Okay... spent the past few hours reading and absorbing the manual. Sorry for the formatting and I'll try to insert breaks on this post later but this is relevent to anyone trying to load BFD Eco into Sonar...

Using BFD Eco as a VST plugin in Sonar Launching BFD Eco 1. With a project open, use the Insert menu to insert BFD Eco as a soft synth: Insert • Soft Synths • [VST plugins folder name] • BFD Eco 2. In the synth properties dialog box that appears, you can choose to set up BFD Eco’s additional outputs in the Sonar mixer. Unfortunately, this dialog box does not include an option to create all the required stereo and mono outputs, so it is recommended to choose ‘All Synth Audio Outputs: Stereo’, and afterwards manually change the stereo channels created for BFD Eco’s mono 1-16 outputs to mono channels. If you do not know how to do this, please consult your Sonar documentation or contact Cakewalk support. By default, all channels in BFD Eco are routed to the Master channel in the BFD Eco mixer, which is hard-wired to the first stereo output (output 1-2). In order to separate channels into discrete outputs, you must first route the relevant channels to the desired BFD Eco outputs in the BFD Eco mixer. If you need to use BFD Eco’s MIDI Out function, remember to check the ‘Enable MIDI Out’ checkbox in the synth properties dialog. 3. If the ‘MIDI Source’ checkbox was not left checked in the dialog box, you need to create a MIDI track and route its output to BFD Eco. If you encounter any problems performing the steps above, please consult your host’s documentation or contact the manufacturer’s tech support channels – BFD Eco operates in the same way as any other multiple-output instrument plugin. Recording BFD Eco’s output as audio To do this you either need to use Sonar’s mixdown functions – make sure you enable the Offline button before performing any offline or non-realtime export. It is also recommended to disable the ‘Use Fast Bounce’ setting in Sonar’s preferences. Alternatively, you can use BFD Eco’s audio export feature when exporting Grooves.

And I got lots of replies for ya'll and things to say but I am in the middle of a bunch of other chaos at the moment. However here is the entire BFD Eco manual online in PDF format from FXpansion's website. http://www.fxpansion.com/...les/BFD_Eco_Manual.pdf Cheers!

BTW I'll be tossing the link to the manual and probably that little blurb into the first post of this thread as well as directing people to Rail's posts to save any random googlers and forum users some time. I however cannot stare at this computer screen for much longer so that will have to wait for another day. Cheers.

Just a quick update. I managed to toss together a CRAZY drum part using just the standalone mode and the metal grooves. Took me about an hour (I was hoping to share it with ya'll but it just wasn't gonna happen tonight). I used the Rock Legends Big and Roomy preset (or whatever it's called... but something like that) and it was pretty much perfect sounding. I enabled Anti Machine Gun mode and turned up the Humanize knob to about 11 o'clock and it sounded pretty gosh darned real. Obviously it would be better to do this stuff within X1 using the PRV but I wanted to get a grip on how to use BFD as a standalone first. The track builder is... well it's a little annoying and it takes some learning but once you figure it out it is very usable for basic structure building. It doesn't exactly work in a very typical fashion so that's why I said you gotta learn it but it is well explained in the manual. Just make sure you have the "Track" button enabled or you won't be able to use it at all (that was tripping me up last night). Export was simple... a little too simple actually but again standalone mode isn't really the way it's supposed to be used. Once I exported I had a RAW stereo WAV which was easy peasy to load into X1. If you do it this way however it seems you have to close BFD or else it'll tie up your interface (learned that the hard way). Once in X1 it played back beautifully. I would only recommend doing things this way if you just want to have something to jam along to. Otherwise just use BFD as a plugin for any real work. Cheers.

I might be wrong but I'm fairly sure the "humanise" function will only work on the grooves that are being played internally.
Meaning, midi that is created in your sequencer or dragged from Eco into a midi track can no longer be humanised.

What humanising basically does is to place certain notes slightly behind or ahead of it's correct grid placement.
Obviously it can't to that with midi that is being fed in to it.  Unlike BFD2, BFD Eco doesn't allow you to import standard midi files so you can't humanise midi files created elsewhere by loading

them in to Eco.
Steve

  Could try the humanize CAL script.

Just bumping this to the top because the Eco/Rock Legends deal is almost over (Aug 31). Also I wanted to review some of my notes and the advice others have given here. I just installed the Zildjian Gen 16 Z-Pack which is also on special over at AudioMidi and it sounds great. Cheers.

 anyone know about the steven slate no brainer deal at audio midi for $20 it includes one kit plus a spare snare and bass drum. more here http://www.kvraudio.com/f...iewtopic.php?p=5046232

Hey MCC thanks for that link! I just watched the video and am glad I did. I haven't explored SD3 or the Andy Johns kit I bought, nor installed the BFD ECO with Platinum Sample yet. Still for $20 it seems like a cheap way to try that path, too. Thanks again Michael

I'm posting this here so I have it for quick reference. The hilarious part is when googling for solutions my own thread popped up. lol... Anyway for those who may stumble across this and not know what the frack I'm talking about I upgraded to X2 and could no longer find BFD. Then I reinstalled BFD and scanned but installed the wrong version. Then I installed the correct version but STILL not find BFD 64 bit... Solution in next post...