ORIGINAL: yep

BFD:

http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=1

according to fxpansion, BFD is big, and it's drums, and they haven't decided what the "F" stands for. It is a huge, resource-consuming multilayered sample library.

The idea with BFD is something like this: When you trigger a snare hit, BFD plays back the sample from the snare mic(s) PLUS samples of snare recorded through the OH mics, PLUS samples of snare bleed through all the other kit-piece mics, PLUS samples of snare recorded through the room mics, etc and ouputs all these virtual mics to different tracks that you can send to your host (eg Sonar) or mix internally through BFD. So you end up with the actual tracks as though you had recorded a real drum kit in the room, and you can control the amount of room sound, and the distance of the mics from the kit-pieces, and so on and so on. Anytime you trigger a drum in BFD, it's actually playing back like 20 different velocity-layered samples. For every drum.

BFD takes up a lot more system resources than a typical drum machine, but it provides a very realistic simulation of working with real tracks of a real drum kit recorded in a real room. And it's definitely big-- it comes on two DVDs and takes up like 10 gigs of HD space (you'll want a fast, dedicated hard drive).

Cheers.

drumkit from hell superior (DFHS) is like BFD but bigger (35GB) and in my opinion, better sounding. it does all of the mic bleed stuff and all the samples are unprocessed 24bit/44.1khz. you can export to individual mic tracks and bleed tracks if desired (i don't) which i imagine you can also do in BFD... but DFHS is expensive at $300. i think BFD is $250. oh and there's also a stereo ambiance track which usually needs to be time-aligned (just like real drums! ). the cpu load isn't actually that bad.

being realistic sounding they need some processing to cut through a heavy mix but pretty much the same as you'd have to do with a real kit i suppose...

however it is a bit of a bear to set up in sonar. there is a sonar demo which is available from the toontrack site that works (their sonar template doesn't, or i'm ****ed, one of the two) and can be saved as a template, but then you've got to import all your existing songs into a new template. believe me it's faster than setting up DFHS in each project, there's like 7 tracks and 12 busses to set up or something ridiculous like that.

DFHS is really geared toward power users, definitely not something quick and dirty until you get used to it.

One could (and people do) record hit albums all the time with neither real bassist or drummer, but outside of hip-hop, EDM and related/influenced genres you will be hard pressed to find much success in finding satisfactory results with guitar samples. Any of the major drum programs like Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums, BFD, etc is more than capable of getting the job done (relatively speaking).  It's mostly a matter of your triggering/programming technique.  The simple bass sounds from the plugin included with Sonar or the bass sounds in Dim Pro fed through a bass amp plugin can yield a usable result.  It will not fool people who are paying attention but as a society we here sampled or synthesized bass enough that our ears don't mind it in most genres.  I mean this mostly in the most simplistic rhythm section usage of bass.  Forget about complex bass playing unless you are recording something meant for genres where obviously sampled sounds are useful and desirable.  As for guitar, outside of basic rhythm licks, you are better off finding a modestly talented guitarist than trying to make samples sound like anything but.  You can try the modeled plugins by AAS but I have heard mostly so-so results from that so far.

### OLD THREAD ALERT ###
 

weird that this was at the top of the forum yesterday.  Thanks kev

Definitely old thread. I can't be sure because I wasn't using MIDI back in 07 but I'm assuming certain things have become a long way in that relatively short time as far as realism. Some of the bass stuff out there, if used correctly is indistinguishable from a live player. Drums have been pretty easy for some time but I'm assuming the BFD mentioned here was the original and I can only guess that BFD2 was a massive improvement on that and now BFD3 is out.
 
Guitar though I think is the still a long way off. I've heard some pretty amazing MIDI rhythm stuff for strummed or plucked chords but as soon as you start in with any leads or even think about doing a bend it all goes to crud. Seems even using a MIDI guitar for bends or other nuances ends up with that really lame synthesized sound. You certainly couldn't play MIDI blues guitar. Ugh... just the thought makes me shudder. lol
 
All good news for us axe wielders. We haven't yet been successfully replaced by machines which I guess makes up for the fact the industry has always been over saturated with guitar players. :-D

I don't think quality basson players will ever be replaced either

Heheh. ;-)

Actually this reminded me of my need for a quality penny whistle patch. Not sure if anyone makes one or if one lives in Sonar Pro but man do I ever need a good MIDI penny whistle.
 

You can try this soundfont: https://app.box.com/shared/5kojv3x0ko

Beepster
Actually this reminded me of my need for a quality penny whistle patch. Not sure if anyone makes one or if one lives in Sonar Pro but man do I ever need a good MIDI penny whistle.
 

Beep,
 
If you've got Kontakt, take a listen to Embertone's Shire Whistle. Sounds pretty authentic and it is only $20.
 
Regards,
Dan