How do you set up your drums in BFD2?

As I was doing it the first time I typed up one of my epic posts on the topic. Might be a little wonky but it worked for me...

Okay, so after all that VST scanning mayhem I wanted to set up a project with BFD Eco. It's a little complex so I decided to keep a log of what I did for future use. I'm sure I'll have to do it again at some point and figured I might as well post the procedure here for anyone who needs it. This truly is a complete beginners guide in the sense that I wrote it so pretty much anyone can duplicate it even if they've never really used either program. Just follow each step and you should get it running. It is cobbled together from various sources like the BFD manual, BFD tuts online but mostly Seth's Master Class video "Drum Production 1" which can be viewed in the link I posted above.

I highly recommend that video series however there are a few problems with it for what I'm doing here. The biggest problem is he is obviously not using BFD in that vid. He is using Session Drummer 3 but the process is pretty similar for both programs. The other big issue is he is using a pre X1 version of Sonar in it so lots of the steps within Sonar he shows look and are performed very differently. At the bottom of the screen though there is text that pops up detailing how to do the same procedure using X1 and all those procedures seem to be exactly the same in X2 as well. The other "problems" aren't really problems but more of a time waster. He's showing features and functions in Session Drummer which takes up some time and are obviously unnecessary if you are using BFD. Also pausing and starting a video when you are trying to do something can be a pain and personally I like having text on hand. However it is the most concise and easiest to understand guide I've seen so far on how to route a drum synth and I hope Seth updates it for X2. Every other video, guide or manual just confused the beeping heck out of me so if you see this Seth thanks mucho, dude. You rock.

I'll also point out there are probably many ways to go about this but this just worked... so seeing as how my dumb arse managed to make it happen it should be safe to say it's fool proof. Now to the meat...


In Browser click "PlugIns" tab > Instruments

Locate BFD Eco in list and drag to "Track View"

"Insert Soft Synth" dialogue should appear

In dialogue check:

"All Synth Audio Outputs: Stereo"

"MIDI Source"

"Synth Track Folder"

"Synth Property Page" (shows BFD GUI)

"Recall Assignable Controls"

"Ask This Every Time"

"First Synth Audio Track" will appear in drop down menu. Leave it.

Uncheck the rest (however Synth Rack View being enabled doesn't seem to screw anything up but I don't know what it does and it's not in the vid).

Click "OK"

Sonar will create a folder containing 12 tracks. The first eleven tracks are for individual kit pieces (not sure what type of track... it is a MIDI plus Keyboard icon. Probably soft synth Icon.) and the 12th track is a regular MIDI track.

Gain Staging:

Click "Quick Group" button on track folder (it is between the +/- Expand/Collapse button and the Folder Icon). This should light up all the track select buttons on all the tracks in the folder (they'll turn blue).

Select "Mix" from the "Track View" dropdown (top right corner in the gray area just above the tracks... other options are All, Custom, FX, I/O. Selecting "Mix" should put small blue faders on each track for Volume, Pan and Gain)

Press and hold Ctrl key and lower "Gain" fader to appropriate level (Seth sets his to -6.2 in SD3 Drum Production Master Class... UPDATE: That level was perfect for the grooves but I had to turn it back up when I wanted to use my padKontrol with the Fixed Velocity setting turned OFF). This should lower all of the gain levels of every track in the folder (double check the tracks to make sure it did).

Click the folder's "Quick Group" button again to deselect the tracks (all the blue buttons on the tracks should revert back to gray).


Now bring BFDs GUI into focus. In the top right corner click on the "Kit" menu and select a kit. Wait for it to load. (At this point load or change any extra kit pieces you want for the session by Right Clicking on the kit piece icons in the Mixer section, select "Load Kit Piece" and choose the sound you want from the pop up window then press the "Load" button at the bottom right of the screen.)

Routing the kit pieces to the appropriate tracks:

In the "Mixer" section of BFD click the dropdown menu underneath the "Kick" fader (they should currently say "Master"). You should see the following options:

"Kick [Direct, out 11+12]"
"Aux1 [Aux1 buss]"
"Aux2 [Aux2 buss]"
"Master [Main, out 1+2]"

Select "Kick [Direct, out 11+12]". It will automatically send the kick to the "Kick" track in Sonar. Now if you click on the kick drum in BFDs GUI you should see the "Kick" track in Sonar register the signal.

Repeat this for each of the kit pieces and percussion slots.

When you get to the "Overhead (OH)" and "Room Mic (Room)" channels in BFD select "OH [Ambient, out 3+4]" and "Room, [Ambient, out 5+6]".

Then finally send "Aux 1" and "Aux 2" out to where you like. Either to the "Master" in BFD or like we did with all the kit pieces directly out to Sonar (for "Aux 1" select "Aux 1 [Out 7+8]" and for "Aux 2" select "Aux 2 [Out 9+10]). You can also send "Aux 1" out to "Aux 2" but not vice versa.

It looks like BFD Eco lumps all of the "Toms" onto one track, all of the "Percussion" slots to one track and all of the "Cymbals" (not including the Hi Hat) to one track. I'd prefer to have that stuff seperate but I'm guessing that is a limitation of the Eco version. The full version may allow full kit routing but I'm not sure. If there are certain kit pieces in these groups you would like to have their own track like the "Ride" cymbal you can route that kit piece in the BFD mixer to one of the "Aux" channels and send that channel out to the Aux track in Sonar. Just open the routing menu of the kit piece and select "Aux 1" or "Aux 2". Be aware though that if you route any other pieces to that Aux channel they will play in the Aux track in Sonar as well... at least I'm assuming that's how it works.

Now your tracks are set up and you can Save as track template as described at 7:30 in the Drum Production Master Class Part 1 I linked above.

Drum Busses:

There are different ways to approach this. You can have multiple busses that control specific groups of kit pieces (group toms, cymbals, etc). Having busses for individual pieces like the kick and snare gives you an extra place to apply effects. Also it makes it easier to mix alongside other stems like your guitar, bass, vocal, etc busses. However you can obviously just route the whole kit to one buss and leave it at that. Also you can use the "Sends" function on each Sonar track which gives some more control parameters than the regular output option. Also with "Sends" you can send the kit pieces to multiple busses as you can insert as many sends as you want onto one track. That's all quite a bit more complex though so for now I'm just going to send the whole kit to one buss because I want to get playing.

Simple Drum Buss:

In the "Track View" go to the "Buss Pane" at the bottom. If you can't see it (you should see "Master" and "Metronome" busses which look just like tracks... but they are busses) then place your cursor over the bottom edge of "Track View" until it turns into two little lines with arrows pointing up and down then Click and Drag upward. Drag it up far enough that you see a blank area. Right click in that area and Select "Insert Stereo Buss" then click on the text (Bus C, Bus D, whatever the new bus is called) until you can type into the field and rename it "Drums" or whatever you want.

Now you have to route all the drum tracks to this buss. Click the BFD track folder "Quick Group" button again like we did earlier to select all the tracks (the space between the +/- button and the little folder icon). All the track numbers should now be blue. Click the "Track View" view options dropdown again (the drop down in the gray area above the tracks) and select I/O. Now your tracks should be showing multiple dropdown menus (default should be: "Clips", the input dropdown which is a little letter I and in this case should say "BFDEc..." and finally your output dropdown that has a little letter O and says "Master". Press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and Click the dropdown that says "Master" and select the drum bus you just created from the menu. This should change the output from all the tracks in the folder to the Drum Bus. Double check to make sure it did.

And now BFD is setup in X2. There are lots of other things that can be done with sends and routing in both programs but this seems to be the simplest way to get started. You can always insert more busses and create sends later on. Make sure to save the project as a template so you don't have to do this everytime or at the very least save the track template.

Now test it out. Go to the "Grooves" button in the BFD interface and select a groove to play by pressing the play button. Check to see if anything is clipping in the BFD Mixer. If so adjust the levels (the Overhead mic was clipping a bit so a turned it down but everything else was fine).

Then check to see if anything is clipping in the Sonar "Console View". I see that my Master Bus and my Drum Bus were clipping a bit. I didn't want to turn down the Master so I turned down the Drum Bus. All of the tracks were fine. If I hadn't done the Gain Staging earlier (when I Quick Grouped the tracks and turned down the Gain fader to -6.2) I would have been clipping all over the place and I may even have to turn it down more if I start applying effects. I checked to make sure that all the channels in the Sonar console were corresponding with the channels in BFD and all was where it should be. Now everything is set up and I think I'm gonna hook up my padKontrol and play around with it for a bit. Hooray!

Here is what I do (actual output names are arbitrary, select whichever ones you want)

1. Insert BFD2 with no outputs, so I can build them all myself
2. Mute the master output, I don't use it
3. Pull down the faders in BFD2 for everything
4. Lower the master faders (on the main page) down a bit else you can get clipping.
5. Create a Drums bus which routes forward to whatever is appropriate, master bus, sub-master bus, etc...
6. Route overheads (in BFD2) to Stereo 2. Set up a track in the BFD2 folder to accept the Stereo 2 and create a track that accepts that output, and which routes forward to Drums. I get as much of a nice sound as I can with just this. I prefer naturalistic drums, and this is the best way to get them.
7. Route the kick tracks (in BFD2) to, say, Mono 1. Create a track in SONAR called Kicks that accepts that output and routes to Drums. Generally, if you mainly use overheads you'll need a little kick enhancement, so I get this sounding right with the overs. Play with the phase on the direct mics. Often, with the default overhead distance, flipping the phase button gets them better in phase. I use BFD to control the balance between the in/out kick tracks, so only one track out to SONAR.
8. Do the same as above with snares, to (say) Mono 2. Again, use BFD2's mixer to control the relative snare mic levels, possibly not using some of them at all, with one track out to SONAR, routed forward to Drums. Play with the phase.  I only bring the Snares track up enough (and EQ it) to balance against the overs for the appropriate front/back placement and tone.
9. If I need tom directs, route them to (say) Stereo 3) and set up a stereo track in Sonar for them. Pan them BFD2 since you are bringing out a single track. Control the relative levels in BFD2, overall tom levels in SONAR. Again, play with phase. and EQ them to enhance the overheads and control front to back placement.
10. Same with cymbals, routed out to one stereo track, say Stereo 4, forwarded to the Drums bus. Relative levels inside BFD2.
11. If I want a little room I can route them to (sa) Stereo 5) Often it's not required and just makes things messy, though you can often use them very subtly to good effect, or if you want really roomy for a reason they can provide that. Play with the distance knob to get the optimal phase relationship to everything else. I often don't feel the need for them since the overheads provide plenty of ambient vibe.
12. I hardly ever use the ambience track. If I were doing When the Levee Breaks maybe, but otherwise not. You might experiment with pushing the distance way up and EQ'ing and compressing them heavily and bringing them just barely up to perceptible, to provide a sort of delay effect maybe.


ANyway, that's my usual thing. I turn off all automatic stuff any 'humanization' stuff since I'm already a human, and any stuff that would limit expressiveness. I don't use any effects inside BFD2. It's just a sub-mixer. I generally reduce the master bleeds and go for a more separated sound since it's easier to control. But play with it either way. The only gotcha is with heavy bleed you EQ this and that changes tone.

Reducing the number of tracks coming out of BFD2 by grouping snares, toms, kicks, and cymbals greatly reduces the CPU suckage without any real chance of less than optimal sound. BFD2 can do basic addition as well as SONAR, so using it as a sub-mixer works well for that purpose.

 Beep- Many thanks for that description of your techniques. You have it all worked out there pretty well. Fortunately I also have BFD eco and wanted to set up a template for it eventually. Sometimes I prefer it to BFD2 ,especially if I'm running a few dedicated pieces and a set I like as is. The issue of velocity between those two programs is not  as important as some would think.

 Since presently I am not at my studio I can't try this but I will get the chance later on today. When I first loaded BFD2 into Sonar and had stereo outputs selected I lost all of my screen real estate. BFD2 spits out a ton of channels in that setting. Are you still finding that many tracks necessary? Possibly BFD eco is smaller in that regard with its smaller kits.

 To say the kit is hot with no levels adjustment is an understatement. I probably don't need to parallel compress most of the kit,with the exception of the kick maybe. I like the creative way you found to group here. I seldom use grouping for adjustments and this is a new idea for me. Thanks again man for the post.

Droddey- I see you set up your mono channels similar to the way I do it although much differently on the OH and other mic channels.I am glad I asked here as there are a few things I had not uncovered. I wasn't aware that you could create new channels inside BFD2 and route to them. I think I understand what you are saying here with respect to routing . It's easy enough to create a bus in Sonar but I may need some practice creating tracks in BFD2 subgrouping them and then routing into a Sonar bus.

 I also like the natural sounding drums. I remember reading in the manual where it was suggested to eliminate certain mics completely as well as maybe some of the underhead feed tracks in certain applications. I still like to have the ability to use those if necessary though,and the nice thing is that it's all there if needed.

  Stereo for the cymbals and the mic channels and mono for the others makes sense. Great ideas on saving valuable cpu by subbing/stemming from the BFD2 mixer. I wanted total separation and control of all  channels with the most minimal setup possible. Thanks for your help!  

 Jonesey- Yes I'll be trying that grouping for sure here. Since I have been using midi and modifying it some I'm not sure how much I would use a key map,although just having one might help in adding extra parts when necessary.

 I agree the plug-ins included within BFD2 are nice. I have never really fully examined the capabilities. I like the concept of  having it all in one place kind of like a mini drum DAW inside a DAW.

It looks as if the whole BFD setup is designed to work well inside of itself and I'm just now getting involved with the other options. I wasn't convinced that there was a huge advantage to splitting the tracks into Sonar until I started playing around with it. The more I learn the more I like it. Thanks!


  

I'm not sub-grouping them myself. If you look at the bottom of the tracks in BFD2 in the mix, they hvae a routing just like SONAR does. BFD offers a fixed set of outputs and you can just assign any instrument track to any output. You can then set up SONAR tracks that accept input from those BFD2 outputs. By default all of the tracks in BFD2 route to the Master bus inside BFD2. But you can just ignore that and route them to whatever outputs you want from the list of available outputs.

A little different. I bounce the drum tracks to audio and then process outside BFD.