was lost and back to missing presets and drums/cymbals.

That's when I deactivated everything,deleted registry files,deleted every bfd 3.5 folder and file and started again which took half a day.

BUT THE PROBLEMS REMAIN.

Not buying SD3 because of the no upgrade for SD2 users and it is incredibly expensive.

Been drumming since age 7 ,am 59 now.

Drumming is my passion.

BFD 3.5 now is joining SD3.

I'm sure the In Music Center app plays with the files.

It resets everything after you fix it.

Shoddy crap.

just downloading the expansions takes FOREVER.

Another modern scam in a never ending sea of modern software scams.