BFD ECO Drum software $29

I've got Superior Drummer and a Steven Slate EZX and I'm seriously thinking of getting this. I love the SD2.0, but it's nice to have a different flavor every once in a while. Jim

ECO is great.  Once you get it and start using it though...you'll want BFD2.

Lad, lads. TerryH posted this in the thread below: "The reason for the promo not currently being available at FXpansion.com is due to the official start date for the BFD Eco price drop promo actually being September 1, 2011. As this is a global promotion we are bound by "best practices" to continue to honor this official start date." And sure enough, it's on the FxPansion site until the end of the year so no rush. http://www.fxpansion.com/

It's £18.35 if you go through a US store that doesn't *cough* add on the VAT. It's a download so no extras required.

yorolpal


ECO is great.  Once you get it and start using it though...you'll want BFD2.

  Thanks youroldpal, Yours is one opinion I value greatly!

Good job I pay my VAT. Anything to help the government and the ASBO generation.

yorolpal


ECO is great.  Once you get it and start using it though...you'll want BFD2.

Absolutely spot on olpal!

And then you'll want to expand it by adding expansion packs

How does Eco compare to EZ Drummer?

I can't speak for BFD ECO, but the full version of BFD2 absolutely blows SD3 out of the water, not for the individual hits themselves, but for the sheer amount of tweaking/adjustment you can make to hits/kits.

Just as an example, most, if not all of BFd's hi-hats contain no less than 11 different articulations.

You have control over bleed, damping, pitch, an extensive mixer complete with insert Fx, several hundred midi grooves.

And no, I don't work for FXpansion.

I'd say BFD is way ahead of both EZdrummer and SD3 and not too far behind superior drummer.
BFD 2 is (IMHO) the best of them all in pretty much all areas. You get 10 whole and completely unprocessed kits which makes it well worth the money.
It's now 64bit too and very stable for me in Sonar X1.
 
Steve
 
 
Oh yeah, the fxpansion forum support is one of the best I have been on. Their staff are on there 7 days a week helping people out.

Wow!  Why so cheap for Eco?

yorolpal


Well I'm a long time user of all things Toontrack and love their stuff.  That said I think with more and more drum packages and libraries coming on line (like ECO and BFD2 and Analougue Drums, etc...) that offer more kits and pieces at lower cost, that Toon is going to have to lower the prices for their expansion packs more or less permanently...instead of frequent sales like they do now.  And it will be interesting to see how Steven Slate prices his new entry into the ring next year.

I like using Toontrack stuff too,  but the price for expansion packs need to be lowered (I've only bought them when they were 50% off)....I only have about 4 expansion packs and now am considering Eco. Are their expansion packs cheaper? and is the software just as good or better bang for the buck than EZ?

Bristol_Jonesey


I can't speak for BFD ECO, but the full version of BFD2 absolutely blows SD3 out of the water, not for the individual hits themselves, but for the sheer amount of tweaking/adjustment you can make to hits/kits.

Just as an example, most, if not all of BFd's hi-hats contain no less than 11 different articulations.

You have control over bleed, damping, pitch, an extensive mixer complete with insert Fx, several hundred midi grooves.

And no, I don't work for FXpansion.

I'll have to read up on ECO. While $29 doesn't seem so much, there are so many $29 items out there. I have used SD3 because it came with Producer but I have nothing to compare it to. I can't see spending $199 on the upgrade to BFD2 as I am just a hobbyist. I need to do some digging to see if ECO is better than SD3 before I spend the money.


BTW do people really hear the difference of SD3 and a tweaked BFD2 kit in a recording? I am being sincere in asking this. I don't know.


I am a guitarist and I can record my amp or a crappy amp sim, and no one in my family can hear a difference yet I can lol


Thanks

 BFD eco has the exact same sound engine as the more expensive BFD2 which would make it better than EZ drummer or SD3. Not that you can't get something usable out of SD3. For me, better means that BFD has more articulations or levels of articulation than the other two  do. This translates to better sounding drums that sound more real IMO.

 Now I'm saying all of this based on what I know about BFD and not having used it although some of our full time mixer/producers like Youroldpal give it a good grade and that has a lot of pull to me. I can't wait to load it and give it a try myself.

 For a long time I used Sony acid loops and you can conjure some nice drums from those if they are made to fit correctly into what you are doing. You can take a loop and copy two tracks of it and do things to the snare using a band pass equalizer and FX. Lots of things you can do to single out the parts of a loop. 

 I am ready for a change in some of what I'm doing and so the deal on BFD got me hooked!

munmun


 The excessive tweakability in BFD2 poses problems for me because I have neither the skill nor the inclination to screw around with drum sounds to the extent required.  They are raw and completely untreated in BFD2.

I like the produce presets Toontrack put out for Superior Drummer. First off they sound great straight out of the box, then you can tweak the presets that are close to what you want. And importantly they make a great learning aid as you can dive in and see how they got that sound.