FXpansion BFD2 Manual - Manual (Page 118)

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7:5 Loading, saving and exporting the Drum Track
Saving and loading Drum Track contents
You cannot load and save only the contents of the Drum Track, since they are dependent on Grooves in the Palette. Therefore,
the Drum track can only be saved and loaded along with the Palette.
Exporting the Drum track as MIDI
You can export the entire Drum Track as a MIDI file by using the Export Drum Track MIDI...
function on the BFD2 Control bar Save menu.
This results in a system file save dialog being displayed, prompting you to for a filename
for the saved MIDI file. If you need to, navigate to a different location before typing a
filename, and then hit ENTER or click Save.
The current MIDI mapping is used for the export. If an articulation is mapped to more than
one key, the lowest key to which it is mapped is used for its MIDI events in the exported
file.
Using the MIDI export mode setting in the Groove preferences, you can choose to export
a MIDI file containing one track for all kit-pieces, one track per kit-piece or one track per
articulation.
Exporting the Drum track as audio
The Export Audio function performs an audio export of the Drum Track, from the begin-
ning to the end of the last part on the track.
Optionally, a tail at the end can be added in order to capture any lingering decays at the end. The size of the export tail is defined
in the BFD2 Grooves preferences.
Export settings
The settings in the Export panel in the Mixer page are used for the export path, file prefix, and file format, while the record-enable
buttons on each mixer channel are used to determine what channels are exported – a separate audio file is generated for each
mixer channel enabled for recording.
If you attempt to initiate an export before a valid export path has been set, an error message appears to inform you of this fact,
and the operation is cancelled. Set a record path in the Export panel in order to successfully perform the audio export.
If no channels are currently armed in the mixer, BFD2 prompts if you want to arm all channels and continue. If you only want to
arm certain channels for export, you must cancel the operation and arm the relevant channels in the Mixer page before attempt-
ing the export again.
7:6 Combining playback methods
Groove playback and MIDI triggering of articulations
If you enable the Polyphonic mode setting in the BFD2 Session preferences, BFD2 is able to play more than one Groove simulta-
neously.
This means that you can overlay additional Grooves via MIDI while BFD2 is already playing back Grooves in Auto-Play mode,
creating layered drum patterns on the fly.
Hints for polyphonic Groove playback
When layering Grooves together polyphonically, it is very easy for them to become extremely busy. It can also cause a lot more
disk streaming and resource load for your machine to deal with. You may also encounter somewhat unnatural kit-piece choking
behaviour – a prime example is when combining hihat parts from different Grooves.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to use the mute and solo controls in the Editor to isolate kit-pieces in Grooves you want to overlay onto
those already playing.
It can also be a good idea to mute out certain parts from Grooves playing via Auto-Play. For example, use the Editor mute and
solo controls to isolate Grooves that don’t contain any snare, crash and tom events, and play these in the Drum Track.
Play another set of Grooves via MIDI that contain snare, crash and tom events. Therefore, over a set ‘bed’ of kick and hihat pat-
terns, you can create new hybrid Grooves in real time – you’ll need a host if you want to record this kind of Groove performance
jamming.