FXpansion BFD Premium Acoustic Drum Module - Manual (Page 8)

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These signals can be mixed together as desired, so you can ‘dial in’ exactly the amount
and type of natural ambience you need, without having to use CPU-heavy reverb plugins.
The ambience in BFD is totally natural and the result of painstak ing recording through
the best possible equipment in a high-quality space. Any reverb processor can only try to
emulate such a sound, while BFD gives you the real thing. There is additional control over
the distance placement of each set of mics, and the width of its stereo fi eld.
The ambient send levels of each kit element (such as kick, snare, toms, hats and
cymbals) can be adjusted in the detailed Mixer section, resulting in exceptionally versatile
control over the fi nal drum sound. The Mixer even has controls to handle the blend
between mics inside and outside the kick drum, and above and below the snare. In
addition, each individual microphone bus, and even each indi vidual direct mic signal, can
easily be routed to an individual output into the host sequencer’s mixer for further sound
processing.
Each part of the kits in BFD is recorded with up to 11 microphones, including the ambient
and bleed channels. Please see section 10:1 of this manual for more details on BFD’s
audio architecture.
Hyper-realistic kits
As well as the fl exibility offered by the multiple microphone positions, BFD’s high quality
drum sample library features an unparalleled degree of realism. For each part of each kit,
there are a number of different articulations, or ‘Hit types’: for example, the snares offer
fl ams, drags, rims and side-sticks, while the hihats include closed, 1/2-open and open
pedal positions, in tip and shank versions.
Each of these Hit types is sampled at up to 46 velocity layers, resulting in drum parts of
unparalleled detail and expressive ness.
The BFD XFL and 8 Bit Kit expansion packs, as well as some free downloads, expand on
the number of Hit types and velocity layers available
Easy compilation of new kits
Ever tried to edit and combine elements of large disk-streamed sample libraries? You’ll
know that it isn’t exactly the most productive use of creative time in the stu dio. To save
you this tedious, time-consuming process, BFD allows you to easily mix and match the
kicks, snares, toms, hats and cymbals of the various supplied kits to create custom kits.
All this within seconds, and with just a few mouse-clicks! You can preview any potential kit
changes in real-time and in context, leaving you free to concentrate on the sound rather
than losing your creative fl ow through excessive fi le and sample management operations.
Custom kit creations can be easily saved into a small preset fi le, so it’s easy to cre ate a
library of drumkits tailored to your requirements, and the small size of these fi les makes it
simple to share your kits with others.
Flexible play modes: introducing the Groove Librarian
In addition to functioning as a single-hit module which can be triggered via a MIDI
controller or a host sequencer’s MIDI engine, BFD also incorporates an extensive
library of ‘Grooves’, in a number of different styles, feels and time signatures. There is
Chapter 1: Introduction