is Superior Drummer better than BFD3?

[jancivil]

I have no experience with anything BFD1, 1.5, 2 or 3 where there was much if any room with the ambient or room mics at -∞. I really tended towards totally dry drums for anything like standard rock drum kits use.

[realmarco]

dunno abou superiro drummer but i really hat6e the new BFD3 Gui

its too complicated for my taste
I prefer the BFD 1 Gui

[funky lime]

I'm with jancivil here in that the cymbal swell modeling is pretty much what keeps me on BFD3. It might not seem like a big deal, but as a drummer, it means a lot to me that I can go crazy on the ride cymbal, for instance, without it sounding fake. When I hear a track, the cymbals are usually the first giveaway that the drums are sampled (and the snare, but that's another story). BFD3 alleviates this to an extent with the swell modeling feature.

I don't really know about the other aspects like grooves and whatnot, because I just use it to load up a kit and play. A fiddly interface is fine with me, because I hardly ever use it now that I've built a proper routing template and a few custom kits that I like.

[jancivil]

they've split the mixer between 'mixer' and 'effect' which I don't see any point in having done.
I've started using their EQs and comps sometimes so it's a bit PITA for me. I should get on them about this. My workflow has been save a channel set in VE Pro and EQ and Comp etc are by their mixer. I may revert to that, it's not like their FX are really amazing.

[plexuss]

I tried out all/many of the acoustic drum "simulators" and settled on BFD3. Here's a track that uses BFD3 for all the drums and percussion. Two things set BFD apart for me: the quality of drum samples, across many different articulations and however the articulations are selected (its very realistic), and the grooves.

https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/spirit

[moonchunk]

I'm with jancivil here in that the cymbal swell modeling is pretty much what keeps me on BFD3. It might not seem like a big deal, but as a drummer, it means a lot to me that I can go crazy on the ride cymbal, for instance, without it sounding fake. When I hear a track, the cymbals are usually the first giveaway that the drums are sampled (and the snare, but that's another story). BFD3 alleviates this to an extent with the swell modeling feature.

I don't really know about the other aspects like grooves and whatnot, because I just use it to load up a kit and play. A fiddly interface is fine with me, because I hardly ever use it now that I've built a proper routing template and a few custom kits that I like.

I recently picked up Superior Drummer 3, but haven't finished downloading it. I have owned BFD2/BFD3 for years. The reason I picked up SD3 is because the ride cymbals that came with BFD2/3, and that I purchased, are not generic enough, they are eccentric. I purchased 3 libraries, (Peart, London Sessions, Percussion) and none of them had a working generic ride cymbal with a decent bell and a decent reasonably tame ride. For some genres what they have works, but not for many others. And the Peart ride cymbal, which is better suited as a generic ride, is broken - a complicated thing to explain but dealing with the fact that Sonic Reality did not sample the room/ambient mics the same way that BFD3 did - its not flexible the way the included Fxpansion sounds are. So although I do love the cymbal swell control, the tom resonance, and the hi-hat foot splash that others here have commented on, without an all-around-solution BFD3 makes me just jump around recording single kit pieces and dragging single articulation MIDI clips. I recently got rayzoon Jamstix to help with the discovery of rhythm ideas - and wanted a way to plug that into a decent high end sounding drum sample library. I saw some reviews of SD3 and although it is missing some of what makes BFD3 great, it has other features that are good. And the feature of song creation from a single beat was interesting.

But the reason I came to this forum was to see if anyone commented on the Groove FX feature in BFD3 and whether there is anything like it in Superior Drummer 3. I search swing and nothing comes up in the SD3 manual. So I'm guessing that's another area (more suited to non-drummers) where BFD3 shines. Thanks for your posts.

[Mr Arkadin]

I'm not even sure what a generic cymbal is, but I would have thought that there must be something usable in one of the three cymbal expansions they offer.

If you can't find something in two Zildjan packs and a Sabian pack then I'm wondering if it's you that's eccentric, not the cymbals

[moonchunk]

I'm not even sure what a generic cymbal is, but I would have thought that there must be something usable in one of the three cymbal expansions they offer.

If you can't find something in two Zildjan packs and a Sabian pack then I'm wondering if it's you that's eccentric, not the cymbals

Yes, indeed, I due have some pretty particular goals, since I'm not a producer, but an artist, and that is why I enjoyed BFD2 and BFD3, it gave a lot of flexibility. But those packs you mention are expensive and there's no money back guarantee policy. I got the percussion pack first, which I was pretty happy with, and then it seemed to me that a good buy was the London Sessions, for additional hi hats and cymbals. Its rather difficult to know how an mp3 version on a track by Fxpansion will play out in your mix, until you buy it. Between those, as I said, the Peart pack was also supposed to fill that need of hats and cymbals as well, but their ambient channel method makes it not "truly" flexible, as you would think.

So generic mainly probably means in a finely tuned recording room, with several articulations that are equally middle of the road. Along with an out-of-the box spectrum with some warm sheen but nothing too brittle as far as an EQ curve I suppose, not overly emphasizing the harshness (as some less ideal recording spaces are known to do). I noticed a certain ride that I liked had a ride bell that was too distinct and awkward. Another ride had a great bell, but was itself too noticeable. One was very old school, and the bell too harsh, and so on. The Peart bell was great, but did not allow adjusting the ambient and room. So call me picky! But for realism BFD3 is quite good. Maybe, we'll see, if in many ways it sounds more human than Superior Drummer 3 if all the settings are honed in (but its tough to keep track of this, the whole anti-machine gun thing. I hope Superior Drummer 3 does reasonably well. I recently read a post on a youtube video about Superior Drummer 3, and the poster was 100% right, round robins and anti-machine gun stuff and so on; we have not seen near-perfection in this field yet - its a very processor-intensive job.)

That was, at the time, an investment of close to $900 if you count adding in some MIDI packs (BFD2 was $440 or something all by itself - plus a BFD3 upgrade, and about $300 in extra drums.) The reason I opted not to delve into buying a the Zildjian or Sabian pack is ultimately probably why I got Superior Drummer 3. Much of a desired drum sound is it seems achieved by mic placement and mix settings, and other techniques. Even though I'm sure I will turn to BFD3 for some hi hat sounds (I love certain closed foot sounds, for example) and will augment a lot of things back and forth, the ultimate test for me was to check out Jamstix 4, and realize that it has come of age as an idea generator. I tried running BFD3 with the input of Jamstix 4, and its sort of workable, but demands a great deal of fine tuning. And none of the ride cymbals I own from their collections are as production ready as they would need to be to audition ideas - it would detract from the process - albeit those 4 rides (plus one crash ride) have their uses. But my taste is to turn hats and rides up in a mix. (I'm a guitarist, and prone to ambient music that is not snare and bass heavy - so its partly, I suppose, a time-counting thing the hats and rides provide, but I've gotten used to the idea of traditional Funk as a core of my playing. ) So I realized that hooking up Superior Drummer 3 to Jamstix 4 just makes more sense because it has a particular production value already and can be used to audition more of a variety of styles. When I need those BFD2/3 pieces they are there.

[moonchunk]

I'm with jancivil here in that the cymbal swell modeling is pretty much what keeps me on BFD3. It might not seem like a big deal, but as a drummer, it means a lot to me that I can go crazy on the ride cymbal, for instance, without it sounding fake. When I hear a track, the cymbals are usually the first giveaway that the drums are sampled (and the snare, but that's another story). BFD3 alleviates this to an extent with the swell modeling feature.

I don't really know about the other aspects like grooves and whatnot, because I just use it to load up a kit and play. A fiddly interface is fine with me, because I hardly ever use it now that I've built a proper routing template and a few custom kits that I like.

I recently picked up Superior Drummer 3, but haven't finished downloading it. I have owned BFD2/BFD3 for years. The reason I picked up SD3 is because the ride cymbals that came with BFD2/3, and that I purchased, are not generic enough, they are eccentric. I purchased 3 libraries, (Peart, London Sessions, Percussion) and none of them had a working generic ride cymbal with a decent bell and a decent reasonably tame ride. For some genres what they have works, but not for many others. And the Peart ride cymbal, which is better suited as a generic ride, is broken - a complicated thing to explain but dealing with the fact that Sonic Reality did not sample the room/ambient mics the same way that BFD3 did - its not flexible the way the included Fxpansion sounds are. So although I do love the cymbal swell control, the tom resonance, and the hi-hat foot splash that others here have commented on, without an all-around-solution BFD3 makes me just jump around recording single kit pieces and dragging single articulation MIDI clips. I recently got rayzoon Jamstix to help with the discovery of rhythm ideas - and wanted a way to plug that into a decent high end sounding drum sample library. I saw some reviews of SD3 and although it is missing some of what makes BFD3 great, it has other features that are good. And the feature of song creation from a single beat was interesting.

But the reason I came to this forum was to see if anyone commented on the Groove FX feature in BFD3 and whether there is anything like it in Superior Drummer 3. I search swing and nothing comes up in the SD3 manual. So I'm guessing that's another area (more suited to non-drummers) where BFD3 shines. Thanks for your posts.

[NOTE: the function in Superior Drummer 3 is very similar. The apply feature may or may not work exactly the same (In BFD3 you make a selection, and audition the change during playback without committing. It looks like in Superior Drummer 3 you may be able to do this, but the manual doesn't say. In fact it really implies that no such non-destructive audio preview feature exists which is a shame.)

[Mr Arkadin]

Yes, indeed, I due have some pretty particular goals, since I'm not a producer, but an artist, and that is why I enjoyed BFD2 and BFD3, it gave a lot of flexibility. But those packs you mention are expensive and there's no money back guarantee policy. I got the percussion pack first, which I was pretty happy with, and then it seemed to me that a good buy was the London Sessions, for additional hi hats and cymbals. Its rather difficult to know how an mp3 version on a track by Fxpansion will play out in your mix, until you buy it. Between those, as I said, the Peart pack was also supposed to fill that need of hats and cymbals as well, but their ambient channel method makes it not "truly" flexible, as you would think.

So generic mainly probably means in a finely tuned recording room, with several articulations that are equally middle of the road. Along with an out-of-the box spectrum with some warm sheen but nothing too brittle as far as an EQ curve I suppose, not overly emphasizing the harshness (as some less ideal recording spaces are known to do). I noticed a certain ride that I liked had a ride bell that was too distinct and awkward. Another ride had a great bell, but was itself too noticeable. One was very old school, and the bell too harsh, and so on. The Peart bell was great, but did not allow adjusting the ambient and room. So call me picky! But for realism BFD3 is quite good.

I hope you realise I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Everyone has different needs, I just found it odd that drummers (which I'm not one) are using BFD3 and I think they'd be the first to complain about cymbals.

I always buy expansions when they are half-price, you need to be a bit patient there and not need them for an urgent production of course.

I'm slightly worried that you bought London Sessions as this is the BFD2 factory library as far as I'm aware, so I don't think you have actually added any sounds if you already have BFD2 which I think you said you had.

Sonic Reality: well I guess fxpansion can't tell third-party vendors how to record their kits. I have the Peart and a few other SR kits but haven't really explored them and don't know how well they mix and match. I tend to think of them as a self-contained sound though.

I've been looking at Jamstix 4 recently oddly enough as I'm not a drummer, so would be interested in your thoughts on using it with BFD3.

[jancivil]

It appears to be true that the 'London Sessions' exists to get BFD2 factory things in BFD3 which is an entirely different factory set.

I don't know from the Peart expansion but it is strange to see you can't deal with ambient or room mics. I know from Sabian Digital Vault, which was made during the BFD2 era and so has less ambient than the BFD3 factory, but that's BFD3 architecture so no library before 3 is going to have the extra mics.

the 'too noticeable in itself' bell is down to you setting it up and mixing, frankly. There are many, many things which by itself and not dealt with at all that one could say this about, in practically everything.

And I KNOW in BFD2 there are very 'normal' rides.

[DrMEM]

Superior Drummer 2 has mhe (multiple hits emulation), which can be dialed in to taste individually for every kit piece. For me it sounds fine when riding cymbals.

E: I don't have SD3 and don't see it as being worth $200 to upgrade to.

[SJ_Digriz]

Sonic Reality kits have odd "recording" choices that don't necessarily translate to the architectures of the VSTi. The cymbal issue for the Peart kit is one example. It has nothing to do with what was/wasn't available in BFD. It was a recording choice by Sonic Reality.

[Thorinn01]

These Apps are both Fantastic. However here are the glaring differences. With SD3 the app pre-processeses your sounds and only really allows for stereo tracks as files . You can overcome this but it’s a real pain in the ass.,BFD, on the other hand has much better and easier control when needing to create individual tracks in Multi mode on any DAW. and allows for instant Mono. You can choose stereo if you wish or simple split each track .

BFD is geared and designed around how a real engineer would work and SD3 is for people who have really only worked in the box. Both have their place. For ground up drum tracking and recording BFD3 is my choice . Consequently for heavy big drums , gated and very compressed drum parts for a lot of Metal work I do, SD3 is my “ Go To” immediately.

I can play just about any of the midi pack grooves I’ve heard and I prefer to play my own grooves because that’s what I get paid to do and made my career as a drummer so I can’t speak on the MIDI and premade grooves that both company’s sell and provide. I’ve certainly heard a lot of each company’s bundles and packs but I never use them so I cannot comment on that, but that’s not what this thread is asking. It’s asking about the Applications as a whole and most buy this for its ease of use. I still record using real mics and through a Neve Console and sometimes when budget allows we track drums directly to a real analogue Studer A800 24 Track Tape Machine onto 2” Tape because you cannot beat the sound of real transformers being pushed and the analogue bandwidth out performs digital on its worst day but
NOTHING beats the ease of use when recording to a Mac. I won’t even grace the word PC though I had seen and heard some stellar PC rigs. Due to their ever present continual problems being at not being able to be consistent I wouldn’t touch one personally

These two Applications are simply Stellar. It really levels the playing field for any artist that hasn’t had the opportunity to grow and years it takes to learn in a real analogue studio environment.Tecadded benifit of these programs is that the user witoutvreal studio experience learns how the routing in a studio is done for drums by virtue of using this app so if they ever set foot in a large forst studio try will instantly understand and be able to follow a real live drum tracking session. This would’ve been an incredible training tool for Aspiring engineers in the 70-80, even 90’s . That a great side benefit to both programs

I prefer BFD3’s mixer set up over SD3’s mixer and multi routing to Pro Tools and Logic. I don’t use any other DAW’s . Why would you, suffice it to say al DAW basically are pretty much exactly the same except for Logic which has the most superior MIDI and Environmental components design capabilities that only one other DAW comes close. I’ve been using Logic since the original German geniuses built ad designed it, preApple. Plus it’s free plugins rival anything on the market even UAD, which I also use.

To recap

BFD3 Better routing when recording in the box emulating Analogue techniques and building your drums from the ground up and using DAW plugins for compression, gates verbs etc Mixer routing in Multimode- has more control and options

SD3 -Better at sounds popular on the market mainly in all the Metal scenes . Spectacular processing and sounds Rounting is easy for Multi but your stuck in their eco system. Both are similar enough but still quite different at unexpected places.


I often create my groove playing through my Roland TD50 and pads, create my MIDi in Logic when working alone( Working with other Studio I use Pro Tools X)
Do my MIDI track editing while still in BFD and if it calls for, say, the Gothic Metal stuff Im finishing for and album now , I transfer the MIDI track from BFD3 to SD3 and pull up their stellar kits and the mix down from there, fast m, easy -no mess

If you can afford it, get both. If not then it will depend on the different option for tracking and what genre or milieu you’re working or composing in

Good luck and have fun

Both have onboard gear effects that can be added or removed. SD3’s seem to have more punch and kick

[EvilDragon]

Rounting is easy for Multi but your stuck in their eco system.

How do you mean? You can route the whole mixer out to DAW and just use whatever other plugins you have, you're in no way stuck in their ecosystem.