I' am really lovin BFD Eco!!

I have Steven Slate Drums wich are great out of the box (you can literally drop a kit in to a song and forget about drums) but I saw the Eco deal and I bought it.

I' am getting verygood sounds with Eco + eq and compression and I think that SSD gave me a very good picture of what drums should sound. 

Lately I've been more inclined to natural drum sounds with just a touch of compression and I get that with Eco.

On the other hand, I'd really like to have BFD2 but a lot of the drum pieces in it are useless for me. I hope that with BFD3 they implement a "modular" aproach in wich you buy the drum engine with a couple of kits of your choice and later you go to the drum shop as needed.

Drums are not the weak point on a home recording anymore, not for me at least!!
  

Guitarpima


Patiently awaiting my  order in the mail. I had AD but I keep getting this aux host issue with AD and for $29, I'll give it a try. Gas seems to give you more gas though so maybe BFD2 would be in the future. lol!

Where did you buy it.. most places it's a download... you get a serial number and download from the FXpansion website.


Rail

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www.platinumsamples.com

 Sorry guys if there was a faster way to get this.At least I'll have a hard copy. I think this was on the Audio/MIDI site. FWIW I have dealt with American musical supply and they always came through for me.

Yep updates are the programme and other things. You want two downloads. The latest application installer RELEASE (Application installer) V. 1.0.1.27 and you also want the audio content installer lower down. Product audio content RELEASE (Data installer) Release Date: 25.03.2010

Just a thought, I'm guessing the same applies to BFD Eco, and that is that with BFD 2 all of the program is contained in each update so you can just install the latest update and nothing else. It might however be advisable to check through the update list to see if there are any data updates that might need to be installed too.
 
Steve

Got it, installed it and played around with it. So far I'm not that impressed. I'll have to check it out with some mixes and see how it goes.

I think the AD sounds less processed than BFDeco. Although, I don't use AD's effects. I don't like them.

The main thing I hate about it is it's UI. The menus are WAY to small. That along makes me not like it. Is BFD2 the same dinky menu? There are things I like about the UI over AD though. Again, the UI is too small.

I do like that I can put the drums where I want them and have 5 toms and an extra cymbal.

There are no general midi presets so if I want to use this software, I'll have to create my own set and map it the way I want. This was a problem with AD until they added general midi mapping. Before you say anything, the general midi mapping included is not correct. I'll have to take the time to make a presets with the correct GM mapping.

It does not seem to like 96khz. I've not tried in the host at that sample rate but stand alone is unusable. Unless they put coins on the heads for the 96khz sample rate sounds. Obviously they did not but that's what it sounds like.

Eventually I'll get it to sound the way I want and have faith that it will. With the "way to small" print in the UI, it will take a while.

Guitarpima

I think the AD sounds less processed than BFDeco. Although, I don't use AD's effects. I don't like them.

 
AD's fx are very poor especialy along side eco's. You only get 3 effects as opposed to Eco's 15. I actualy went out and bought
overlouds breverb (not cheap) on account of it being so good
I just don't understand how you could possibly say Eco sounds are more proccessed? They just plain aren't.

The main thing I hate about it is it's UI. The menus are WAY to small. That along makes me not like it. Is BFD2 the same dinky menu? There are things I like about the UI over AD though. Again, the UI is too small.

 
 
Having compared the two side by side I'm stumped. Eco's interface is actually a little bigger as well as being cleaner and brighter. The menues are virtualy the same size

I do like that I can put the drums where I want them and have 5 toms and an extra cymbal.

There are no general midi presets so if I want to use this software, I'll have to create my own set and map it the way I want. This was a problem with AD until they added general midi mapping. Before you say anything, the general midi mapping included is not correct. I'll have to take the time to make a presets with the correct GM mapping.

 
When you say, "general midi presets" do you mean drum maps?
There is one on the fxpansion site that you can use. It's a BFD 2 drum map that works with eco, you just have to set the outputs to Eco and you're off. The preset/drum map can be found here (http://www.fxpansion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7574901)

It does not seem to like 96khz. I've not tried in the host at that sample rate but stand alone is unusable. Unless they put coins on the heads for the 96khz sample rate sounds. Obviously they did not but that's what it sounds like.

 
I'm quite happy at 44.1 as I think there's little difference in quality but just tried it at 96khz and works fine on my emu - 0404.

Eventually I'll get it to sound the way I want and have faith that it will. With the "way to small" print in the UI, it will take a while.

 
I hope you do as I think if you give it time you'll appreciate the difference. As for dinky interface I guess the font in both eco and BFD 2 is fractionaly smaller than AD but on my screen at least it's neglegible and yes, BFD 2 is the same but more complex. When you have a program that is so rich in features there's always going to be a trade off with space. I really struggled with BFD 2 at first as it's so complex but then mixing drums is I guess. I was used to flipping through presets trying to find something that fitted my mix rather than starting from scratch but I there are some great tutorials (but never enough) to guide you along the way.
 
 
 
Steve

What's SV? I do all my drum scoring in sonars prv, not so keen on Eco's drum edit page and why learn to do something in eco that I can do perfectly well in sonar. I guess BFD eco is a bit bright, I think that's to signify it's rank, as in Eco light.
I think too it's a widely held view that if something is brightly (or lightly)coloured, it means it's not as pro, like it's for kids or something which is often the case. I hate the way sonar has abondoned it's use of colour, it looks like dracular has been in on the design and sucked the life out of it.
I see colour much quicker than I do print.
You'll be pleased to hear that BFD 2 is at least considerably darker but the font is the same and as I said already, it has much more control which means they had to cram more into the same space.
I love the BFD 2 ui and find it's layout very intuitive, it's a complex beast though.
If you need any help with Eco feel free to ask, don't know if you've signed up to the fxpansion forum yet but it's a very good forum and there are 3 or 4 people from fxpansion (mostly Rob_fx and Drew_fx) who are there every day.

Steve

Dyslexia has no accent surely?

I know what you mean but I'm not from Bristol and though I was born and grew up in somerset I lived in London for more than half my life.
A few pints of cider though and I can do a damn good Bristolian accent :)

Steve

SV - Staff view.

I tried getting used to the PRV but it took an hour to do what I could do in ten minutes in SV.

I RARELY use loops. The only time I ever did was a cover of Van Halen's, Big Bad Bill. I used the loops in AD to program most of the drum part (I used the brushes ADPak) and added fill parts later.