FXpansion BFD Premium Acoustic Drum Module - Manual (Page 7)

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INTRODUCTION
BFD is a high-quality acoustic drum module. It concentrates on playing back impeccably-
recorded multi-velocity acoustic drumkits, with some crucial differences to using a
general-purpose sampler with sample-CDs, or using pre-recorded acoustic drum loops.
1:1 The BFD concept
• Flexible mixing of multiple microphone placements: 17 mics were used in total,
with each part of the kit being recorded through 11 microphones
• Hyper-detailed kits: up to 46 velocity layers and a wide selection of articulations
• Easy compilation of new kits without wrestling with time-consuming editing and
combining of sampler programs, or having to load multi ple whole kits
• A versatile automated drummer in the Groove Librarian
• Endlessly variable sound and feel
All this and more is provided in an intuitive, highly integrated interface, plugged into the
heart of your favourite sequencing environment, via the VSTi, DXi, RTAS, AudioUnit
and ReWire interfaces. A standalone version is also supplied, which uses the ASIO and
CoreAudio protocols.
BFD supports Windows and MacOSX operating systems. While BFD may work in
Windows 98SE and ME environ ments, we only recommend and support its use in
Windows 2000 and XP. For Mac users, MacOSX version 10.2.8 or higher is required.
When designing BFD, we tried to make it easy to use for people who prefer to write music
rather than mess with the inner workings of a plugin. However, it still offers a massive
amount of control and fl exibility for people who want to deeply customize the sound and
response of the drumkit.
Multiple microphone positions
Each drum component, or Kit-Piece, in BFD is sampled with a number of microphone
place ments simultaneously:
Direct: a clean, close-mic’d signal. A variety of microphone types were used for this,
including Sennheiser MD421, Neumann KM81 and M49, ElectroVoice Re20, AKG 451
and Shure SM57. They were recorded through custom modifi ed API preamps.
Overhead: a lush set of overhead mics - namely AKG C-12’s (which, incidentally, cost
around $15,000 each), recorded through Summit MPC-100A tube preamps.
Room: a room ambience signal, recorded with Neumann U87’s and Avalon preamps.
PZM: Crown PZM microphones placed at fl oor level, tracked with API preamps, and an
additional compression stage (Empirical Labs Distressor set at 3:1 ratio) for added body
and sustain.