FXpansion BFD Premium Acoustic Drum Module - Manual (Page 9)

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also a compre hensive fi ll library. What makes BFD so powerful is that these ‘Grooves’
are standard MIDI fi les, so it is incredibly easy to create and import your own, or use
commercial MIDI-fi le libraries, such as the Twiddly Bits and GrooveMonkee products.
BFD conforms to the General MIDI (GM) standard as much as possible (BFD includes
some articulations which do not exist in the GM specifi cation), making it very easy to
import standard MIDI drum parts as Grooves.
Endless variety of sound and feel
BFD offers a huge array of controls with which to shape the sound and response of
the drumkit. Virtual damping controls are provided, as are a variety of different levels of
choking and velocity variation in order to further enhance the realism of your drum tracks.
Artifi cial-sounding rolls are banished forever with the Anti-machinegun mode! There are
even some rather experimental controls, for modulating the damping amount and tuning
with velocity.
Within the Groove Librarian, BFD’s intelligent humanization techniques inject that elusive
‘soul’ into your drum parts. The provided MIDI Grooves are dripping with a variety of
feels, and the inte grated swing controls make it easy to tighten or relax the vibe as much
as required. On top of this, the feel of the Groove can be further humanized through the
controlled randomization of velocity and timing.
1:2 Potential uses for BFD
BFD has the ability to be many things to many people. Perhaps the primary reason for
BFD’s existence is that it provides con venient access to the very highest quality sampled
drum sounds for producers without access to a real drumkit and good recording facilities.
It also caters for com posers who require ‘ready-rolled’ but fl exible and realistic acoustic
drum accompaniments which facilitate song-writing without interruption to the creative
fl ow.
BFD’s sounds and Grooves are perfectly suited to rock, jazz, funk, hip-hop, blues,
metal, drum & bass… in fact, anything that may require a real drumkit. It can be used for
anything from auto-accompaniment, traditional song-writing and production, to modern
techniques such as creating new drum breaks to use in hip-hop and drum & bass music.
1:3 Documentation
We have designed BFD to be as intuitive as possible, to the point where it is possi ble to
fi re it up and be up and running within seconds for instant gratifi cation. How ever, we urge
you to thoroughly read this manual, in order to learn how to make full use of BFD’s sheer
depth.
Please also be aware of the supplemental electronic PDF documentation installed with
BFD, which contains further information on a number of issues such as host/sequencer
integration and technical issues regarding performance and troubleshooting.
Please also check our website at http://www.fxpansion.com for tutorial videos, additional
documentation and up-to-date FAQs.
Chapter 1: Introduction