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Summary of Contents for FXPANSION BFD2
- Page 1 2.0.1 Dec 2007 www.fxpansion.com...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
• Overview • Anatomy of a kit-piece • Controls in the kit-piece chooser panel • Articulations • Possible problems when loading • Mic channels • Building unorthodox kits • Microphone buses 2:7 Importing your own sounds into BFD2 1:3 Recording notes • Sample Import panel • Personnel • Import settings • Kit preparation and tuning • Photo settings • Recording path • Velocity layers • Microphones... - Page 3 3:10 Mixer preset panel editing, recording and groove FX 3:11 Audio Export panel 6:1 Introduction to the Editor chapter 04: GROOVES PAGE - overview • Editor interface overview an introduction to BFD2’s groove engine • Other topics covered in this chapter • Playing the currently selected Groove 4:1 Introduction 6:2 Editor Grid • Key concepts • Kit-piece and Articulation lanes...
- Page 4 • Mapping an already-mapped BFD2 parameter 119 • Setting up the MIDI output function chapter 09: ELECTRONIC DRUMS & BFD2 119 • Using the MIDI output as a MIDI input in your host 119 • Latency of the MIDI Out 9:1 Intoduction to using electronic kits with BFD2 chapter 08: MAPPING PAGE 137 • How electronic drumkits work key and automation mapping 137 • Cross-talk between triggers and zones 137 • Double-triggering: setting the Retrigger threshold...
- Page 5 12: MIXING AND EFFECTS USAGE 9:5 Positional snare control 144 • Variable snare controls 164 • Overview 164 • D.CAM FX 9:6 Controlling cymbals 12:1 Mixing basics chapter 10: BFD2 PREFERENCES 165 • Mic channel usage customizing BFD2 165 • Panning 165 • Gain levels 166 • Approaching EQ and compression...
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Page 6: Chapter 01: Introducing Bfd2
01 INTRODUCING BFD2 1:1 An introduction to BFD2 Welcome to BFD2 Thank you for purchasing BFD2! Welcome to the most advanced acoustic drum production environment ever. As you begin to explore the software and manual you’ll start to realise the sheer power you have at your fingertips. About this manual There is a huge amount of functionality in BFD2, so please take the time to study this manual as you delve into the software. We realise it’s a rather large manual, but it is broken down into fairly easily digestible sections, logically structured for each part of the software. Remember to use the PDF bookmarks integrated into the document to make navigation through the manual quick and easy. Credits SKoT McDonald Project lead, Programming (synthesis engine and mixer) Paul Chana Programming (kit page, panels and Installer) Steve Baker Programming (Groove engine) Andy Simper Programming (effect DSP & circuit modelling) Angus Hewlett Programming (adapters, licensing) Andreas Schnetzler Programming (website) Gareth Green Lead audio engineering, production, editing Alex Akers Graphic design (interface, 3D modelling) Rus Brockman... -
Page 7: 1:2 Bfd2 Architecture
1:2 BFD2 Architecture How BFD2 works Disk-streaming multi-channel sample playback engine At the heart of BFD2 is a sample playback engine that streams multi-channel audio recordings of drum, hihat, cymbal and per- cussion instruments – called kit-pieces – being played in various ways, and recorded with multiple sets of microphones. There is an inherent latency when accessing files on a hard drive. Because of this, BFD2 caches a short segment of the start of every sound in system memory. Therefore, even though BFD2 can use a lot of RAM, it allows you to use sounds with detail levels far beyond conventional RAM limitations. Hard disk space is far cheaper than RAM, and will be for the foreseeable future. Dedicated interface for working with multi-channel acoustic drums Rather than having to work with a generic sampler interface and sample libraries designed within its limitations, BFD2’s user interface allows you to work with its hyper-detailed sample library as if you were playing and mixing a real drumkit! There are functions dedicated to building the custom kit of your dreams in seconds, tuning and damping kit-pieces, and high-end studio quality mixing tools. It features simple-to-use mapping tools, and dedicated support for electronic drumkit systems. Mean- while, the flexible Groove engine lets you lay down convincing drum tracks quickly and easily. Anatomy of a kit-piece Articulations A kit-piece is made up of one or more articulations. These were referred to as ‘hit types’ in previous versions of BFD. An articula- tion is an individual way of playing a percussive instrument such as a drum, cymbal or hihat. For example, hihats feature up to 11 articulations – a pedal-down sound (‘foot-chick’) and tip and shank (edge) sounds when the hihat is closed, fully open and at three positions in-between. Good use of multiple articulations allows greater realism than using conventional sample-sets, because of the expressive range possible on a drumkit. -
Page 8: Articulations
Articulations Here is a summary of possible articulations in BFD2. Please note that some kit-pieces do not contain all possible articulations. Kicks No Snare Snares *Half-edge is the skin or head struck half-way between the centre and Sidestick the edge. Most previous BFD libraries Drag featured a flam instead Half-edge* Hihats Pedal ** previous BFD libraries did not in-... - Page 9 Direct mic channels (mono) Kick In The signal from the mic inside the kick drum. Kick Out The signal from the mic outside the kick drum. Snare Bottom The signal from the mic underneath the snare drum. Snare Top The signal from the first mic above the snare drum. Snare Top The signal from the second mic above the snare drum.
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Page 10: Microphone Buses
Room The Room mic channels from all Kit- Pieces. Amb The third set of ambient mic channels from all Kit-Pieces. Direct bus There is a fourth mic bus, called the Direct bus, which represents the direct mic channels of all kit-pieces mixed together. This does not have a dedicated channel on the mixer by default, although you can create one if you wish by adding an Aux channel and routing all kit-pieces’ direct channels to it. You can, however, control the level of the Direct Master bus using the Direct fader in the Kit page’s Mini-mixer section, or using the Direct Master level control in the Mixer page’s Mic Tools panel. How mic buses are used in BFD2 Mic buses are controlled via the Mic Tools panel, part of the mixer’s Utility panel. In this panel, you can control the level of the Direct bus, as well as the Width and Distance of the ambience buses. The ambience channels that exist in the Kit page’s Mini-mixer and in the main Mixer page should not be considered as mic buses. This is because while ambience signals from individual kit-pieces can be routed to other aux channels, they are still considered to be part of the ambience buses. They are still affected by the Width parameters in the Mic Tools panel, although for technical reasons the Distance controls do not apply. -
Page 11: Personnel
1:3 Recording notes BFD2’s sounds were recorded in studio 1 at AIR Studios at Lyndhurst Hall, Hampstead, London. AIR Studios was started in 1969 by George Martin, a pro- ducer famous for his work with The Beatles. It moved to its present location at Lyndhurst Hall, a stunning grade II listed converted church in Hampstead, in 1991. It offers one of the best live rooms in the UK. Studio 1’s recording room could be described as medium to large sized. It consists mainly of wooden surfaces with excellent dispersion characteristics and a fast decaying ‘explosive’ sounding reverb quality. The size of the room offers a lot of options when recording, with very different reverb characteristics depending on the position and height of ambience microphones. This room was portioned into a slightly smaller space more appropriate for drum recording, without losing its lush reverberant sound. The mixing console in the studio 1 control room is a rather special custom Neve featuring ‘AIR Montserrat’ mic preamps. It was designed in 1989 by Rupert Neve with consultation from George Martin, and is a classic fully-discrete Neve design offering a bandwidth of 100 kHz. Personnel All sounds were recorded and edited by Gareth Green, with engineering assistance from Kevin Hay. Drumming duties were shared between Emre Ramazonoglu and Darrin Mooney, both respected and experienced session play- ers. Kit preparation and tuning During the sessions, the primary objective was to capture the instruments as organically and powerfully as possible, while cover- ing different kinds of voicing and tuning. A lot of the drums, especially the vintage kits, have loose hardware and other supposed flaws. These have all been retained, as there really is nothing worse than sterile, characterless drums. The drums, hihats and cymbals themselves are a mixture of modern, vintage and custom instruments. The library includes two historic and famous kits. Firstly, a classic Ludwig ‘Spiral’ Vis- talite that was once owned and played by the late John Bonham and, secondly, Ringo Starr’s Blue Oyster Ludwig kit that was used on a number of classic albums. The other instruments in the library were selected to offer a wide tonal and stylistic range, from the modern, tight punch of the DW Collector’s Series to the warm, rounded tones of the vintage Gretsch Round-badge kit. We even managed to drag our ‘house... -
Page 12: Microphones
Microphones Several microphones were set up for many mic positions, with the most appropriate sets being used for each kit. Some snares were mic’d using a slightly different technique involving the top snare mics pointing at the side of the snare shell instead of at the top skin. BFD2’s snares offer two mics for the top snare position, allowing even more flexibility than before when mixing. Microphone delay was edited out from the direct channels so all kick and snare mic channels are time-aligned with reference to themselves. Bottom snare and outside kick mic channels have been phase-flipped to ensure they are already in phase. No time-aligning of ambience channels was performed, as this would affect the natural stereo image provided by their timing discrepancies. Directs Kick In The most appropriate inside mic from the following was chosen for each kick: • AKG D112 on the beater side • ElectroVoice RE20 inside the kick AKG D11 ElectroVoice RE0 Kick Out The most appropriate outside mic from the following was chosen for each kick: • Neumann FET 47 Neumann FET CAD VX • CAD VX2 Snare Top Snare Top1: Shure SM57 Snare Top2: Neumann KM84 Shure SM... -
Page 13: 1:4 Introduction To The Bfd2 Interface
1:4 Introduction to the BFD2 interface Control conventions Faders Faders are controlled by clicking and dragging vertically. Faders are oriented vertically but some controls, such as the send level controls in the FX/Sends mixer view, are horizontally aligned but are still controlled by clicking and dragging vertically. Vertical fader movement Knobs Knobs are controlled by clicking and dragging vertically (up/down) by default. This can be changed to circular motion in the GUI preferences or with the startup wizard. Vertical knob movement Graphs Graphs can be oriented horizontally or vertically. They can be adjusted in 2 ways: Jumping to a graph value • Click anywhere over the range to jump to a value. • H over the mouse near the current value and click and drag in the axis in which the graph is oriented (horizontally or vertically). This method is much like using the graph a fader. Adjusting with click and drag Fine control and returning to default values • Holding down the SHIFT key while adjusting a knob, fader or graph gives you fine control. -
Page 14: Interface Overview
Help menu menu Page buttons Preset Load Gain indicator menu Page buttons Clicking these large buttons switches to one of the five Pages, each covering a different aspect of BFD2’s operation. Only one Page can be active at any one time. Kit page – chapter 2 The Kit page is used for building and tweaking the kit, as well as providing very simple mixing functions. Mixer page – chapters 3 and 12 BFD2’s advanced and full-featured mixer gives you access to virtually unlimited routing, mixing and effects processing. The built-in EQ, compression and other effects can be accessed here, as well as advanced mic ma- nipulation and audio export functions. If you’re more of a writer than an engineer, a variety of professional mixer presets are at your fingertips. Grooves page – chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 The Grooves page is an advanced drum sequencing environment allowing you to preview, load and play BFD2’s... -
Page 15: Load Menu
Load menu Clicking the Load button shows a menu allowing you to load various elements into BFD2. The Load menu is partly context- dependent, varying according to whichever Page is currently in view. The menu has 3 sections: 1. BFD2 Preset A Preset is a snapshot of the entire state of BFD. The Preset loader panel allows you to selectively load different elements of Presets. For a full guide to loading Presets, please see the ‘Loading presets’ section later in this chapter. 2. Page-dependent elements Depending on which Page is currently in view, the next part of the menu shows the relevant Load items – the exception is the Preferences Page, which does not require any loading functions. 3. Commonly used elements The next section of the menu allows you to load commonly needed elements from Pages other than that currently in view. The Load menu allows you to load the following elements into BFD2: • BFD2 presets • Kits • Mixer presets • Palettes • Grooves • MIDI keymap • Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments Save menu Click the Save button in order to display the Save menu. The save menu is structured in exactly the same way as the Load menu. The menu allows you to save the following: • BFD2 preset • Kit • Kit-piece preset • Mixer preset • Groove • Groove Palette • MIDI keymap • Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments • Keymap + Automation map... -
Page 16: 1:6 Status Bar
Context info Transport Beat light Time stream switch display controls signature indicators MIDI Log Clicking this button opens an external MIDI log window, making it easy to view and troubleshoot incoming MIDI events. The contents of the log are identical to the smaller log built into the Keymap page. See section 8:4 for more details of MIDI logging in BFD2. Audio stream indicator The Audio stream indicator lights up when BFD2 has successfully launched and been integrated into the host audio engine (when running as a plugin) or when the standalone version of BFD2 has successfully established communication with the specified audio device. MIDI stream indicator This indicator lights up whenever BFD2 receives any MIDI input. RAM indicator This indicator displays how much RAM is being used by BFD2. This includes the cached start portion of each sound, plus a small overhead for BFD2’s engine. CPU and hard disk performance meters Synthesis CPU The 3 horizontal meters in the status bar provide a perform- Mixer CPU ance guage for several aspects of BFD2’s system resource... -
Page 17: Controller Learn
Controller learn The controller learn function gives you a quick method of assigning BFD2 controls to MIDI continuous controllers (MIDI CCs) and even to MIDI notes, so that you can use physical keys, knobs, faders or other controllers to control BFD2 con- trols such as knobs, faders and buttons. Using controller learn 1. W hen the controller learn button is enabled, an overlay appears on the interface, with all MIDI-controllable parameters high- lighted in green. 2. C lick the desired automatable control and then do one of the following: • move the physical knob, fader or other controller to assign a MIDI CC • play a MIDI key to assign the note – this is especially useful for buttons 3. T he assignment is made, and the assigned note or MIDI CC number is overlaid on the control. Please see section 8:8 for more details on automation of BFD2 parameters. Controller learn context menu While you are in controller learn mode, right-click on any assignable control to display the controller learn context menu. Clear automation This function clears the control’s current automation mapping. If the parameter has not yet been mapped, this function is greyed out on the menu. Context info display The context info display provides information about the control currently under the mouse cursor. Parameter names and values are shown. While a control is being adjusted, the context info display remains locked to the parameter until the mouse button is released, showing the value as it changes. Transport The transport controls are used in conjunction with BFD2’s Groove engine. Please see section 4:5... -
Page 18: Rude Solo Light
Rude Solo light The Rude Solo indicator is always lit whenever one or more channels are soloed in the BFD2 mixer. You can ALT-click this light in order to un-solo all channels currently in a solo state. Beat light This indicator flashes on every beat when BFD2’s Groove engine is playing. Tempo When using BFD2 as a standalone application, you can enter a tempo for the Groove Engine by double-clicking the Tempo indicator. Simply type a new tempo and hit ENTER. You can also click and drag this control up and down to adjust the tempo. When running BFD2 as a plugin, the Tempo indicator is not editable because BFD2 is locked to the host tempo. Time signature Similarly to the tempo, you can enter a new time signature either by double-clicking this indicator and typing a new value, or clicking and dragging each number in the time signature up and down. Playback position This readout is an indicator of the current playback position, in bars and beats, of either the host (when using BFD2 as a plugin), the Drum Track or the current Groove. -
Page 19: 1:7 Loading Bfd2 Presets
1:7 Loading BFD2 Presets BFD2 Presets store the entire state of a BFD2 session. To load a Preset, click the Load button in the Control bar and click on Load BFD2 Preset... from the Load menu that appears. This opens the Preset chooser panel. Any available preset is displayed with an image representing its contents. Delete Preset from database Sticky button Preset listing: click to select or double-click to load Photo & Star rating Click to load the selected Preset Click a Preset to select it. A larger photo and rating information is displayed in the Info display to the right. To load a preset, select it by clicking on it and then click the Load button. You can also load any preset in the listing by double-clicking it. View size This drop-down menu selects the size of Preset images shown in the chooser panel listing. A range of settings are available, including text-only displays. Larger sizes result in larger photos but requires more use of the scrollbars in order to view all the available Presets. - Page 20 (Trash and rebuild all databases in the BFD2 Data preferences). BFD2 never prompts to delete factory-installed Preset files. Note that this function always leaves the actual kit-piece audio files untouched – if you want to delete these to recoup hard disk space, you must go into BFD2’s audio folder and delete the relevant folders. Sticky button Enabling the Sticky button results in the Preset chooser panel remaining open after a Preset is loaded. This is useful if, for example, BFD2 is being played via MIDI and you want to repeatedly change Presets until you find what you need. Clicking the Sticky button saves you having to keep opening the Preset chooser panel. Load selective elements from Presets A BFD2 Preset stores all of the following constituent elements: • Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups) • Mixer • Groove Palette, Drum Track and other Groove page settings • MIDI keymap • Automation map – MIDI CC, note and host automation assignments • Session preferences A button is provided for each of these elements in the Preset chooser panel, with the exception of embedded Session prefer- ences. Each of these buttons, when enabled, tells BFD2 to load that constituent element of the preset. If an element’s button is disabled, it is not loaded from the preset. For example, if you’re working in a session with the Grooves that you want, but you merely want to try out different kit and mixer settings from various Presets, simply disable the Grooves button – the current Palette in the Grooves page is unaffected when the new kit and mixer settings are loaded. By default, the MIDI Map and MIDI CCs buttons are disabled, because you would normally want to stick with the same MIDI map- pings when trying Presets. Load BFD1 Original BFD 1.x Programs are very different types of files to the Preset files used in BFD2. Because of this they are not shown in the Preset chooser panel, even if you have specified a BFD data path containing valid BFD 1.x Programs files. However, BFD2 gives you the ability to load a BFD program file through an additional file load dialog. To do this, click the Load BFD1 button to bring up a system file open dialog. Then browse to and select the BFD1 program file that you want to import. After the program file has been loaded in this way, it is recommended that you re-save it as a BFD2 Preset, in order to be able to load it easily from the Preset chooser panel.
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Page 21: 1:8 Saving Bfd2 Presets
Photo & Rating The large photo of the Preset, showing a representation of the included kit-pieces, is espe- cially useful when using ‘List’ or ‘Details’ View settings. Above the photo is the star rating control, with which you can rate the preset by clicking on one of the stars. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system when the Sorting type is set to ‘Star rating’: Presets are shown in order of their rating. This means that those with a higher rating are shown first. When you set a preset’s Star rating, it is applied immediately to the BFD2 database. 1:8 Saving BFD2 Presets To save the current state of BFD2 as a Preset, use the Save BFD2 Preset func- tion on the Control bar Save menu. A system file save dialog is displayed, prompting you to save the Preset to disk. The suggested filename used for the Preset is that defined in the Preset name box, although you can type a new filename if you wish. When you are happy with the filename and location, hit ENTER or click the Save button. Save location When you save your own Presets, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder as follows: <user location>/Presets It is recommended that you stick to this location, so that your Presets are acces- sible whenever you use the Preset chooser. Wherever you save the Preset, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned. Preset photo When you save a Preset, a TGA graphic file is saved along with it, showing images of the kit-pieces it contains. This photo is then visible in the Preset chooser panel during future browsing. Elements saved with Presets When you save a Preset, all the following elements are saved with it: • Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups) • Mixer... -
Page 22: 1:9 Bfd2 Help Functions
1:9 BFD2 Help functions BFD2 offers a number of different help methods to make learning the software as painless as possible. Context info display The context info display in the BFD2 Status bar shows information about the control element currently underneath the mouse cursor. This also displays the current values of controls, and updates to show any adjustments made while they are adjusted. Tool-tips Tool-tips are shown when the mouse is hovered over a control for a definable length of time. This time is set in the BFD2 GUI preferences, and is defined in animation frames. A setting of 25 is roughly equivalent to 1 second. If you prefer, you can switch off tool-tips in the BFD2 GUI preferences. Help menu Clicking the Help button on the BFD Control bar displays the Help menu. Launch PDF Manual This function launches the BFD2 PDF manual in your system’s PDF reader. Start BFD2 setup wizard The BFD2 setup wizard is provided as an easy way to set up BFD2’s prefer- ences in order to achieve the best performance for your particular system. When you use the Start BFD2 setup wizard function on the Help menu, the setup wizard panel is displayed. Amplitude scaled response This item affects Vel to Amp default amount setting in the BFD2 Engine preferences. With an amplitude-scaled response, the default Vel to Amp amount is set at 50%, meaning that whenever a kit-piece is initialized – in other words, when it has just been cleared – the Vel to Amp amount is set to 50%. Therefore, when you subsequently load a kit-piece, it is fully amplitude-scaled with incoming velocity. If you un-tick this checkbox, the default Vel to Amp amount is set at 0%: no amplitude scaling is applied when a slot is initialized. If you want to specify other values for the Vel to Amp default amount preference, it is necessary to adjust the preference itself. This computer is connected to the internet Ticking this checkbox enables the Launch web browser for images setting in the BFD2 GUI options. This results in launching fac-... -
Page 23: Getting Further Help With Bfd2
When moving a control I like to drag... [up and down / around (circular)] Setting this item to ‘up and down’ requires vertical mouse movement to adjust circular knobs in BFD2, while setting it to ‘around (circular)’ requires circular mouse movement. The preference that this item affects – Circular knob movement – is located in the BFD2 GUI preferences. My main host application is... [BFD2 Standalone / various plugin hosts] This item affects the -2 octave numbering and -1 octave numbering settings in the BFD2 GUI preferences. If you select the BFD2 standalone here, the -2 octave system of note numbering is used. If you choose one of the other hosts in the list, the note num- bering preferences are set accordingly. I am a... [keyboard/finger drummer / e-drummer / drum programmer] I use a... -
Page 24: Chapter 02: Kit Page
chapter 02 KIT PAGE building and adjusting your kit 2:1 Kit page overview 1. Loading and saving kits – 2:3, 2:4 Use the Load and Save menus in order to load and save kits. 2. Kit Size – 2:2 This selector lets you choose between 10, 18 and 32 piece kits. 3. Kit display – 2:5 This changes for each kit size. Click a kit-piece in the display in order to select it. Each kit-piece in the display flashes when it is played. 4. Kit-piece slots and loading kit-pieces – 2:5, 2:6, 2:7 The number of kit-piece slots shown depends on the kit size. Each slot features a controls for loading a kit-piece into the slot and clearing its contents, as well as trim and direct pan controls. -
Page 25: 2:2 Kit Size
2:2 Kit Size You can choose between 3 kit sizes using the selector buttons on the toolbar. All slots have an intended purpose – when the kit-piece chooser panel is displayed for each slot, it sets the Type and Search controls to show the intended variety of kit-piece. However, you can load any kit-piece into any slot by changing the Type and Search criteria. 10-piece kit Kick1 Snare 1 Hihat Floor Tom Mid Tom High Tom Crash 1 Cymbal 1 Ride 1 Perc When the load kit-piece button is clicked for the tom slots, the kit- piece chooser defaults to the appropriate type of tom by setting the search criteria automatically as required. To view all toms, clear the search text-box. When loading a kit-piece into the cymbal slots, the kit-piece chooser defaults to the intended cymbal type by putting the relevant search criteria automatically into the search text-box. To view all cymbals, clear the search text-box. The Cymbal 1 slot (slot 8) chooser defaults to showing all cymbals. 18-piece kit Kick 1 Kick Snare Snare 1 Hihat Perc... -
Page 26: 32-Piece Kit
32-piece kit Kick 1 Kick Perc Perc Snare 1 Snare Perc Perc 10 Hihat Perc Perc Perc 11 Floor Tom Tom (all toms) Perc Perc 1 Mid Tom Tom (all toms) Perc Perc 1 High Tom... -
Page 27: 2:3 Loading And Saving In The Kit Page
Kit-pieces (section 2:6) You can load individual kit-pieces into the available slots in order to build a custom kit. This is achieved via the Load buttons on each kit- piece slot, or by double-clicking anywhere in a slot. You can also use the kit-piece quick-load controls at the top of the kit-piece inspector as an alternative way of loading kit-pieces. Kit-piece presets (section 2:9) These are presets of kit-piece inspector settings for each kit-piece class – kicks, snares, hihats, toms, cymbals and percussion. Kit-piece presets are saved using the ‘Save kit-piece preset’ function on the BFD2 Load menu in the control bar. You can load kit-piece presets via the kit-piece preset loading controls, located in the kit- piece inspector. BFD2 Presets (section 1:7) You can also load BFD2 Presets using the Load menu on the BFD2 Control bar. Presets contain a snapshot of the entire state of BFD2. In the Preset chooser you can load any or all of the following: • Kit (kit-pieces and kit-piece setups) • Mixer • Groove Palette • Keymap • Automation map • Session preferences Rather than be able to load default kits, mixer presets, Grooves and mappings when the software is launched, BFD2 instead only allows you to set up a default Preset to load whenever it is launched. This is to avoid having too many default settings specified, and also due to the sheer variety of possible kit, mixer and mapping setups that might conflict with each other. Saving in the Kit page You can save the following using the Save menu:... -
Page 28: 2:4 Loading And Saving Kits
Click to load the selected kit All available kits are displayed with an image representing its contents. To see more information about a kit, click it to select it. Detailed information about the kit and a larger photo is displayed in the inspector to the right. To load a kit, select it by clicking on it and then click the Load button. You can also double-click any kit in the listing in order to load it. A kit file stores a set of kit-pieces in either of the 3 available kit sizes, as well as further settings in the Kit page, such as Link and kit-piece inspector setups. Controls in the kit chooser panel Load Audio Only button You can choose to load only the kit-pieces in a kit by clicking the ‘Load Audio only’ button. Leaving this button off results in a kit’s Link and kit-piece inspector settings being loaded with it. Slot Load switches The Slot Load switches allow you to specify which kit-piece slots are replaced by new sounds and settings from the loaded Kit. Turning off a Slot Load switch results in the current contents of that slot re- maining unchanged when a kit is loaded. View size This drop-down menu selects the size of kit images shown in the chooser panel. A range of settings are available, including text-only displays. Larger sizes result in larger photos but re- quires more use of the scrollbars in order to view all the available kits. The ‘List’ and ‘Details’ settings result in faster operation due to the fact that images are not displayed. You can still see a photo for the kit by selecting it – its details are displayed in the inspector. This setting is recalled between sessions. Its state is stored in the BFD2 preferences – therefore, if you re-initialize your BFD2 preferences this setting is returned to the default ‘Standard’ size. - Page 29 Sorting With this drop-down menu you can sort kits either by name or by star rating. Rating your favourite kits and sorting chooser contents by Star rating can make it easier to find your favourite kits. This setting is recalled between sessions. Its state is stored in the BFD2 preferences – therefore, if you re-initialize your BFD2 preferences this setting is returned to the default (sorting by ‘Name’). Search The kit chooser panel includes a search facility in order to narrow down the amount of kits shown in the chooser panel. Quick-search Useful search terms are stored in the quick-search drop-down menu to the left of the Search text-box. Delete kit-piece from database Clicking this button removes the selected kit from the BFD2 database. This feature is provided if you find you have too many kits and you want to get rid of those which may not be to your taste, making kits you do like easier to find in the chooser panel. You are asked for confirmation before you can continue. If you choose to remove a user kit from the database, you are also asked if you want to remove the kit files from disk – if you click ‘Yes’, the kit file and its associated photo are deleted from the <user location>/BFD2/Kits folder. If you click ‘No’, the kit’s files re- main untouched. If you leave user kit files on disk, they are scanned during the next full rescan of the database (Trash and rebuild all databases in the BFD2 Data preferences). BFD2 never prompts to delete factory-installed kit files. Note that this function always leaves the actual kit-piece audio files untouched – if you want to delete these to recoup hard disk space, you must go into BFD2’s audio folder and delete the relevant folders. Sticky button Enabling the Sticky button results in the kit chooser panel remaining open after a kit is loaded. This is useful if, for example, BFD2 is playing a sequence or Groove and you want to repeatedly change kits until you find what you need. Clicking the Sticky button saves you having to keep opening the kit chooser panel. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected kit, click the Load button. You can also load any kit in the listing by double-clicking it. If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new kit, click the Cancel button. Keyboard operation You can navigate around the available kits with the cursor (arrow) keys.
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Page 30: Saving Kits
• I nvalid kit-pieces are shown in red – this usually means that the kit-pieces have not been authorized or are somehow corrupt. If you suspect they are not authorized, exit BFD2 and run the FXpansion License Manager to verify their authorization status. If necessary, authorize the expansion pack containing the kit-pieces. Then re-run BFD2. It may also be necessary to trash and rebuild the BFD2 database. Import BFD1 kit Original BFD kits are very different types of files to the kit files used in BFD2. Because of this they are not shown in the kit selector panel, even if you have specified a BFD data path containing kits made for BFD 1.0 or 1.5. However, BFD2 gives you the ability to import BFD kit files to the BFD2 database. To do this, click the BFD1 Kit Import button to bring up a system file open dialog. Then browse to and select one or more BFD1 kit files that you want to import. The kits are converted into BFD2 format and added into the database so that they can be loaded in the kit chooser. If you specify that you are a BFD1.x user during the BFD2 setup wizard, BFD2 automatically imports any BFD1.x kit files it finds in the current data paths. Saving kits Use the Save Kit... item in the BFD2 Save menu in order to save the current kit. Clicking this menu item opens a system file save dialog allowing you to save the kit to any location. Save location When you save your own kits, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder at the following location: <user location>/Kits We recommend that you save your kits into this folder in order for them to be vis- ible in the Kit chooser panel. Wherever you save the kit, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database and you trash and rebuild your database, items not saved in the user location are not rescanned. Kit Photo When you save a kit, a TGA graphic file is saved along with it, showing images of the kit-pieces it contains. This photo is visible in the kit chooser panel during future use. -
Page 31: 2:5 Kit Display And Kit-Piece Slot Windows
2:5 Kit display and kit-piece slot windows Kit display Slot windows Kit display The kit display serves a number of purposes in the Kit page. Visual representation of the current kit The kit shown differs depending on the current kit size. See section 2:2 for details of the 3 kit sizes. When the mouse cursor is moved over a part of the kit in the display, its corresponding slot window is highlighted (this behaviour can be turned off in the BFD2 GUI preferences using the Connect kit and slot setting). Kit-piece event indicators When a kit-piece receives a MIDI, Groove or preview event, its surface flashes in the kit display to indicate that it has been played. Kit-piece audition Click on a kit-piece in the kit-display in order to hear a preview of the main articulation in the kit-piece (hit, or closed tip for hihats) at a velocity of 95. In order to preview any articulation at any velocity, use the Audition strip in the kit-piece inspector’s articulation control section. Selecting a kit-piece ALT-click on any kit-piece in the kit display in order to select it without auditioning it. -
Page 32: Kit-Piece Slot Windows
Slot number Load kit-piece Image Selected slot Trim Clear Direct Mute & kit-piece Solo Each available kit-piece slot window in the display shares some common features. Kit Display highlight When the mouse cursor is moved over any slot window, its corresponding part of the kit display is highlighted. Selecting a kit-piece When using the Select tool, clicking on a kit-piece slot selects it, and its settings are displayed in the kit-piece inspector. If you enable the Select triggers preview setting in the BFD2 GUI preferences, clicking a kit-piece slot window to select it also results in an audition being heard. Load kit-piece The Load button opens the kit-piece chooser panel. You can also double-click anywhere on the slot in order to open the chooser panel. See section 2:6 for more details on loading kit-pieces. Clear kit-piece This button removes any kit-piece currently loaded into the slot. Image The main part of the slot window shows a photo of the loaded kit-piece. If the slot is empty, a generic grey picture of the sug- gested kit-piece type is shown. Trim The trim control is a global volume control for the kit-piece. Adjusting it affects the level of all the kit-piece’s mic channels equally. You can think of it as a ‘pre’ volume control - it sets the level of the kit-piece at the start of the signal path, before any routing and mixing features are applied. -
Page 33: Overview
Kit-piece listing: click to select or double-click to load Preview & Info Click to load the selected kit-piece Click on a kit-piece to select it. You can preview individual articulations at any velocity before loading the kit-piece. Once the de- sired kit-piece is selected, click the Load button to load it into the slot. You can also double-click a kit-piece in order to load it. To return to the Kit page without loading a new kit-piece, click the Cancel button. BFD2 also offers the kit-piece quick-load controls in the kit-piece inspector, for fast browsing through available kit-pieces without opening the chooser panel. See section 2:9 for details. You can also load kit-pieces in various ways in the Mixer and Grooves pages. Each slot is intended for a specific type of kit-piece. By default, the Type drop-down menu and Search criteria are set so that the chooser panel shows the relevant kit-piece type. If you try to load a kit-piece into the Ride 1 slot for example, Type is set to ‘Cym- bal’ and “Ride” is used as the Search criteria. However, you can load any type of kit-piece into any slot. Simply change the Type and Search settings in order to change the displayed kit-piece type. Controls in the kit-piece chooser panel View size This drop-down menu selects the size of kit-piece images shown in the chooser panel. A range of settings are available, including text-only displays. Larger sizes result in larger pho- tos but requires more use of the scrollbars in order to view all the available items. The ‘List’... - Page 34 Sorting Using this drop-down menu you can sort kit-pieces in the listing by the following criteria: • Manufacturer • Star rating • Articulation count • Kit-piece class • Disk size • Name Rating your favourite kits and sorting chooser contents by ‘Star rating’ can make it easier to find your favourite kit-pieces. This setting is used for all kit-piece slot choosers, and is recalled between sessions. Its state is stored in the BFD2 preferences – therefore, if you re-initialize your BFD2 preferences this setting is returned to the default (‘Manufacturer’). Type This drop-down menu specifies the type of kit-piece displayed in the current kit-piece slot’s chooser panel. When a slot’s kit-piece selector panel is opened, only kit-pieces that correspond to the slot’s intended purpose are displayed. However, by changing the kit-piece type you can load any kit-piece into any slot. Please note that there are certain important things to bear in mind when loading different types of kit-pieces into slots in this way. Please see the ‘Building unorthodox kits’ sub-section below for usage guidelines. Search The kit-piece chooser panel includes a search facility in order to narrow down the amount of kit-pieces shown in the listing. Quick-search Useful search terms are stored in the quick-search drop-down menu to the left of the Search text-box. Delete kit-piece from database Clicking this button removes the selected kit-piece from the BFD2 database. Please note that the kit-piece’s audio files...
- Page 35 Import Clicking this button opens the sample import panel. BFD2 allows you to create single-articulation mono or stereo kit-pieces with multiple velocity layers from a set of one of more samples. See section 2:7 for a full guide to using this feature. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected kit-piece, click the Load button. You can also double-click any kit-piece in the listing in order to load it. If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new kit-piece into the slot, click the Cancel button. Keyboard operation You can navigate around the available kit-pieces with the cursor (arrow) keys. The selected kit-piece can be deleted from the database by pressing the DELETE key. Load the selected kit-piece by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key. To exit the kit-piece chooser panel without loading anything, press the ESC key. Preview & Info The preview and info area displays information about the selected kit-piece, as well as allow- ing you to rate it and audition its articulations. Photo/Preview tab • photo & star rating The large kit-piece photo is especially useful if you are using the ‘List’ or ‘Details’ views. Above the photo is the star rating control, with which you can rate the kit-piece by clicking on one of the stars. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system when the Sorting method is set to ‘Star rating’: kit-pieces are shown in order of their rating. Please note that you can also set a kit-piece’s rating when it is loaded, in the kit-piece Inspector. Whichever of theses methods you use to rate a kit-piece, the change is applied immediately to the BFD2 database. • preview Each articulation present within the selected kit-piece can be previewed by clicking its Audi- tion strip. Click towards the left of the strip for lower velocity layers, and towards the right for...
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Page 36: Possible Problems When Loading
Building unorthodox kits Even though each slot in all 3 kit sizes have suggested purposes, BFD2 allows virtually unlimited freedom when building kits. This is achieved by changing the setting in the Type selector in the kit-piece chooser panels. Potential issues While being able to freely build your kit can yield some great creative ideas, you should be aware of these potential issues: 1. Articulation mappings Because different kit-pieces have different numbers of articulations, you can create discrepancies between the kit and the key- map. If you load a snare into a tom slot, for instance, the slot contains 5 articulations instead of 1. These extra articulations need to be keymapped before they can be played via MIDI. If, on the other hand, you load a tom into a snare slot, any mappings which exist for the snare which do not have a logical equiva- lent for a tom ‘fall back’ to a suitable available tom articulation. It is not recommended to load different types of kit-pieces into the Hihat slot. This slot is specially designed to load hihats, and there is no real reason to load any other type of kit-piece into this slot. If you have an electronic drumkit, you should be aware that the Hihat slot is the only slot that supports variable hihat control. 2. Grooves Even though Groove events do not rely on articulations being mapped, they are nevertheless usually intended for a certain type of kit-piece articulation. In the vast majority of cases, Grooves are designed for kits that follow suggested kit-piece slot uses. How- ever, you may sometimes come across Grooves that come with a BFD2 preset specifically designed for them. Like articulation mappings, Groove events fall back intelligently to suitable articulations in the loaded kit-piece, so this can be good for experimentation. Please bear in mind, however, that a Groove simply may not make sense when played with a complete- ly different type of kit composition. Solution: save BFD2 Presets Because of the large number of variables when building unconventional kits, it is recommended that after you have set up the kit and mixer the way you want it, mapped the available articulations as required and so on, you should save a BFD2 Preset using the Save menu on the BFD2 Control bar. This function saves the entire state of BFD2, and therefore saves all current BFD2 set- tings. It is much more convenient to save a BFD2 Preset file instead of having to save Kit, Mixer and MIDI presets that correspond to one another. When loading BFD2 Presets, you can choose to only load selective elements from those saved in each Preset file, which are applied to the current BFD2 environment where suitable. For more details on loading and saving BFD2 Presets, please see sections 1:4 and 1:5. -
Page 37: 37 2:7 Importing Your Own Sounds Into Bfd2
2:7 Importing your own sounds into BFD2 BFD2 allows you to import mono or stereo WAV files to make your own single-articulation kit-pieces, which can have multiple velocity layers. There are a number of things to be aware of when using kit-pieces created with the Sample Import function: • T here can be only 1 articulation in the kit-piece. It can be either one amplitude-scaled sample, or multiple samples for velocity layers. • T hey only produce sound in the direct bus. There is no facility for ambience channels such as those within BFD2’s factory sounds. However, you can of course use the mixer’s routing functions to send the audio for further processing on an aux chan- nel, for example. • O nly 1 channel is active for the kit-piece slot on the mixer, no matter what Kit-Piece slot is used, unless it is loaded into the kick1 or snare1 slots. • S amples can be mono or stereo, but you cannot use a combination of mono and stereo samples in the same imported kit-piece. Sample Import panel In order to create a kit-piece from a set of one or more samples, you must open the Sample Import panel. First, open the kit-piece chooser panel for any kit-piece slot. Click the Import button on the panel in order to open the Sample Import panel. Import settings Velocity layers Photo settings Progress Import &... -
Page 38: Photo Settings
Photo settings You can specify any JPEG, PNG or TGA image file as a photo to associate with the kit-piece. If no image is specified, a default image is used. Browse button Clicking the browse button opens a system file open dialog allowing you to browse to a JPEG, PNG or TGA file to specify as the imported kit-piece’s photo. The file must have a resolution of 180x150 pixels. Clear button Clicking this button removes the photo currently specified for the kit-piece. Velocity layers This is where you add samples, and sort them into the desired order, going from the highest velocity layer at the top of the list, to the lowest layer at the bottom. Add Layer(s) Click this button to add a sample. Any mono or stereo WAV file can be selected, but it must be at a sample rate of 44.1kHz, at a bit depth of either 16 or 24 bit. If only one sample is specified, BFD2 automatically scales the amplitude of the sample with incoming velocity – this has the same effect as turning the Vel to Amp control to maximum. If you specify two or more layers, BFD2 splits the samples proportionally across the velocity range as normal. Any amplitude scal- ing needs to be dialled in manually with the Vel to Amp control after the kit-piece is loaded. Remove Layer(s) With a sample selected, click this button to remove the selected sample from the list of velocity layers. Move layer up By clicking this button you can move the selected sample up the list of velocity layers: it changes places with the sample immedi- ately above it. Move layer down By clicking this button you can move the selected sample down the list of velocity layers: it changes places with the sample im- mediately below it. Import & Cancel When you have finished arranging samples in the list, click the Import button to save the user kit-piece into the database. -
Page 39: 2:8 Kit Page Toolbar
2:8 Kit page toolbar The toolbar on the left of the interface provides a number of functions in the Kit Display. Select The Select tool is the default tool in the Kit Display. It allows you to select kit-piece slots by clicking on them. You can also ALT-click a kit-piece slot in order to preview its main articulation (hit, or closed tip for hihats) at a velocity of 95. If you prefer, this audition function can operate in a similar way to the articulation Audition strip, although restricted to the main articulation only. Enable the Left-right velocity-scaled preview support setting in the BFD2 GUI preferences if you want the audition to work in this way. If you enable the Select triggers preview setting in the BFD2 GUI preferences, clicking a kit-piece slot window (rather than ALT-clicking) auditions it as well as selecting it. Link This tool allows you to link two kit-pieces together for layering purposes. To link two kit-pieces while in Link mode, click and drag one of the kit-pieces onto the other. When the source kit-piece is selected, an arrow showing the link to the destination kit- piece is displayed between the two slots. While the source kit-piece is deselected, a small indicator arrow is shown on its slot. When you trigger the source kit-piece, the linked destination kit-piece is triggered. If it is the same kit-piece type, the corresponding articulation is triggered. If the destination kit- piece is a different type of kit-piece to the linked source, BFD2 tries to trigger an articula- tion with the same name. If this does not exist, the first articulation is played (‘hit’ or ‘closed tip’ for hihats). Removing a link To remove a link, right-click on the source kit-piece (where the arrow is coming from). A list of links from this kit-piece are shown in the context menu that appears. Click on the link that you want to remove in order to break the link. Linking the snare to the percussion slot. The kick already has a link set up. -
Page 40: 2:9 Kit-Piece Inspector
Utility panel, when selecting kit-piece direct channels controls in the mixer. Ambience Photo & star rating sends The photo indicates the currently selected kit-piece. The star rating control allows you to rate the kit-piece. Advanced kit- This is used as a ‘favourites’ system in the kit-piece piece controls chooser panels when the ‘Sorting’ method is set to ‘Star rating’. When a kit-piece is rated in this way, the rating is Kit-piece bleed saved in the BFD2 database immediately. controls Kit-piece quick-load controls The kit-piece quick-load controls provide an alternative to the kit-piece choosers for loading kit-pieces into the Articulation currently selected slot. controls When the slot is empty, the available kit-pieces cor- respond to the suggested use for the slot. However, if you load a different type of kit-piece into the slot, the quick-load controls allow access to this type. Previous Next Kit-piece selector Click the kit-piece name to display a drop-down selector menu featuring all available kit-piec- es for the intended slot type. Click on the desired kit-piece to load it. -
Page 41: Basic Kit-Piece Controls
Next/Previous buttons Clicking these buttons steps through to the next or previous available preset. They offer a quick way of cycling through presets with the minimum of effort. Saving kit-piece presets In order to save the currently selected kit-piece’s settings as a preset, click the Save button on BFD2’s control-bar. Click on ‘Save kit-piece preset’ from the Save menu that appears. A system file save dialog is shown, allowing you to name and save your preset. It is recom- mended that you save the preset in the default folder which is shown, so that it is acces- sible from the preset browser. Kit-piece presets are not part of the BFD2 database. They are stored in the following folder: <user location>/Kit Pieces Basic kit-piece controls Trim The trim control is a global volume control for the kit-piece. Adjusting it affects the level of all the kit-piece’s mic channels equally. You can think of it as a ‘pre’ volume control - it sets the level of the kit-piece at the start of the signal path, before any routing and mixing features are applied. This control is duplicated in the individual kit-piece slot windows. The pan control sets the pan position of the kit-piece within the direct bus. It does not affect the stereo position of the kit-piece in its ambience channels. This control is duplicated in the individual kit-piece slot windows, and on the primary direct channel for the kit-piece in the Mixer page. Mute & Solo With these buttons, you can mute and solo all mic channels for the kit-piece. These controls are duplicated in the individual kit-piece slot windows. Flip Ambience Because the ambient mic buses are stereo, you can encounter problems when panning the Direct mic channels for a Kit-Piece. The position of the Kit-Piece within the stereo field of the ambient mic buses cannot be changed - this is an inherent drawback of true stereo ambience. However, activating the Flip Ambience button results in the Kit-Piece’s Overhead, Room and PZM left/right channels being swapped around. Using this method, the Kit-Piece’s ambient reflections can at least be inverted if you decide to alter the direct panning so that it is predominantly in the other half of the stereo field. -
Page 42: Ambience Sends
Ambience sends By adjusting the OH Send, Room Send and Amb3 Send controls, you can control the level of the currently selected kit-piece’s ambience channels – Overhead, Room and Amb3. You can also set up custom routing of each type of ambience for the selected kit-piece. It is important to realise that these are ‘artificial’ controls: you would not have such control in a real-world drum recording situation. However, the creative possibilities are too great to omit this functionality. As described in the Mixer page chapter (see section 3:3), you can think of the Send level Routing Ambience buses as stereo reverb returns. With this analogy in mind, these selector controls form the sends to those reverb units. However, this is not a reverb send at all – the reverb is real recorded stereo ambience alongside direct signals in BFD2’s mul- tichannel audio files. You cannot pan the kit-piece in the ambience channels (apart from inverting the stereo image with the Flip Ambience button), or change any characteristics of the ambience, beyond processing its signals further or using the parameters in the Mic Tools panel, part of the Mixer page’s Utility panel. The following controls are available for each of the 3 ambience sends: Send level There are 3 send level controls, for the Overhead, Room and Amb3 ambience types. Each control dictates the level of that type of ambience for the current kit-piece. Routing selector By default, all ambience signals for all kit-pieces are routed to the 3 ambience bus channels in the BFD2 mixer. You can, however, override these settings and route the OH, Room or Amb3 signals for any kit-piece to any currently available aux channel. Note that there are no aux channels set up by default: you need to create them in the mixer first before you can route signals to them. Note that these settings can lead to issues when using mixer presets – see the subsection entitled ‘Varying channels between mixer presets’ in section 3:2. Advanced kit-piece controls Damping BFD allows virtual control over damping, very much like putting a blanket or pillow inside a kick drum, or placing objects which absorb vibrations onto the surface of a snare or tom. -
Page 43: Kit-Piece Bleed Controls
Kit-piece bleed controls In BFD2, bleed is the sound of other kit-pieces picked up by the kick 1 and snare 1 direct mics. In real-world situations, bleed occurs across all direct mics. For various reasons, bleed only exists within BFD2 in the kick and snare mic channels. For further details on bleed, please see sections 1:2, 3:3, and 12:1. Bleed destination The Bleed destination buttons allow you to route the kick and snare bleed for the kit-piece in one of three ways: Bleed is routed as normal to the kick 1 and snare 1 mixer channels. Direct The kit-piece’s bleed is routed to its primary direct mic channel. Therefore, there would be no bleed from the kit-piece in the kick1 and snare1 mic channels, except their own respective bleed signals. The kit-piece’s bleed is turned off completely. Bleed trim You can adjust the level of the kit-piece’s bleed signals with this control. Changing overall bleed levels You can change overall bleed levels by using the master bleed controls in the Mic Tools panel, part of the Mixer page’s Utility panel. Articulation controls BFD2 allows you to set up a number of parameters for each articulation in the selected kit-piece. Firstly, select the articulation that you want to tweak using the selector, or select ‘All’ in order to affect all articulations in the selected kit-piece. Articulation selector The Articulation selector drop-down menu is used to select which articulation in the current kit-piece to adjust. If you want to edit settings for all articulations Articulation in the kit-piece, select ‘All’ in the menu. selector Audition strip The Audition strip plays the selected articulation when clicked. The velocity... - Page 44 Vel to Amp default During the BFD2 setup wizard which runs when you first launch BFD2, you are asked if you want an amplitude-scaled response. Your choice initializes the state of the Vel to Amp default amount preference. If you choose a natural response – a Vel to Amp setting of 0% – there is no amplitude scaling with different velocities within BFD2: the velocity layer samples, played at varying degrees of force, take care of the ‘loudness’ over the velocity range. If you choose an amplitude-scaled response during the setup wizard, the Vel to Amp default is set to +100%. This means that the amplitude scales down to silence over the velocity range. Setting up this preference is a good idea if you want to have a more ‘conventional’ dynamic response for BFD2’s sounds without having to set the Vel to Amp parameter for each articulation in each kit-piece after you load it, or load a suitable kit-piece preset. This preference can be fine-tuned in the Engine preferences, where you can specify a default Vel to Amp amount between -100% and +100%. Vel to Tune This control allows the tuning of each articulation to vary depending on the incoming note velocity. There are a lot of uses for this control, from extreme creative effects to very subtle changes which can give some extra character to the sound of the kit. Settings range from -100% to 100%. This parameter can have positive and negative values for increases and decreases in pitch with higher velocities. Vel to Damp Adjusting this setting allows the amount of damping applied to the articulation to be varied according to the velocity of incoming note events. Any changes in the damping applied to each articulation as a result of this parameter are relative to the kit-piece’s overall damp- ing amount setting. Settings range from -100% to 100%. This parameter can have positive and negative values for increases and decreases in the damping amount with higher velocities. Vel RND The Vel RND control allows you to control the amount of humanization applied to each articulation of a kit-piece when using any of the humanization features in BFD2. Settings range from 0% to 100%. To turn off randomization completely for an articulation, set this parameter to 0%. It can be useful to turn off randomization for articulations or kit-pieces when using lower Max velocity layers and detail settings...
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Page 45: 45 2:10 Mini-Mixer
2:10 Mini-mixer Master dynamics, The mini-mixer allows you to blend between the Master tune and ambience channels and the direct master bus, Humanize controls as well as offering global control over tuning, dynamics and humanization for the kit. Please note that if you need to control the over- all volume of BFD2, the easiest way to do so is by using the BFD2 main volume on the Control bar – see section 1:2 for details. Mixer Mixer The mini-mixer provides simple mixing control to let you blend the direct and ambience chan- nels without having to switch to the Mixer view. Direct master bus The Direct master bus consists of all kit-piece’s direct mic channels. This mic bus does not have a dedicated channel on the main BFD2 mixer, although you can easily set one up by creating an Aux channel and routing the direct mic channels for all kit-pieces to it. The Direct master level can, however, be accessed on the Mic tools panel, part of the Mixer page Utility panel. Ambience channels The three Ambience channel level parameters are for the Overhead, Room and Amb3 ambience channels. These are shortcuts to the actual ambience channels that exist in the main Mixer page. Note that, unlike the Direct fader, they do not represent the ‘virtual’ mic buses for ambience types. Since these are shortcuts to the main mixer’s ambience channels, they do not affect ambience signals that have been custom routed to aux channels. For example, if you route a kit-piece’s Room signal to an aux channel, the Room fader in the Mini-mixer does not affect this signal. Mini-mixer controls Level fader This fader sets the gain of the channel. It includes momentary peak level indicators as well as red clip indicators – click these to... -
Page 46: 2:11 Midi Note Learn Wizard
2:11 MIDI Note Learn wizard The MIDI Learn Wizard is provided so that you can quickly assign MIDI mappings by playing the notes for each articulation on your MIDI input device. If you intend to use an electronic drumkit for hihat control, it is recommended that you refer to chapters 8 and 9, which deal with manual mapping and configuring BFD2 to respond to specialized electronic drumkit control systems. Initializing the MIDI learn wizard Click the Note Learn button in the Kit page toolbar to activate the Note Learn tool. Then click on a kit-piece slot in order to map its articulations to notes via MIDI learn. A kit-piece must be loaded into the slot in order to perform this function. 1. MIDI note request Upon clicking a kit-piece, the MIDI Learn wizard appears, prompting you to play the desired MIDI key for the kit-piece’s first articulation (‘Hit’, or ‘closed tip’ for hihats). Simply play the MIDI key you want to map to the articulation. Next / Done button If you do not want to map the current articulation, click the Next button to move onto the next articulation if one exists. If there are no more articulations and no more kit-pieces loaded in subsequent slots (if using Next Slot mode), the Next button is replaced by the Done button – click it to exit the wizard and return to the Kit page. Previous button If you have mapped an articulation and moved onto the next, but then change your mind about the last mapping you created, click the Previous button to go back and re-map it. Exit button To quit the wizard without mapping the current articulation, click the Exit button. 2. Accept time If a MIDI note is played in order to map the current articulation, the wizard enters the ‘accept time’ stage, and you are given 5 seconds to... -
Page 47: Next Slot Mode
Next slot mode If this mode is enabled, the wizard continues to the next occupied kit-piece slot after a kit-piece is mapped. This is repeated either until there are no more filled slots, or until the end of the kit is reached. The order of slots is dic- tated by the slot numbers – section 2:2 contains a summary of the slots in each kit size. To map the whole kit, click on the kick 1 slot (slot 1) and enable the Next Slot mode setting. This results in moving to the next kit- piece after the current one has been fully mapped. Next KP button If you do not want to map an articulation when in Next slot mode, and there are no more articulations in the current kit-piece but there are kit-pieces loaded into slots after the current slot in the kit, the ‘Next button’ is replaced by the ‘Next KP’ button – click it to move onto the next kit-piece. Wait mode By default, Wait mode is enabled, meaning that the wizard waits indefinitely for you to play a MIDI note during stage 1. When Wait mode is disabled, you are given a set amount of time – 15 seconds by default – to MIDI learn each articulation before the wizard moves onto the next one. If no MIDI note is received within this time, no assignment is made for that articulation. The amount of time available for each articulation is defined in the BFD2 MIDI preferences, with the MIDI Learn skip time setting. -
Page 48: Chapter 03: Mixer Page
3. Toolbar (section 3:4) The Mixer page toolbar lets you add and remove aux channels and reset the mixer. It also contains a global power button for BFD2’s internal FX, and a number of view settings for the mixer. 4. Utility panel (section 3:4) This multi-function panel provides access to a number of important functions in the Mixer page, by clicking the tab buttons at the top of the panel. • Send controls for each channel (section 3:8) • Mic tools, for mic bus and bleed control not covered by mixer channels (section 3:9) • M ixer preset panel, allows you to document and quickly browse through mixer presets (section 3:10) • Audio export settings (section 3:11) • K it-piece inspector – this lets you adjust kit-piece settings without having to switch back to the Kit page. All kit-piece inspector settings are available, with the exception of the articulation controls. (section 2:9) 5. FX rack (section 3:7) The FX rack shows the contents of the 4 FX slots for the currently selected mixer channel. A full suite of high quality audio FX is built into BFD2. How to approach mixing This chapter explains how to use BFD2’s mixer. However, it does not tell you how to mix, or how to use the built-in FX processors. Chapter 12 contains a comprehensive overview of drum mixing and harnessing BFD2’s FX suite to create great sounding drum tracks. It is, of course, advisable to first read this chapter to become familiar with using the mixer so that you are in a position to be able to accomplish whatever drum mixing techniques you need. -
Page 49: 3:2 Loading And Saving In The Mixer Page
3:2 Loading and Saving in the Mixer page Loading mixer presets To load mixer presets (also known as mixers in BFD2), click the Load button in the BFD2 Control bar and click on Load Mixer... on the Load menu that appears. This opens the mixer preset chooser panel. Note that you can also use the mixer preset panel, located in the Utility panel, in order to load, docu- ment and rate mixer presets – see section 3:10. Mixer Preset chooser panel Delete mixer preset from database Sticky button Mixer preset listing: click to select or double- Photo & click to load Star rating... - Page 50 Search The search facility allows you to narrow down the amount of presets shown in the chooser panels. Delete mixer preset from database Clicking this button removes the selected mixer preset from the BFD2 database. This feature is provided if you find you have too many presets and you want to get rid of those which may not be to your taste, making presets you do like easier to find. You are asked for confirmation before you can continue. If you choose to remove a user preset from the database, you are also asked if you want to remove the preset files from disk – if you click ‘Yes’, the mixer preset file and its associated photo are deleted from the <user location>/BFD2/Mixers folder. If you click ‘No’, the preset’s files remain untouched. If you leave user kit files on disk, they are scanned during the next full rescan of the database (Trash and rebuild all databases in the BFD2 Data preferences). BFD2 never prompts to delete factory-installed mixer preset files from disk. Sticky Enabling the Sticky button results in the mixer preset chooser panel remaining open after a preset is loaded. This is useful if, for example, BFD2 is playing a sequence or Groove and you want to repeatedly change mixers until you find what you need. Clicking the Sticky button saves you having to keep opening the mixer preset chooser panel. Note that you can also use the mixer preset panel in order to quickly load and cycle through available mixer presets in the data- base. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected preset, click the Load button. You can also double-click any mixer preset in the listing in order to load it. If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to change the current mixer, click the Cancel button to return to the Mixer page. Keyboard operation You can navigate around the available mixer presets with the cursor (arrow) keys. The selected preset can be deleted from the database by pressing the DELETE key. Load the selected preset by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key. To exit the mixer preset chooser panel without loading anything, press the ESC key. Photo & Star rating The large photo can be associated with a preset with the mixer preset panel (see section 3:10). It is especially useful if you are using the ‘List’ or ‘Details’ views.
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Page 51: Saving Mixer Presets
Saving Mixer presets Using the Save Mixer... function on the Control bar Save menu shows a system Save dialog allowing you to save the current mixer to any location. Save location When you save your own Mixer presets, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder as follows: <user location>/Mixers We recommend that you save your kits into this folder in order for them to be visible in the mixer preset chooser panel and the mixer preset panel in the Utility panel. Wherever you save the mixer, it is added to the BFD2 database and shown in the panels used to load mixers. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database and you trash and rebuild your database, items not saved in the recommended user location are not re-scanned. Wherever you save the preset, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned. Varying channels between mixer presets When loading a new mixer preset, only settings relevant to the current kit are applied. If any direct channels exist in a mixer preset for kit-piece slots that are currently empty, they are shown on the mixer but are shown in an ‘unused state’ – the coloured tab at the top of the channel is grey, and no kit-piece photo is shown. Once a kit-piece is loaded into the slot, it becomes active again. The kit-piece quick-load controls in the Utility panel’s kit-piece inspector provide an easy way of doing this without needing to switch back to the Kit page. You can also double-click the channel to bring up the kit-piece chooser panel for the kit-piece’s slot. If a kit-piece in the current kit has had its ambience channels re-routed to aux channels, these settings are reset if aux channels with the same name do not exist in the new preset. Note that even if the required aux channels do exist in the new preset, they may have been set up for a different purpose, so you may hear strange results. Custom ambience sends are an advanced mixing function provided for versatility, so it is recommended that you only use them only if you know exactly what you want to achieve without needing to load mixer presets. If you use them a lot when making your own presets, it is a good idea to formulate a consistent channel naming scheme when creating custom ambience routings – for example, ‘Kick OH’, ‘Snare OH+Rm’ and so on. Loading/saving channel presets You can save and load presets of individual mixer channel strips using the channel context menu. Please... -
Page 52: 3:3 Introduction To Bfd2 Mixer Channels
3:3 Introduction to BFD2 mixer channels Channel views BFD2 features two distinct channel strip views. Regular view This is the default channel strip view in BFD2. If the FX and Send slots are showing, disable the FX/Sends view button in the toolbar to switch to the Regular view. Regular view displays a long throw fader and any essential additional controls, such as mute, solo, Record-enable, phase flip and the channel context menu button. FX/Sends view If the Regular view is currently displayed, enable the FX/Sends view button in the toolbar in order to switch to the FX/Sends view. This view consists of a smaller fader section and a readout of the 4 effect and send slots. In addition, aux channels and the master channel have a couple of advanced controls for setting main input and sidechain trim. This view is designed to allow you to see the FX and sends of more than one channel simultaneously. If you do not need to do this you can stick to the Regular view, although if you Direct snare channels need to use the extra aux and master channel input and sidechain trim controls, you must switch in FX/Sends view to FX/Sends view. Types of channel strips in BFD2 Channel strips appear in the mixer dynamically, depending upon what kit-pieces are currently loaded and what mic channels they contain. There are various types of channel:... - Page 53 Unused direct channels A kit-piece’s direct channel can be in an unused state if: • no kit-pieces are loaded into the slot and no other kit-pieces’ bleed exists within it • a snare with 3 direct mic channels is replaced with one with 2 direct mic channels These channels still exist in the mixer and are simply inactive until they become used again. The coloured tab at the top of the channel strip turns grey instead of green or teal. Unused channels can be removed if you prefer, using the ‘Remove all unused’ function on the channel context menu. BFD2 also asks you if you want to remove unused channels when the Reset mixer function is used. Ambience channels Ambience channels appear in the mixer whenever a kit-piece is loaded into any slot. They can be hidden by deactivating the Ambience mixer view switch. To reveal them again, activate the button. There are three types of ambience channel in the BFD2 audio architecture: OverHead Stereo overhead mics in front of the kit. Room BFD2 features a Mid/Side Room set, located between the overheads and the main room mics. This captures the space of the room in a very useful way, making it possible to expand the stereo image or reduce it to true mono with very natural sounding results. The Mid/Side decoding is done at the voice level, so if you’re using sounds from other BFD libraries in BFD2, normal stereo Room channels can happily co-exist with BFD2 Mid/Side Room channels in the Room ambience channel. Amb3 The Amb3 bus is a combination of the third stereo ambience channel on all kit-pieces. BFD2 features a second set of room mics, much further back than the Mid/Side Room set, raised approximately 4.5m above the floor. This set of mics captures the size of the AIR Studios room with exceptional clarity and power. Ambience channels Previous BFD libraries features a set of PZM boundary mics on the floor on either side of the kit as the third stereo ambience channel. Whichever library you’re using, the third stereo ambient channel from each kit-piece is summed into the Amb3 ambience channel. Ambience versus reverb You can think of each Ambience bus as a stereo reverb return from a mono in, stereo out reverb processor unit. The sends are located in the Kit view, in the Kit-Piece Setup inspector. The difference is that the ambience is not generated by a reverb proces- sor at all – instead, it is real recorded room ambience. This means that you cannot change the characteristics of the ambience or change the placement of kit-pieces within the stereo spectrum, although the Distance parameter for each ambience bus produces an effect similar to a ‘pre-delay’ control on a digital reverb.
- Page 54 Aux channels exist in order to allow the creation of sub-mixes for parallel bus compression and other rout- ing and processing needs, such as when using sidechains with certain FX. To create an Aux channel, click the Add Aux button. A new aux channel strip appears in the mixer, and is available as an destination for custom ambience routing in the kit-piece inspector, and also as an output or send destination on suitable mixer channels. To be able to create an output or send routing to an aux channel, the source channel must be on the left of the destination aux channel. If you select multiple channels in the mixer and then click the Add Aux button while holding down the ALT key, an aux channel is created and the output routings of the selected channels are set to this new aux channel. Aux channels can be hidden by deactivating the Aux mixer view switch in the mixer toolbar. To reveal them again, activate the button. By default, aux channels are added to the mixer as stereo channels. They can be switched to mono using the mono/stereo switch on the Aux channel strip. In FX/Sends view, Aux channels have a couple of extra controls for the overall level of incoming input sig- nals and sidechain signals. These are useful if you have several sources fed into a single input and need to adjust their overall level instead of adjusting the send level for each source. Unused aux channels Like direct and ambience channels, an aux channel can be in an ‘unused’ state. This means that it is not a Aux channels destination for any output or send routings. (mono and stereo) Unlike unused direct and ambience channels, the coloured tab at the top of unused aux channels never turns grey – it always stays orange. However, like unused direct and ambience channels, unused aux channels can be removed via the the ‘Remove all unused’ func- tion on the channel context menu and the Reset mixer function. Master channel The master channel is a special aux channel that is compulsory. It is hard-wired to the first sterero output from BFD2. This channel cannot be removed even if you end up routing all channels to other outputs or aux channels. If you need to route a number of signals to a certain output and apply the same processing to them all together before the output, you must create an aux channel and set its output accordingly. The master channel is always at the far right of the mixer and cannot be moved. It also possesses no sends. Master channel...
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Page 55: 3:4 Mixer Toolbar And Utility Panel
3:4 Mixer toolbar and utility panel Reset Mixer Clicking the Reset mixer button resets all channel settings to their defaults, as well as removing any loaded FX and send settings completely. You are asked for confirmation before you can continue. If there are any unused channels in the current mixer, BFD2 also asks if you would like to remove them. Unused channels are kit-piece direct channels that are not being used by loaded kit-pieces or by bleed signals from other kit- pieces. Add Aux Clicking this button addds a stereo aux channel to the mixer. If you need a mono aux channel, click the mono/stereo button on the aux channel after it is added. If you select one or more channels in the mixer and then click the Add Aux button while holding down the ALT key, an aux channel is created and the output routing of the selected channel(s) is set to this new aux channel. Remove Aux To remove an aux channel from the mixer, first select the channel it, then click this button. FX Power The FX Power button is a global power button for all FX currently loaded into the mixer’s channels. It operates in addi- tion to the power buttons on each FX slot. Therefore, after turning the FX Power off and on again, any Power settings that previously existed remain untouched. Mixer view switches The switches at the bottom of the toolbar alter the appearance of the mixer in various ways. Signal The Signal view switch toggles the overlaid signal routing indicators which visually indicate output, send and sidechain routings. This view switch toggles the visibility of ambience channels in the mixer. Direct This view switch toggles the visibility of direct mic channels in the mixer. This view switch toggles the visibility of aux channels in the mixer. Utility The Utility view switch toggles visibility of the Utility panel (containing the Mic Tools, Sends inspector, mixer preset, audio export and kit-piece inspector panels). -
Page 56: Utility Panel
Here, the currently displayed panel is the kit-piece in- spector, allowing access to kit-piece parameters without switching to the Kit page. Mic Tools panel The Mic Tools panel offers additional control over certain aspects of mic channels and buses which are not possible from regular mixer channel functionality. This includes width and distance controls for the ambience buses, control over the direct mic bus and master bleed level controls for the bleed channels. Sends inspector This inspector provides control over the 4 sends on the currently selected mixer channel. Mixer preset panel This panel allows you to flick through mixer presets quickly without bringing up the mixer preset chooser. It also al- lows you to set a picture and additional information for your own mixer presets. Audio Export panel In the Export panel, you can adjust various controls for exporting audio from BFD2. Kit-piece inspector The kit-piece inspector allows kit-piece control for the last selected kit-piece direct mixer channel (with the exception of articulation controls). This is to avoid needing to switch to the Kit page to adjust most kit-piece parameters. -
Page 57: 3:5 Mixer Channel Controls And Indicators
3:5 Mixer channel controls and indicators Label strip and coloured tab Controls/indicators in Regular and FX/Sends views Label strip and coloured tab Channel image The label strip allows you to name each channel. Double-click the label strip to edit its contents, and press ENTER when FX/sends you’re done. power We recommend that you keep names short, as only a small indicators number of characters are visible on the strip! Just above the label strip is a coloured tab. The colours are helpful when viewing the mixer as they indicate the channel type and status. Fader Fader The fader sets the gain of the channel. For kit-piece channels, a pan control exists on the primary direct channel, which allows you to set the pan position of all the kit-piece’s direct mic channels. This control is duplicated in Meter the Kit page slot windows as well as in the kit-piece inspector... - Page 58 Mute & Solo All channels have a mute and solo button. Mute and Solo behaviour: Implied and Hard Mute/Solo BFD2’s mixer features very flexible mute and solo behaviour. It features two types of mute and solo states: implied and hard. • Engaging only the solo button on a channel results in implied mutes on all other channels: mutes are shown elsewhere, but the mute state of those channels is only implied. When the solo button is disengaged, the implied mutes on the other non-soloed channels are also disengaged. • Implied solos are generated on channels contributing signals to the soloed channel, or in its subsequent signal path. They are shown in a ‘half-lit’ state. • Engaging only the mute button on a channel results in only that channel being hard muted (it is in an actual muted state) • Engaging both mute and solo buttons on a channel results in the mute overriding the solo. Both buttons are lit to show that the hard solo and mute states are engaged. While in this state, unmuting the channel results in it reverting to a hard-soloed state. If the channel is instead unsoloed, it will be left in a hard-muted state – it is not an implied mute. • Hard-muting an ‘auto-soloed’ channel (in implied solo state) overrides the implied solo and the channel is muted. Solo Isolate function You can set up channels in solo isolate mode, which means that they are always heard when soloing any other channel. To put a channel into solo isolate mode, click its solo button while holding down the SHIFT key. The solo button becomes ‘half-lit’, and is always heard along with any other soloed channel. Rude Solo indicator The BFD2 status bar contains a Rude Solo indicator, that is always lit whenever one or more channels are soloed. You can ALT-click this indicator in order to un-solo all channels currently in a hard solo state. Record enable This button is used in conjunction with BFD2’s audio export features. Enabling this button for a channel means that the channel is exported as a discrete audio file when performing any export audio. Click the button to record enable a mixer channel. Click it again to record disable it. You can record enable and disable all mixer channels using the audio export panel, part of the Mixer page Utility panel.
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Page 59: Controls/Indicators Available In Regular View Only
The FX/Sends mixer view contains all the displays and con- trols available in Easy view, although faders and meters are much smaller. It also features the following additional controls: FX slots There are 4 insert points, called FX (effects) slots, available on each channel. A variety of FX, such as track and bus compressors, EQs and filters, and others including phaser, flanger, delay, distortion, chorus and more. FX Power Each FX slot features a button to turn it on or off. Turn off an effect to bypass it. If you ALT-click any button, all FX slots in the channel are turned on. ALT-click any button again to turn off all slots. FX Selector Click on a slot to display the FX menu. All available FX are shown in the menu - select one by moving the mouse over the desired effect and releasing the mouse button. To remove any FX from the slot, select ‘[none]’ in the FX menu. The 4 FX for the currently selected channel are displayed in the FX Rack. Refer to section 3:7 for more details on the FX rack and other aspects of using and managing FX. Please see chapter 12 – in particular sections 12:3 to 12:6 – for more details on using BFD2’s FX suite. The following FX are available for mono and stereo channels: Gain Chorus Drive Comp Chan Bitcrusher Comp Bus RingMod Delay FreqShift Filter TinCanVerb Flanger Noise Gate... - Page 60 Sends You can set up 4 sends per channel, which are used for parallel processing and sidechaining. They can be routed to any available aux channel as long as the destination channel is to the right of the source channel (see the ‘Channel processing order’ sub-sec- tion in section 3:6). Sends can also be routed to the master channel. You can route a send into the main input or the sidechain input of the destination. Sidechaining is used for certain FX which allow you to process the main input while reacting to the sidechain input signal. Do not confuse mixer channel sends with the ambience sends in the kit-piece inspector. The ambience sends are for setting lev- els and creating custom routings for each kit-piece’s ambience channels. Sends in the mixer, meanwhile, are intended for parallel processing, sidechaining and other such mixing tasks. The send controls on mixer channels offer controls for switching the send on or off, altering the send source point, and for setting the send level. All other aspects of a send are controlled from the Sends inspector in the Utility panel. If the Sends inspector panel is currently displayed, moving the mouse cursor over one of a channel’s sends highlights its settings in the panel. Please see section 3:8 for further details on using the send controls and the Sends inspector. Send Power and source routing button The on/off buttons for sends are slightly different to those for the FX slots. They Pre FX (pre-fader) are a representation of the Send From routing defined in the Sends inspector, which dictates the point at which the send exists in the signal path. Post FX (pre-fader) Clicking one of these buttons turns the send on or off. Post-fader Clicking one of these buttons while holding down the ALT key cycles through the three possible ‘send from’ settings to set the source point of the send from the channel. • Pre FX (pre-fader) • Post FX (pre-fader) • Post fader Send Level The main part of each send slot is a horizontal fader for the send level. Click and drag up and down in this area to set the send level. The destination aux channel name is also shown in this area.
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Page 61: 3:6 Using The Mixer
Snare1 Bot channel being the primary selection. Clicking on any other selected channel results in it becom- ing the primary selection. Clicking on any unselected channel selects it and clears the current selection. Manipulating multiple channels When multiple channels are selected, you can manipulate their main controls together (with the exception of the channel context menu). The controls you can manipulate in this way are the level fader, mute/solo functions, record enable, phase invert and the channel output routing selector. • Adjusting a control on one of the selected channels results in the control being changed for all selected channels. • H olding down ALT while adjusting a control on one of the selected channels results in the control being inversely affected on all the other selected channels. This functionality does not include the channel output routing selector. • Holding down the ALT and SHIFT keys while setting the channel output routing results in the selected channels being set to ascending destinations of the same type (i.e. either outputs or aux channels). Rearranging channels on the mixer You may want to move channels around in the mixer in order to suit personal preference. In order to do this, click on a channel’s selection bar and drag it left or right as desired. Channel processing order There is one important caveat when rearranging channels. The processing order in the mixer is defined from left to right. You cannot route a channel’s output or sends to another channel to its left. It must always be to a channel on its right. BFD2 does not allow you to move any channel that contains a valid routing to a position in the mixer that would break this rule. The master chan- nel, for example, must always be at the extreme right of the mixer, and cannot be moved to any other position. -
Page 62: Keyboard Shortcuts For Mixer Operation
Keyboard shortcuts for mixer operation BFD2 provides a number of keyboard shortcuts for mixer operation. If you’re using BFD2 as a plugin in a host, you should be aware that some hosts take control of the keyboard and do not allow keyboard shortcuts to be routed to BFD2. The following shortcuts are available: ← Previous channel → Next channel ↑ Increase Gain ↓ Decrease Gain PAGE-UP Toggle Solo PAGE-DOWN Toggle Mute Toggle Phase Toggle Record enable DELETE Delete channel Please note that, as with any control in BFD2, you can hold down SHIFT to achieve fine control when manipulating controls such as faders and knobs. Channel context menu BFD2’s mixer features a comprehensive system of managing channel settings, including loading and saving channel settings as presets. This is achieved by using the channel context... -
Page 63: Signal Routing Indicators
Signal Routing indicators In order to make it easier to visualize output, send and sidechain routings, BFD2 features routing overlay indicators to graphically represent current signal routings. By default, these routing indicators are turned off. Click the Signal button in the mixer toolbar in order to enable them. Output routing indicators Moving the mouse cursor over the Output Routing selector for a channel displays a red ar- row from it to the destination channel. Send and sidechain routing indicators When Sends are visible on the mixer, mov- ing the mouse cursor over a channel’s send displays a red arrow from it to the destina- tion channel. Output routing indicator Additionally, the send’s controls in the Sends inspector are highlighted. Send routing indicator If a sidechain is routed to a channel, moving the mouse cursor over the sidechain send displays a light blue arrow from it to the destination channel. Additionally, the sidechain send’s controls in the Sends inspector are highlighted. Sidechain routing indicator Channel routing indicators Moving the mouse cursor over a channel’s name results in all of the channel’s routings being displayed:... -
Page 64: 3:7 Using Fx
3:7 Using FX The FX rack FX, or effects, are BFD2’s built-in audio processors. The FX rack shows the contents of the 4 FX slots on the selected channel. When BFD2 is initialized, the FX rack shows the master channel’s FX by default, as the master channel is selected by default. Select any channel on the mixer in order to show its FX in the FX rack. To load an effect, either click on the slots in the FX/Sends mixer view, or use the Effect context menu to select a new effect (see below for details of this menu). All FX share some common controls on their interfaces. For information on individual effect controls and operation, please consult chapter 12. Label strip and Power indicator coloured tab Basic FX controls FX preset Power button browser The Power button turns the effect on and off. With the button disabled, the effect is by- passed. Input meter A/B compare You can control the power for each FX slot by using the Power buttons to the left of each FX Effect context menu slot on mixer channels. -
Page 65: Managing Fx With The Effect Context Menu
FX Preset browser The preset browser provides a drop-down menu showing all available presets for an effect, as well as buttons to step to the previous and next available presets. It also serves to display the name of the last loaded preset. Clicking the name of the preset displays a menu showing all available presets. Simply click on a preset to load it. Managing FX with the Effect context menu Clicking the effect menu button makes the effect context menu appear. This menu can also be accessed by right-clicking anywhere on an effect’s interface. New effect This is a sub-menu containing a list of BFD2 FX, letting you load a new effect in place of that currently in the slot. This is espe- cially useful if you’re using the Regular mixer channel view, which does not show the standard channel effect slots which allow you to load FX. The following FX are available: Gain Filter Mod Drive Comp Chan Bitcrusher Comp Bus RingMod Delay FreqShift Filter TinCanVerb Flanger Noise Gate Chorus See chapter 12 – in particular sections 12:3 to 12:6 – for details on using each... -
Page 66: 3:8 Using Sends And Sidechains
Send From Power Post FX (pre-fader) The signal is sent from the point in the signal path after the FX but before the fader. The sent signal reaches the destination after being processed by the channel’s FX slots, but is not affected by any level adjustment via the channel’s level fader. Post fader The signal is sent from the point in the signal path after the channel’s level fader. This means that the sent signal reaches its des- tination after being processed by the whole channel – the FX slots and the level fader. This is the default setting for the Send From parameter. Send To Select the send destination from this drop-down menu. You can cre- ate a send to any available aux channel, or to the master channel as a sidechain, as long as the destination channel is to the right of the source channel (see the ‘Channel processing order’ sub-section in sec- tion 3:6). Main/Sidechain selector You can choose to route the send signal to either the main input for the destination channel, or to its sidechain input. If it is sent to the sidechain, the signal is not processed through the channel, but instead is used for sidechain-enabled FX. There is one exception – the EQ effect is capable of processing the sidechain for reasons which are discussed in the ‘Using sidechain- ing’ sub-section below. Send level This fader sets the send level from the channel. The send level can also be set by clicking and dragging the send slot in the channel strip. Send indicators If the Sends inspector is currently displayed, moving the mouse cursor over one of the selected channel’s send slots highlights its settings in the inspector. Like- wise, moving the mouse cursor over a send’s settings in the inspector highlights the relevant slot in the chan- nel. The BFD2 mixer also provides overlaid signal routing graphics showing send and sidechain routings. See section 3:6 for more details on these indicators. -
Page 67: Using Sends For Parallel Processing
Using sends for parallel processing Parallel processing for multiple channels is the main reason for using sends. There are a variety of situations when you might want to use parallel processing. For example, you may want to send a small amount of the hihat and snare channels to a reverb or flanger on an aux channel, or compress all the kick channels through a compressor, while also leaving the original signals in the mix. These kinds of methods are commonly used in drum mixing. Set up an aux channel with the desired FX on them. Create the required sends to the aux from each channel, and set each send level as required. If you only want to perform parallel processing on a single channel, you can simply use the Mix control on the channel’s FX. Using Sidechaining Sidechaining is the use of one signal to control the behaviour of an amplitude-sensitive processor that acts on another signal. It is not heard in the output of the processor at all. It is a common feature in compressors, in order to compress one signal according to the amplitude of another. BFD2’s mixer allows you to use any internal channel as a sidechain source for a compressor or gate inserted on any other chan- nel. In addition, the sidechain is also available to feed the filter FM function in the Filter effect. Setting up a sidechain To set up a channel as a sidechain source for a com- pressor on another channel, first set up a send to the channel that is going to be compressed, and turn up the level of the send. Then, click the Sidechain button for the send in the Sends inspector. This Send is now routed to the sidechain of the channel that you want to compress. Now insert a compressor on the destination channel and click the SC button on the compressor interface. The compressor now reacts to the sidechain signal rather than the actual signal in the channel. EQ-ing the sidechain A common problem when compressing is the existence of excessive low-end frequencies in a sidechain signal causing a compressor to react more than desired. The BFD2 com-... -
Page 68: 3:9 Mic Tools Panel
3:9 Mic tools panel Click the Mic Tools button at the top of the Utility panel to dis- play the Mic Tools panel. This panel offers some additional ways to control BFD2’s mic channels and buses. Mic display Direct controls Level & Meter This fader controls the level of all direct channels together. It is a pre-mixer control – it alters the level of all mic channels before they enter their direct channels on the mixer. The meter Ambience bus provides a visual representation of the level. controls Mute & Solo These buttons allow you to mute and solo all direct channels in the mixer. Master bleed controls Ambience bus controls The following controls are available for each ambience bus: Overhead, Room and Amb3: Direct Width controls Using the Width control, you can change the width of the ambi- ence bus’s stereo field. Settings range from mono to fully enhanced stereo. -
Page 69: 3:10 Mixer Preset Panel
3:10 Mixer preset panel The Mixer preset panel allows you to rate and view information about the current Mixer preset. You can also enter your own information to document own presets before saving them using the Save Preset button in the Mixer Page Toolbar. Additionally, this panel allows you to quickly browse through mixer presets without needing to use the mixer preset chooser panel. Photo Photo Mixer presets can have an associated picture. When using factory presets, left-clicking the image opens the author’s specified website URL in the system’s default browser (although this behaviour can be disabled in the BFD2 GUI Next/previous preferences). mixer preset If you have not loaded a palette containing an image, a default Star rating image is displayed. It is possible to add or change the image for the mixer preset in this panel. You can specify any JPEG, PNG or TGA image file as a photo to associate with the kit-piece. Browse button Clicking the browse button opens a system file open dialog allowing you to browse to a JPEG, PNG or TGA file to specify as the imported kit-piece’s photo. The file must have a resolution of 180x150 pixels. Clear button Clicking this button removes the photo currently specified for the mixer preset. Star rating You can set a rating for the current mixer preset. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system in the Preset chooser when the listing is sorted by ‘Star rating’, making it easier to find your favourite presets. -
Page 70: 3:11 Audio Export Panel
3:11 Audio Export panel The audio export panel panel is located in the Utility panel. In order to display it, the Utility panel needs to be visible – click the ‘Utility’ view switch if it is not currently visible. Then, click the Sends button at the top of the Utility panel. BFD2’s audio export functions allow you to create convenient multi-channel mixdowns from BFD2, without having to depend on your host’s mixdown features, which can often be quite limited. You can record-enable any mixer channel you wish to export as a discrete audio file. Therefore, you can export direct mic channels, ambience buses, aux channels and the master Export button channel. Click the record-enable button on any mixer that you want to export. Export folder Sets the path (folder location) to which to write exported audio files. It is recommended that you use a drive that is not used for BFD2’s audio data, as it may not be possible to properly stream samples for playback while recording to the same drive. File prefix The filename of each exported audio file contains the name of each mixer channel (editable in the label strip) enabled for export, along with this optional file prefix. Resulting files are named in the following format: FilePrefix_MixerChannel.WAV Bit depth This setting dictates the resolution of the exported audio files. 16 and 24 bit resolutions are available. Rec enable all Clicking this button record-enables all mixer channels. Rec disable all Clicking this button record-disables all mixer channels. - Page 71 Export Sync mode Free The Free Export Sync mode lets you manually start and stop the export by clicking the Export button. Audio is written in real time as BFD2 is used, until the Export button is clicked again. Range This Export Sync Mode starts and stops exporting within a definable Start point and duration. This mode is intended to be used when using BFD as a plugin in a host. Before performing the export, you must first ‘arm’ the Export function by clicking the Export button. Host When Host mode is selected, the Export function commences when the host or BFD2 transport is started. Use the BFD2 trans- port when running BFD2 as a standalone application, or while the host transport is stopped when running as a plugin. Before performing the export, you must first ‘arm’ the Export function by clicking the Export button. Start This value defines the start time (in bars) to commence the export when the Export Sync mode is set to ‘Range’. Duration This value defines the length of the export (in bars) when the Export Sync mode is set to ‘Range’.
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Page 72: Chapter 04 Grooves Page - Overview
04 GROOVES PAGE - overview an introduction to BFD2’s groove engine 4:1 Introduction BFD2’s Grooves page is an advanced rhythm production environment, giving you a great interface to write and edit drum patterns, as well as providing performance playback methods and even a track on which to sequence patterns. This chapter is intended as an introduction to how the Groove engine works, while chapters 5, 6 and 7 provide an in-depth guide to all its features. Key concepts There are several key concepts to be aware of in the Groove engine. Groove The basic elements used in the Groove engine. Grooves contain events – these are not MIDI notes, but triggers for specific kit- piece articulations. Therefore, Grooves always play the correct articulations no matter what mapping you set up. Fill Once loaded, any Groove be designated as a Fill. It is still a Groove, but referenced as a Fill for use with some features. Palette The Palette is a set of 128 slots, each capable of holding a Groove and each represented by a MIDI key. A Palette is also the name given to the ‘preset format’ of the Groove engine. When you save a Palette, it stores the entire state of the Grooves page. BFD 1.x users If you have been using the Groove features in BFD 1.0 and 1.5, please see section 5:7 for a discussion on how BFD2’s Grooves, Fills and Palettes differ from the Grooves, Fills and Bundles used in BFD 1.x. -
Page 73: 4:2 Grooves Page Interface
4:2 Grooves page interface 1. Palette (chapter 5) You can have up to 128 Grooves loaded in memory at any one time. Each of these must be assigned to a slot in the Palette, each of which also corresponds to a MIDI key. Each slot in the Palette can be set as a Fill and has its own definable behaviour regarding how it starts and what happens when it ends. Grooves can be triggered via MIDI or using BFD2’s Auto-Play features. 2. Editor and toolbar (chapter 6) The Editor lets you modify Grooves or write new ones from scratch, either by drawing and manipulating notes with the mouse, or by recording live via MIDI. This editing environment is fully featured and rivals major sequencing hosts’ MIDI editors. The toolbar includes the Undo button, which allows you to undo any operation in the Grooves page. 3. Groove FX (section 6:7) BFD2 provides a comprehensive set of non-destructive quantization and humanization effects, which are applied to the output of the Groove engine. They can also be destructively applied to the currently selected Groove or all Grooves in the Palette. 4. Auto-Play controls and Drum Track (chapter 7) When using BFD2 as a plugin in a host, the Auto-Play functions provide a way of automatically starting playback of the Groove engine in sync with the host transport. You can choose to start playback of a random Groove, specific Groove, the currently selected Groove in the Palette, or the BFD2 Drum Track. -
Page 74: 4:3 Loading And Saving In The Groove Page
4:3 Loading and saving in the Groove page There are several different elements that can be loaded and saved in the Groove page. All of these load and save functions are available from the Load and Save menus situated on BFD2’s Control bar. Load Groove... This function brings up the Groove chooser in order to load a Groove into the current slot, or multiple Grooves on sequentially higher slots starting at the current slot. If the currently selected Groove slot is empty, a shortcut to the Load Groove... func- tion is shown in the editor area. See section 5:2 for a guide to loading Grooves. BFD2 is capable of loading Grooves in its own format as well as the MIDI file Grooves used in BFD1.x, although these are not visible by default since BFD2 ships with the entire BFD1.5 Groove Library converted into the new format. If you have additional BFD1.x Grooves, see section 5:7 for further details on loading them in BFD2. Load Palette... This function brings up the Palette chooser, allowing you select a Palette to load. Please note that doing so overwrites all settings in the Groove page, including any Grooves already in the Palette, any Groove FX or editor settings and any events on the Drum Track. If the currently selected Groove slot is empty, a shortcut to the Load Palette function is shown in the editor area. See section 5:3 for details on loading Palettes. BFD2 is capable of loading old format BFD1.x format Bundles, although this capability is disabled by default due to BFD2 ship- ping with the entire BFD 1.x library converted to BFD2 format. If you have additional BFD1.x Bundles, see section 5:7 for details on using them. Save Groove... This function saves the currently selected Groove to the BFD2 database. Please note that this saves a Groove in BFD2 Groove format. You can export as MIDI by using the Export Groove MIDI... function on the BFD2 Save menu. See section 5:8 for a guide to saving Grooves. Save Palette... -
Page 75: 4:4 Undo Function
4:4 Undo function Every operation performed in the Groove page can be reversed by clicking the Undo button. This multiple-level Undo function is very useful as many functions which can drastically change your work are only a click away. The Undo button exists on the Groove page toolbar (see section 6:3). It does not operate like the rest of the toolbar but- tons for changing Edit modes, and is not restricted to Editor functions – virtually any action performed in the Groove page can be undone. To see which action can be undone by clicking the Undo button, move the mouse over the undo button – the last action is shown in the context display in the BFD2 status bar. Virtually any action can be undone, so even if you load a new palette by accident, feel free to undo it. While you can set up any number of levels for the multiple-level Undo function in the BFD2 Grooves preferences, please note that having more levels of Undo available uses more RAM. 4:5 Transport, tempo and time signature These controls, located in the BFD2 status bar, are used for a variety of purposes when using the Grooves page. Return Stop Play Record Loop Panic Beat light Tempo Time Playback to start signature position Transport Play Use the Play button in the transport to start playback when using BFD2 as a standalone application. When using BFD2 as a plugin, it can be used while the host is stopped, until it is started, when playback restarts in sync with the host. -
Page 76: Beat Light
When running BFD2 in standalone mode, or in a host that doesn’t provide time signature information, the time signature can be entered directly by double-clicking this indicator and typing a new value, or by clicking and dragging each number in the time signature up and down. Playback position This readout is an indicator of the current playback position, in bars and beats, when BFD2 is in play mode (and in record mode when recording Grooves via MIDI). Depending on a number of different circumstances, this indicator can show any of the follow- ing: When using BFD2 as a plugin in a host: • The current song position of the host. When using BFD2 as a standalone application: • The current position in the current Groove when using any Auto-Play mode except ‘Drum Track’. • The current position in the Drum Track when using the Drum Track Auto-play mode. • The current position in the Groove when recording events in real time via MIDI 4:6 Using the Groove Engine BFD2 features a number of different ways of playing Grooves. These are described in more detail in sections 5:4 and 7:1. Playing Grooves with MIDI notes Each slot in the Palette containing a Groove is assigned to a MIDI note. Play a Groove’s MIDI key in order to play it. In normal... -
Page 77: Chapter 05: Grooves Page Part
05 GROOVES PAGE part 1 palettes, grooves and fills Default Groove Actions 5:1 An Introduction to the Palette Auto-Fill The Palette is central to the Groove engine. It consists of 128 button slots, each corresponding to a key on your MIDI keyboard. Any Groove you want to use in BFD2 must be assigned to a slot in the Palette, whether you want to trigger it with a MIDI key, or use it in the other possible playback modes. The Palette is shown in the form of a MIDI keyboard layout, going from the lowest note at the bottom to the highest note at the top. Use the scrollbar or mousewheel to access the full range of the keyboard in the Palette. MIDI channels and key ranges Scrollbar By default, the Groove palette and any notes mapped to articulations receive MIDI events on all MIDI channels (Omni mode). As well as this, any MIDI note automation of BFD2 controls also receives on Omni. -
Page 78: 5:2 Loading Palettes
5:2 Loading Palettes To load a Palette, bring up the Palette chooser using one of the following methods: 1. C lick the Load button on the BFD2 Control bar and click on Load Palette... from the Load menu that appears. 2. I f the current Groove slot is empty, click the shortcut to the Load Palette function that is shown in the editor area. Palette chooser The main area of the Palette Chooser shows a listing of the available Palettes in the BFD2 database. Use the scrollbar to browse through all available Palettes. Delete Palette from database Category Info filters Info columns Palette listing: click to select or double-click to Scrollbar load Click to load the selected... - Page 79 Click a Groove’s audition preview button to start auditioning it. Click Audition preview buttons the button again to stop the audi- tion, or click another Groove’s audition preview button. Auditioned grooves play at the current tempo through currently loaded kit-pieces. Note that if the previewed Groove contains events for kit-pieces that are not loaded, they do not produce any sound. If no kit-pieces are loaded at all, previewing the Groove results in no sound. Only one Groove can be previewed at any one time. If you click another Groove’s audition preview button before the current Groove has finished playing, the current Groove stops playing immediately and the new one begins. Whether or not polyphonic mode is enabled in the BFD2 preferences, audition previews cause BFD2 to stop playing any other Grooves that may already be loaded and playing in the Groove engine. The Hold mouse button to preview setting in the BFD2 Grooves preferences results in auditions only playing back while the mouse button is held down on the audition preview buttons. Auto-preview The Auto-preview function allows you to automatically preview the selected Groove, looped and synchro- nized to your host tempo and transport. Again, if any Grooves are already loaded and playing in BFD2, they are muted when previewing a Groove in the Palette chooser. Palette and Groove info columns The following information is shown in columns for each Palette: • Name • BPM (original tempo) • Time Sig (original time signature) •...
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Page 80: Loading Bfd 1.0 And 1.5 Bundles
• Time signature • Star rating By default, these are turned off, as each filter is set to [all]. Search function The Palette chooser’s Search functions allow you to further narrow down the number of Palettes in the listing within the bounds defined by the three category filters. Type in the Search text-box to search for Palettes using one or more keywords. Name, Author, Library, and Genre information fields are searched. These information fields are set using the Palette Info Inspector before saving a Palette to disk. Delete Palette from Database Clicking this button with a Palette selected removes it from the database. Please note that no Palette files are deleted – these still exist on disk. It can be useful to remove Palettes that you don’t like from the database, as it can make those that you do like easier to find. You can always get deleted Grooves back using the Trash and rebuild all databases function in the BFD2 Data preferences. Load from File Clicking this button brings up a system file open dialog, allowing you to browse to and select a Pal- ette from any location that may not already exist in the database. You may need to do use this function if you’ve downloaded a Palette made by another user. If you want the loaded Palette to be accessible in the Palette chooser in future, you must re-save it. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected Palette, or parent Palette of the currently selected Groove, click the Load button. You can also double-click any Palette in the listing in order to load it, or any Groove in order to load its parent Palette. If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new Palette, click the Cancel button. Info The Info display shows information about each Palette. This display in the Palette chooser looks very similar to the Palette Info in- spector in the Grooves page, except that information fields cannot be edited. -
Page 81: 5:3 Loading Grooves
5:3 Loading Grooves Using the Groove chooser panel to load Grooves To load a Groove into a Palette slot in, firstly bring up the Groove Chooser in one of the following ways: 1. S elect a slot in the Palette on which to load a Groove. Then click the Load button on the BFD2 control bar and click on Load Groove... from the Load menu that appears. 2. Double-click a slot in the Palette on which you want to load a Groove 3. I f the current Groove slot is empty, click the shortcut to the Load Groove function that is shown in the editor area. The Groove Chooser is almost identical to the Palette Chooser, except that it lets you load individual Grooves into slots rather than load an entire Palette (and all its associated settings that overwrite the entire current state of the Grooves page). See section 5:2 for details of how to use the Palette chooser panel. The Groove chooser panel differs in the ways described below. Selecting and loading Grooves Delete Groove from database Show Palettes button Category Info filters... - Page 82 Show Palettes button By default, the Groove Chooser shows a listing of all Grooves in the database. By clicking the Show Palettes button, you can show Grooves as ‘children’ of their parent Palettes, which can make Grooves easier to find. Like in the Palette chooser, Palettes can be ‘expanded’ to show the Grooves they contain by clicking the expand/collapse button to its left. When expanded, clicking this button returns the Palette to its ‘collapsed’ state. The Expand All and Collapse All buttons also appear in this mode of operation. Groove chooser Info display The Info display shows information about each Groove. It looks very similar to the Groove Info Inspector in the Grooves Page, except that information fields cannot be edited. You can, however, rate Palettes with the star rating control. Any changes are ap- plied immediately to the BFD2 database. See section 5:8 for details of the information fields. Delete Groove from Database This button replaces the Delete Palette from database button. It functions in the same way, except it deals with Groove files rather than Palette files. Load from File In the Groove chooser, this button brings up a system file open dialog that allows you to load an individual file to load from any location. Note that you cannot load multiple Grooves using this method. You may need to do use this function if you’ve downloaded a Groove made by another user. If you want the loaded Palette to be accessible in the Palette chooser, you must re-save it into the user location. If you change the file type extension to *.MID in the open dialog, you can browse to and import a MIDI file. This feature is de- scribed in section 5:7. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected Groove(s), click the Load button. You can also double-click any Groove in the listing in order to load it.
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Page 83: 5:4 Playing Grooves In The Palette
F# note Groove stops. is played into BFD. Groove playback occurs while the key is held down, and stops when it is released. The slot’s key label turns light blue while the Groove plays, and its playback indicator lights up. These indicators are also used as preview buttons (see below). Start and End Groove Actions The way in which a Groove starts and what happens when it ends are defined by Groove Actions. A Groove’s Start action dictates whether it starts playing immediately or at the start of the next beat or bar. There are a variety of possible End actions, including playing the current Groove again or moving onto another, even though the input MIDI note has not changed. You can set up default behaviours for all slots’ Start and End Groove Actions, and customize individual slots to behave differently. See section 5:6 for more details. Latching mode By default, playback is active while the MIDI key is held down. Using the Latching mode setting in the BFD2 Session preferences you can change this behaviour so that instead, you play the key once to start playback, and play it again to stop playback. Alternatively, while a Groove is playing, you can simply trigger another Groove via another MIDI key. Polyphonic mode Normally, only one Groove can be played at any one time. If Polyphonic mode is enabled in the BFD2 Session preferences, more than one Groove can be played simultaneously. Things can quickly get too busy or simply very messy when using polyphonic Groove playback. See section 7:7 for some hints on using this mode. -
Page 84: Triggering Grooves With Preview Buttons
Triggering Grooves with Preview buttons The playback indicators on the right of each slot in the Palette double as preview but- tons. Clicking a slot’s preview button plays the Groove contained in the slot. When previewing, playback follows the behaviour defined by Groove Actions. See section 5:6 for more details of Groove Actions. Click another slot’s Preview button in order to change to that slot’s Groove. The method of transition is dictated by the Default and Slot Start Actions. If Polyphonic mode is enabled, clicking another slot’s Preview button plays its Groove at the same time as the current Groove. Stopping previews Each Groove can be stopped by clicking its respective Preview button again. You can also use the Stop or Panic buttons in the BFD2 transport to stop playback of all currently playing Grooves. Preview mouse behaviour Enabling the Hold mouse button to preview setting in the BFD2 Grooves preferences results in preview play- back being active only while the mouse button is held down on a Preview button. The end result is that it works in the same way as holding down a MIDI key to play Grooves, without Latching mode enabled. It is not possible to preview Grooves polyphonically using this setting, as it is only possible to click only one preview button at a time. By default, the Preview buttons’ behaviour is similar to Latching mode when using MIDI triggering: the button is clicked once to enable playback, and again to stop it. Previewing individual elements of one Groove over another You can ‘expand’ each Groove in the Palette to show its kit-piece elements as indi-... -
Page 85: 5:5 Working With Grooves In The Palette
5:5 Working with Grooves in the Palette Selecting Grooves Click a Groove slot in the Palette in order to select it. If the slot contains a Groove, it is shown in the Editor. Multiple Selection You can select multiple Grooves in the Palette by holding down the CTRL or SHIFT keys while clicking on Grooves. Please note that when multiple Grooves are selected, you cannot use the Editor. • CTRL-click on a Groove (windows) • Apple click on a Groove (Mac) Adds the Groove to the current selection. If the Groove is already selected, this proc- ess de-selects it. • SHIFT-click Selects all Grooves between the currently selected Groove and the lowest or highest selected Groove (a contiguous selection). Operations on Grooves in the Palette Setting Slot Groove Actions You can define the way in which each Groove in the Palette behaves when it starts playing and what happens when it ends. Selecting multiple Grooves is very useful for setting Slot start and end actions for more than one Groove slot at once. Simply multiple-select the desired Grooves and set the Slot Start and End Actions as normal. The Actions are applied to all Grooves Setting the Slot End Actions for a in the selection. -
Page 86: Blending Elements Of Other Grooves In The Editor
Blending elements of other Grooves in the editor As mentioned in the previous section, each Groove can be ‘expanded’ to show its constituent kit-piece elements – kicks, snares, hihats, toms, cymbals and so on. When editing one Groove you can replace or merge an element of another Groove by dragging an element from the Palette to the Editor grid. See section 6:5 for a guide to using these features. Slot context menu Right-clicking on any selected Groove slot displays the slot context menu containing a number of further Groove-based operations. Copy selected Grooves Copies all currently selected Grooves to the clipboard. Cut selected Grooves Removes all currently selected Grooves from their slots and stores them in the clip- board. Paste selected Grooves If the clipboard contains Cut or Copied Grooves, this function pastes the contents to the current slot and as many subsequent empty slots (going up the keyboard) as necessary, depending on how many Grooves are in the clipboard. New Groove Creates a new empty 1-bar Groove on the slot. This is required if you want to create a new Groove from scratch and draw or record notes into it with the Editor. If you have previously created changed a Groove’s length, creating a new Groove results in a Groove with the same length as the last Groove whose length was changed. If you attempt to create a new Groove on a slot that already contains a Groove, a warning is shown, requiring you to confirm the action before you can continue. If the currently selected slot is empty, a shortcut to this function is also shown in the Editor area. Clear Palette Clears the entire contents of the Palette. -
Page 87: 5:6 Groove Actions
Default Start Action Auto-Fill Default End Action Selected Groove slot Slot Start Action Fill button Slot End Action The area above Groove slots forms the Default Action controls. Meanwhile, the area below the Groove slots forms the Slot Action controls. Unless you set specific Slot Actions for individual slots, all slots follow the Default Action settings. Please note that the Slot Actions do not apply to Grooves on the Drum Track. Any structuring of playback over time in the Drum Track must be manipulated in the Drum Track itself. Start The Start parameter defines how a Groove should commence playing when triggered: whether immediately or using one of a number of synchronized transition methods. The End parameter specifies what happens after a Groove completes playback. You may want a single Groove to keep repeating once it ends or, alternatively, you may want to trigger another Groove at random, or simply stop playing altogether. Fill button The Slot Groove Actions area includes the Fill button, with which you define a slot as containing a Fill. Fills are used for the Auto- Fill function. They are also useful when recreating a classic drum machine fill-in technique: a certain beat is playing, and with a single trigger, the fill is played, and after the fill ends, playback of the previous beat resumes with no additional triggering. Auto-Fill button The Auto-Fill button is located in the Default Groove Actions area. With this button enabled, a Fill is played at a regular interval, defined in the BFD2 Session preferences. By default, a Fill is played every 4 bars. When using the Auto-Fill function, Fills should only be 1 bar long. If a longer fill is encountered, only its last bar is played. Use the ‘Auto-Fill period’ setting in the Session preferences in order to define the interval in bars. -
Page 88: Summary Of Available Groove Actions
Summary of available Groove Actions Below is a summary of the available Default Start and End Groove Actions, as well as the available Slot Start and End Groove Actions for individual slots. Default Actions Start • Next Bar • Random Groove/Fill • End of Groove • Random Groove • Play in Sync • Loop • Immediate • Move Up • Move Down • Stop Slot Actions The available Slot End Actions vary according to whether a slot is set to be a Groove or a Fill. -
Page 89: End Actions For Grooves
End Actions for Grooves Random Groove/Fill When the Groove ends, any available Groove or Fill in the Palette is played. Random Groove When the Groove or Fill ends, a random Groove from the Palette is played. Loop When the Groove ends, it is played again. Default End Actions Move Up When the Groove ends, the next slot up in the Palette containing a Groove is played. Move Down When the Groove ends, the next slot down in the Palette containing a Groove is played. Stop When the Groove ends, playback stops. Default This setting only exists in the Slot End Action menu for Grooves. When selected, the Groove’s End behaviour follows the Default End Action setting. Slot End Actions Slot End Actions for Fills Previous Groove When the Fill ends, the Groove that was playing previously is played again. This function is very useful when you just want to break out of a Groove and trigger a fill with one note, and when it ends, just have it go back to the previous Groove that was playing with no further interaction. Slot End Actions for Fills If there was no Groove playing before the Fill, the Fill is looped until another Groove or Fill is played. -
Page 90: 5:7 Importing Bfd 1.X Grooves And Midi Files
MIDI Import mapping Since BFD 1.x Grooves are in MIDI file format, with no internal articulation mapping, BFD2 must consult a MIDI keymap in order to assign its MIDI note events to articulations. The Import MIDI key map setting in the BFD2 Grooves preferences allows you to specify a keymap to use for importing MIDI Grooves. By default, BFD2 ignores any MIDI notes encountered that are not defined in the referenced keymap. A preference also exists (Unmapped MIDI note mode) to show a warning when this occurs instead of simply ignoring any unused notes. Accessing BFD 1.x Bundles in the Groove and Palette choosers 1. E nable the Show BFD1 Bundles setting in the BFD2 Grooves preferences. 2. M ake sure the bundles and their constituent MIDI grooves are contained within a BFD 1.5 data path. BFD2 looks for Groove Bundles in BFD/Grooves, and for Fill Bundles in BFD/Fills. A Bundle must be usable in BFD to be loadable in BFD2. This means that it should properly reference up to 12 MIDI files inside a sub-folder of the Grooves folder with the same name as the Bundle. Check to see that the Bundle loads properly in BFD if you’re not sure! 3. i n the BFD2 Data preferences, click the Scan data paths for new files button. 4. i f the Grooves correspond to the BFD 1.5 keymap, set the Import MIDI map in the BFD2 Grooves preferences to use the BFD 1.5 keymap provided with BFD2. If your Grooves are created for a different keymap, you’ll need to make a suitable new BFD2 keymap – see chapter 8 for details of how to do this. The Palette and Groove choosers should now show the bundles and MIDI grooves, which are ready to load. Both Groove and Fill Bundles are shown in the chooser. -
Page 91: Importing Midi Files Into The Palette
Importing MIDI files into the Palette BFD2 allows you to import a MIDI file into a slot in the Palette, and optionally split the file into smaller Grooves to be placed on ascending slots beginning with the destination slot. Initiating MIDI import There are two ways of initiating the MIDI import process. Using drag & drop Drag & drop a MIDI file onto the destination Palette slot from a system file location such as the desktop or a folder window. Using the Groove chooser You can load a MIDI file using the Groove chooser by proceeding as follows: 1. double-click the destination palette slot to bring up the Groove chooser 2. click the ‘Load from file’ button 3. set the file type to *.mid. 4. browse to and open the MIDI file MIDI Import panel After initiating the MIDI import process using one of the two above methods, the MIDI Import panel appears. MIDI file summary The summary area displays an analysis of the imported MIDI file. The filename, tempo, time signature and length in bars are shown. Importing the MIDI file as a single Groove If you want to import the whole MIDI file onto one slot as a single Groove, you don’t... -
Page 92: 5:8 Groove And Palette Info Inspectors
You can freely adjust the visible Palette and Info Inspector areas by clicking the border between them and dragging up/down. Groove Info Inspector The following information is available, and can be edited, for the currently selected Groove. With the exception of the rating, any changes are stored with the Groove when it is next saved. If the Groove Info Inspector is currently showing, click the Palette button in order to view the Palette Info Inspector. Name The name of the Groove is shown here, and can be edited by clicking on the field. If no name is entered, the Groove’s filename is shown. This shows the recommended tempo of the Groove in beats per minute (BPM), and can be edited by clicking on the field. Please note that Grooves are always played back at the current tempo, but this field shows what the author considers is the best tempo for the Groove. Time Sig This shows the time signature of the Groove, and can be edited by using the two sets of up/down arrow controls. It is possible for the current time signature to be different to this Groove. If this is the case, when playing Grooves from the Palette, some of the groove may be looped or truncated to fit the necessary bar length. Grooves played from the Drum Track always play to their full length. Genre Choose the Genre of the current Groove by clicking on this field and selecting the genre from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can double-click the field and type in any genre you want. Star Rating You can set a rating for the current Groove. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system in the Groove Browser when the list of Grooves is sorted by rating, making it easier to find your favourite Grooves. You can specify a rating for a Groove or Palette from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). When you rate a Groove, the rating is automatically saved into the BFD2 Groove database – you don’t need to re-save the Groove in order to store ratings. Author The name of the Groove’s author is shown here, and can be edited by clicking on the field. Comment An additional text field is provided for adding your own notes to the stored information. -
Page 93: Palette Info Inspector
Palette Info inspector The following information is available, and can be edited, for the currently loaded Palette if one has been loaded. If you have assembled your own set of individual Grooves in the Palette, this information is empty. With the exception of the rating, any changes are stored with Star rating the Palette when it is next saved. If the Groove Info inspector is currently showing, click the Palette button in order to view the Palette Info Inspector. Star Rating You can set a rating for the current Palette. This is used as a ‘favourites’ system in the Palette Browser when the listing is sorted by rating, making it easier to find your favourites. You can specify a rating for a Groove or Palette from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). Photo When you rate a Palette, the rating is automatically saved into the BFD2 Groove database – you don’t need to re-save the Palette in order to store ratings. Name The name of the currently loaded Palette is shown here, and can be edited by clicking on the field. If no name is entered, the Palette’s filename is shown. Author The name of the Palette’s author is shown here, and can be edited by clicking on the field. Genre Choose the Genre of the current Palette by clicking on this field and selecting the genre from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can double-click the field and type in any genre you want. Photo Palettes can have an associated image. When using factory-supplied Palettes, left-clicking the photo opens the author’s specified website in the system’s default browser (although this behaviour can be disabled in the BFD2 GUI preferences). You can specify an image file as a photo to associate with the kit-piece. If no image is specified, a default image is used. Browse button Clicking the browse button opens a system file open dialog allowing you to browse to a JPEG, PNG or TGA image file to specify as the imported kit-piece’s photo. The file must have a resolution of 96x96 pixels. -
Page 94: 5:9 Saving And Exporting Grooves
If you wish, you can save them in any other folder within the Grooves folder. It is recommended that you save Grooves within the user Grooves location in order for them to be visible in the Groove chooser panel. Wherever you save a Groove, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very im- portant to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned. The information specified in the Groove info inspector is saved with Grooves. Additionally, their Library field is set to ‘User’. Naming the saved Groove file The current name of the Groove, as defined in the Groove Info inspector, is the default filename shown. Either stick with this or type a different filename, then hit ENTER or click the Save button in order to save the Groove. If you type a new filename to replace the default filename shown, BFD2 asks you if you want to change the name stored in the Groove’s Name field. The Name field is used to label the Groove in BFD2’s database, so setting it properly is important for relo- cating Grooves in future. BFD2’s Groove format When you save a Groove in this way, it is saved in BFD2’s proprietary Groove format – this is not a MIDI file. The reason for this is that Grooves contain events related directly to BFD2’s articulations, meaning that Grooves are not reliant on a certain MIDI keymap. If you need to save a Groove as a MIDI file, use the Groove MIDI export functions in BFD2. If you have a set of Grooves in the Palette, you can save the whole Palette which saves each individual Groove with it. The Grooves can always be loaded as individual Grooves, although the ‘Show Palettes’ button must be enabled in the Groove choos- er. See section 5:10 for a guide to saving Palettes. Exporting Grooves as MIDI If you wish to save Grooves for use in other MIDI applications, you can save a Groove as a MIDI file. In order to do this, select the Groove and use the Export Groove MIDI... function in the BFD2 Control bar Save menu. This results in a system file save dialog being displayed, prompting you to export the Groove. The current name of the Groove, as defined in the Groove Info inspector, is the default filename shown for the MIDI file. If you need to, navigate to the correct location and type a different filename, and then hit ENTER or click Save. If more than one Groove is selected, a series of numbered Grooves is saved based on the specified filename. The current MIDI mapping is used for the export. If an articulation is mapped to more than one key, the lowest key to which it is mapped is used for its MIDI events in the exported file. -
Page 95: Export Groove As Audio
Using drag & drop to export Grooves You can also drag and drop to export a single or multiple Groove selection either to a MIDI file or to a MIDI or audio instrument track in your host sequencer. The same MIDI export preferences described above also apply to drag & drop exports. To initiate a drag & drop export, select one or more Grooves in the Palette and drag them outside the BFD2 window. Exporting to MIDI file If you drop the Groove selection onto a suitable save location – in other words, the desktop or a folder shown in a Windows Ex- plorer or a MacOSX Finder window – the Grooves are saved as individual MIDI files at the destination. Exporting to host MIDI track If you drop the Groove selection onto a MIDI or audio instrument track in your host sequencer while running BFD2 as a plugin, each Groove is created as a MIDI part sequentially from the point at which they were dropped. This functionality depends upon the host’s level of support for drag & drop of MIDI files. Some hosts may support drag & drop of single files but not multiple files, and others do not support drag & drop at all. Please consult your host’s documentation or technical support services to determine how it reacts to drag & drop of MIDI files. Export Groove as Audio The Export Audio function performs an audio export of the current Groove selection. The resulting file is cut to the exact length of the Groove at the current tempo, with an optional tail definable in the BFD2 Grooves preferences. If multiple Grooves are selected, a separate set of audio files is saved in a separate folder for each selected Groove. Export settings The settings in the Audio Export tab of the Mixer page Utility panel are used for the Record path, file prefix, and file format, while the record enable buttons on each Mixer channel are used to determine what channels are exported – a separate audio file is generated for each mixer channel enabled for recording. If you attempt to initiate an export before a valid export path has been set, an error message appears to inform you of this fact, and the export operation is cancelled. Set a record path in the Audio export panel in order to successfully perform the audio... -
Page 96: 5:10 Saving Palettes
Save location When you save your own Palettes, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder as follows: <user location>/Grooves If you wish, you can save them in any other folder within the Grooves folder. It is recommended that you save Palettes within the user Grooves location in order for them to be visible in the Palette chooser panel. Wherever you save a Palette, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very im- portant to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are be re-scanned. The information specified in the Palette info inspector is saved with Palettes. Ad- ditionally, their Library field is set to ‘User’. Naming the saved Palette file The current name of the Palette, as defined in the Palette info inspector, is the default filename shown. Either stick with this or type a different filename, then hit ENTER or click the Save button in order to save the Palette. If you type a new filename to replace the default filename shown, BFD2 asks you if you want to change the name stored in the Pallete’s Name field. The Name field is used to label the Palette in BFD2’s database, so setting the Name properly is important when locating Palettes in future. BFD2 Palette format When you save a Palette, the entire state of the Groove page is saved with it. In other words, it contains the following: • constituent Grooves • the currently selected Groove • settings for Default and individual Slot Groove Actions • Groove FX settings • settings in the Editor (such as grid swing, view settings etc) • Auto-Play settings • the contents of the Drum Track When reloaded, a Palette overwrites all current settings in the Groove page. If your Groove Palette is made for a certain kit, mixer and keymap setup, it is recommended that you save a BFD2 Preset for easy recall – this saves the entire state of BFD2 to one file. -
Page 97: Chapter 06: Grooves Page Part
06 GROOVES PAGE part 2 editing, recording and groove FX 6:1 Introduction to the Editor The BFD2 Groove Editor provides a complete integrated editing environment for modifying the BFD2 grooves or for creating your own. The Editor shows the contents of the Groove in the currently selected slot. Editor interface overview 1. Editor grid 6:2 The Editor grid is made up of articulation lanes for kit-pieces, which contain events to trigger sounds. It is very similar to MIDI drum editors in commonly used host sequencers. If you have used such software, you’ll find other elements of the grid familiar, such as the ruler and velocity lane, as well as zoom and scrolling controls. 2. Edit modes toolbar 6:3 The toolbar contains a number of editing tools with which to manipulate events in the editor grid. Again, these functions are prob- ably familiar to you if you have used advanced host sequencer MIDI editors before. The toolbar also includes the Undo button, which allows you to undo any operation in the Grooves page. 3. Other editor functions 6:4 Across the top of the editor grid are a number of additional editing functions, including grid and quantize controls amongst others. -
Page 98: Playing The Currently Selected Groove
Creating a new Groove in a slot If the currently selected Groove slot is empty, a shortcut to the New Groove function is shown in the Editor area. Click it to create a new 1-bar Groove in the slot. Alternatively, even if the slot is currently occupied by a Groove, right-click on a slot and select the New Groove function from the slot context menu that appears. If you have previously created changed a Groove’s length, creating a new Groove results in a Groove with the same length as the last Groove whose length was changed. If the slot already contains a Groove, you are asked for confirmation before a new Groove is created, replacing the previous con- tents of the slot. Playing the currently selected Groove When using the editor, you may want an easy method of playing back the edited Groove, without having to play the relevant MIDI key or click the Groove’s preview button in the Palette. If this is the case, firstly set the Auto-Play mode to ‘Palette’ and set the Palette Auto-play mode to ‘Current’ in the BFD2 Session preferences (this is the default setting in case you haven’t touched these settings before). Then make sure that the Groove repeats when it ends by setting the Default and/or Slot Groove End Actions accordingly (see section 5:6 for more information on Groove Actions). This means that when playback is started, either via the BFD2 transport or via the host transport when running BFD2 as a plugin, the currently selected Groove in the Palette is played. Because the currently selected Groove is always shown in the Editor (as long as only one Groove is selected and the Focus button is not enabled), this is a very useful playback mode when editing Grooves. If the End Action of the Groove is set to move to a different Groove, you won’t see the playing Groove in the Editor, as it normally shows only the currently selected Groove. If you want to see the currently playing Groove instead, enable the Focus button in the Groove Editor (see section 6:4 for details). -
Page 99: 6:2 Editor Grid
6:2 Editor Grid View controls Ruler Velocity lane Kit-piece and articulation Events lanes Kit-piece and Articulation lanes Kit-Piece Lane Kit-piece lanes. Note that the kick slot has nothing loaded. If a Kit-Piece is loaded, its name is shown on the kit-piece lane. If no kit-piece is loaded yet in the slot, the slot name is greyed out, and a [!] indicator is shown to the left of the mute and solo buttons. You can double-click the slot name or kit-piece name in order to bring up the kit-piece chooser for that slot, meaning that you don’t need to switch to the Kit page in order to do so. Some kit-piece lanes may not be seen with certain View selector settings. See the View controls sub-section below for more details on these settings. The kit-piece lane shows all events for the kit-piece in the current Groove. Expanding a kit-piece lane to show its articulation lanes To the left of the kit-piece name is the expand/collapse button. -
Page 100: Events
A single lane is always shown for each articulation, regardless of whether you have mapped the articulation to a MIDI key or not. If an articulation does not exist in the slot’s currently loaded kit-piece, its name is greyed out and a [!] indicator is shown to the left of the mute and solo buttons. While in expanded mode, clicking the button again returns to collapsed mode. When in collapsed mode, you can edit the kit-piece’s events. Any new events you add are created on the first articulation for that kit-piece. For full control over editing a kit-piece’s events, it’s recommended that you expand its lane to show all articulation lanes before adding new events. Mute and Solo buttons Each kit-piece and all its individual articulations have a mute and solo button. It is therefore possible to mute and solo the events of the whole kit-piece, or individual articulations. Mutes override solos: if a kit-piece is muted, none of its articulations’ events are heard, irrespective of their solo status. Events Events are shown as ‘diamonds’ on each articulation lane: these are ‘one-shot’ triggers. There is no way of controlling the duration of events – triggered sounds play until they decay naturally. However, manual choke events or other articulations of the same kit-piece can be used to stop the decay of a sound. Also remem- ber that other parameters like damping affect the decay of a sound. High velocity hits are darker in colour than soft velocity hits. Selected events are larger than other events. Muted events are shown as solid white. These do not produce any sound until they are unmuted again. Ruler and Groove length Ruler Groove End marker Ruler The ruler at the top of the grid shows a timeline in bars and beats. -
Page 101: Velocity Lane
Velocity lane Velocity Velocity lane show/hide The velocity lane underneath the Ruler shows event velocities as vertical stalks, with higher stalks denoting high velocity events, while lower velocity events are represented by shorter stalks. You can draw directly onto the velocity lane in order to ‘paint’ in velocity changes quickly. If you hold down the ALT key you can draw lines in the velocity lane, which is very useful programming velocity ‘ramps’. If one or more events are selected, the velocity stalks of selected events are highlighted, with others greyed out. With a selection active, drawing on the Velocity lane only affects selected events. Velocity show/hide This button toggles the Velocity lane in the display. If you don’t need the functionality of the velocity lane, instead just relying on the shad- ing of events to discern their velocity, you can hide the Velocity lane to achieve more space for the Editor Grid. As BFD2 provides the Velocity tool for adjusting velocities of individual events, the Velocity lane is not essential for many operations. View controls View selector You can choose which kit-pieces appear in the Editor by using the View Selector. Artics This is the default view mode. In this mode, only articulations used in the Groove are shown in the Editor. This is the most compact view, and saves having to scroll through a large number of event lanes when editing. If you are using this mode and require a kit-piece articulation which hasn’t yet been used in the Groove, switch to ‘Groove’ or ‘Kit’ view to make your initial edits, and then switch back to ‘Artics’ view. Groove When this view is selected, only the kit-pieces used in the current Groove are shown. If you are using this mode and require a kit-piece that hasn’t yet been used in the Groove, switch to ‘Kit’ or ‘All’ view to make your initial edits, and then switch back to ‘Groove’ view. Selecting ‘Kit’ shows all kit-pieces which have actually been loaded into their slots. When ‘All’ is selected, all 32 available kit-piece slots are represented in the Editor, regardless of whether they are loaded. It is not especially recommended to edit Grooves in this way with required kit-pieces not loaded, as it does not show the possible articulations that might be available when a kit-piece is loaded into an unused slot. However, it is provided so that you can double-... -
Page 102: Zoom And Scroll Controls
Zoom and scroll controls Vertical scrollbar Horizontal Zoom in/out scrollbar Zoom in/out The zoom in/out buttons at the bottom-right of the Editor grid control the horizontal zoom level. Scrollbars If the Zoom level results in part of the Groove not being visible in the Editor grid, use the horizontal scrollbar to change the visible area. If there are too many kit-pieces or articulations to be visible at once, use the vertical scrollbar to change the visible area. Additional mousewheel functions You can also use the mousewheel to scroll up and down in the Editor Grid. Hold down ALT while using the mousewheel in order to zoom in and out. -
Page 103: 6:3 Grooves Toolbar
Hearing events during editing Undo button With the Preview events during editing setting enabled in the Grooves preferences, the relevant articulation is heard when entering notes, selecting and moving notes, altering their velocity and unmuting them. Select tool Clicking on an event with the Select tool selects it. Holding down SHIFT while clicking on another event adds it to the selection, and SHIFT-clicking on an event which is already selected deselects it. Dragging the cursor from an empty area on the grid creates a selection of any notes enclosed by the resulting selection box. Holding down SHIFT while dragging a selection box inverts the selection status of any events within it. Creating multiple event selections is useful in applying other tools to several events at once. You can select all events in the current Groove using the Edit menu or the CTRL-A (Windows) or COMMAND-A (Mac) keyboard shortcut. See section 6:4 for further details. • Moving events With the Select tool, you can change the position of selected events by clicking and dragging them left or right. If the Snap function is engaged, moved events are snapped to the current Grid resolution – at the relevant grid division and at the original position between grid divisions. When this function is disabled, selected events can be freely moved with no snapping. You can move selected events to other articulations or kit-pieces by clicking and dragging them vertically. When you drag and drop events to different sets of articulations or different kit-pieces altogether, BFD2 attempts to maintain events on different articulations, but if the target kit-piece has fewer articulations than the original, or if you reach the vertical borders of a kit-piece’s lanes, the moved events are forced onto the same articulations. • Copying events You can copy events in the same way as moving events by holding down the ALT key while moving selections around the grid. Draw tool Clicking on the grid with the Draw tool creates a new event at the cursor position. If you hold down the mouse button when entering an event and then drag it left or right, you can reposition the event in time. If you hold down the mouse button when entering an event and then drag up or down, you can change the velocity of the event. When entering an event, the velocity of the previous edited event is used. If the Snap function is enabled, the event’s position is snapped to the nearest division at the current grid resolution. After entering an event, it becomes the current selection. Note that when using the Draw tool, you can also click on notes to select them (and SHIFT-click on further notes to add to the selection). You can also move and copy selections using drag & drop in the same way as you can with the Select tool. -
Page 104: Erase Tool
Erase tool Click an event or selection of events with the Erase tool to erase it. If you hold down the mouse button in an empty area and drag, a selection box is created. Any events enclosed within the selec- tion are deleted when the mouse button is released. You can also use the DELETE key while in other Edit modes in order to delete the current selection. Mute tool Clicking on a selection of events with the Mute tool causes it to be muted – it becomes silent but is not deleted. If an event or selection is already muted, clicking it again unmutes it. You can create a rectangular selection box in the same way as the select tool, but when you release the mouse button, the notes enclosed by the box are muted (and also selected). If the selection contains both muted and unmuted notes, their state becomes inverted. Velocity tool To use the Velocity tool, click on an event or selection of events, hold the mouse button down and drag vertically. Upward move- ment increases the velocity of the events, while downward movement decreases it. If you use the Velocity tool on a multiple selection of events, their velocities are adjusted by the same amount. However if you try and adjust velocities beyond their limits, their values become saturated at the minimum or maximum amount. You can also adjust the velocities of all events, or a selection of events, using the Velocity lane, described in the previous section. Undo button The Undo button, while it exists on the Grooves page toolbar. does not operate like the rest of the toolbar buttons, and is not restricted to Editor functions – any action performed in the Groove page can be undone. See section 4:4 for details of the Undo function. -
Page 105: 6:4 Other Editor Functions
Editor display settings Follow If you’re zoomed into a Groove so that only part of it is visible, enabling the Follow function causes the display to scroll and follow the playback position indicator. Focus By default, the Editor shows the currently selected Groove. With the Focus button enabled, the Editor shows the currently playing Groove instead. This means that if, for instance, a Groove’s End Action setting results in a transition to another Groove, the new Groove is shown in the Editor when the transition takes place. With this button disabled, the Editor only ever shows the currently selected Groove. Metronome Enabling the Metronome button results in a click or other sound being played on each beat. Normally, the metronome is only active when using the recording function. However, if you require it during playback you can enable it in the BFD2 Grooves preferences, as well as select from a number of different metronome sounds. You can also change the level and sound of the metronome in the Grooves preferences. Grid controls Snap If this function is activated, event drawing and moving operations are snapped to the currently selected grid resolu- tion. Grid Type selector Swing control Here, you can set different grid resolutions for quantizing and snapping. Straight, triplet and dotted note grid resolutions are available. Swing control If a straight grid type is chosen, the Swing control moves every off-beat grid divi- sion. This is useful for easy creation of swung grooves when entering new notes Grid type using the Snap function. Do not confuse this function with the Swing functions selector in the Groove FX panel. The grid Swing function is only used to manipulate the... -
Page 106: Edit Menu
Edit menu The Edit menu allows you to perform several selection and editing operations. You can also perform these operations using keyboard shortcuts, although many hosts do not allow all keyboard events to get through to BFD2. In such cases, the Edit menu is invalu- able. A summary of the Editor’s keyboard shortcuts is given later in this section. Select all events This function selects all events in the current Groove. Cut selected events This function removes the selected events from the Groove and stores them in the clipboard. Copy selected events This function stores the selected events in the clipboard, leaving the events themselves unchanged. Paste selected events If Groove events exist in the clipboard, this function pastes them into the current Groove. Events are pasted to the same kit-piece slots, articulations and positions that they occupied when they were cut or copied to the clipboard. This occurs even if the kit-piece slot is empty. If the original articulation does not exist, it is remapped to the main articulation in the slot. If a Groove isn’t long enough to contain the pasted events, the events are pasted beyond its end point. In order to reveal them, the Groove’s length must be manually increased to a suitable length. Keyboard shortcuts All the functions in the Edit menu are also provided as keyboard shortcuts. Additionally, a shortcut for erasing the selected events (rather than cutting them to the clipboard) is provided on the DELETE key – please be aware this is not the same as the BACKSPACE key. The DELETE shortcut is very useful as it provides acess to the Erase tool while having two other tools active on the mouse but- tons – very useful if you want, say, the Draw tool on the left mouse button and the Velocity tool on the right mouse button. Function Windows shortcut Mac shortcut... -
Page 107: 6:5 Combining Elements Of Other Grooves
6:5 Combining elements of other Grooves You can combine elements of any Groove in the Palette with the currently selected Groove. Firstly, select the destination Groove for editing. Then expand the relevant source Groove in the Palette so that its kit-piece components are showing. Make sure you click on the expand/collapse button to expand the source Groove – clicking anywhere else in the slot results in the Groove replacing the cur- rent selection and being shown in the Editor. You can audition elements by clicking their preview buttons – this is done without changing the currently selected Groove. Replacing elements To replace the events for any kit-piece in the current Groove (destination) with a kit-piece element from the source Groove, drag and drop the expanded kit-piece element from the source Groove to the desired location in the grid. Merging elements To merge the events for any kit-piece in the current Groove (destination) with a kit-piece element from the source Groove, drag and drop the expanded kit-piece element from the source Groove to the desired location in the grid, while holding down the ALT key. Expand a Groove to show its elements, which can be dragged across to the currently edited Groove... -
Page 108: 6:6 Recording Grooves Via Midi
6:6 Recording Grooves via MIDI BFD2 provides the ability to record a new Groove, or add events to an existing Groove, using MIDI input in real time. It is not possible to record directly onto the Drum Track. All recording is conducted only on the current Groove selected in the Palette, which is displayed in the Editor. MIDI Mappings While BFD2’s Groove engine does not require any MIDI note mappings in order to play back events, you must have each articula- tion mapped to MIDI notes in order to record Groove events via MIDI. Please note that even if you have an articulation mapped to more than one MIDI key and use them all to record events, they are always represented by one lane in the Editor. Initiating recording To begin the process, select a Groove in the Palette, or create a new Groove using the ‘New Groove’ function in the Slot context menu and set it to the desired length. To arm MIDI recording, click the Record button on the BFD2 transport. The Record button lights up a solid red – this ‘arms’ the record function, which is ready to start recording when it receives a play command. Press the Play button on the BFD2 transport to start recording in standalone mode, or when running in a host if you’d like to record without the host playing in sync. In order to record while the host plays in sync, press play in your host – BFD2’s transport starts receives a play command in sync with the host being started. Whichever of the above methods you use to start the transport when it is record-armed, the Record button starts flashing and enters recording mode. Recording modes Default recording mode By default, when the position reaches the end of the defined Groove length, recording continues, with the length of the Groove increasing, until the Stop button is pressed. When recording is stopped, the Groove length is set automatically to accomodate the recorded events. Loop record mode By enabling the Loop button on the BFD2 transport, you can record in loop mode. This means that when the defined end of the... -
Page 109: Show/Hide Advanced Groove Fx
The effects are real-time and non-destructive - the original Grooves are not changed in any way You can think of the Groove FX panel as a set of ‘MIDI effects’ at the ‘output’ of the Groove engine event stream, that is applied before the sounds are triggered. Please remember, however, that the Groove engine is not really a MIDI engine, because it triggers articulations directly, rather than generating MIDI events that feed into the MIDI input for articulations. The panel is visible in Editor view, underneath the Editor Grid. While the Groove FX section is real-time and non-destructive, you can destructively apply its settings to the current Groove or all Grooves in the Palette. Show/Hide advanced Groove FX With this button you can toggle the Groove FX view to minimized view or to the normal maximized view. By default it is shown with all controls available. However, if you need more workspace for the Editor, the panel can be collapsed to a smaller view with only the most important controls showing, by clicking the Show/Hide advanced Groove FX button. Click the button again to expand it. Groove FX power When this button is enabled, the Groove FX section is active on the output of the Groove engine. Click the button to disable the Groove FX section. Apply: Groove This button ‘prints’, or destructively applies the current Groove FX settings to the currently selected Groove. Once this function has been applied, BFD2 asks you if you want to power off the Groove FX section. This is because if it remains active, it applies the same effects again when the affected Groove is played back. When using randomization effects, this button applies different results each time it is clicked. If you don’t like the results you get when you apply randomization effects, you can always use the Undo function to revert to how it was before. Apply: All This is a similar function to the Apply: Groove button, except that it destructively applies the Groove FX settings to all Grooves in the Palette. Once the button is clicked, BFD2 asks you if you want to power off the Groove FX section. This is because if it remains active, it applies the same effects again when the processed Grooves are played back. This is a more practically useful function, as you can apply the current settings to all Grooves in the Palette so they are equally af- fected. If you like you can then enable the Groove FX section again in order to change the feel of all Grooves even more with new settings, perhaps repeating the Apply to All process. As with the Apply: Groove button, when using randomization effects, this button applies different results each time it is clicked. If you don’t like the results you get when you apply randomization effects, you can always use the Undo function to revert to how it was before. -
Page 110: Quantize Effect
1/ dotted 1/1 1/1 triplet Quantize The Quantize control varies the amount of quantizing applied, with results ranging from unquantized (minimum position) to hard- quantized (maximum position). Adjusting this control between these values allows you to tighten up timing without losing all of the feel of the original Grooves. Q Swing This control applies a variable amount of swing to 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 and 1/128 grid resolutions. Do not confuse Q-Swing with the Swing effect. The principle is similar to that of the grid Swing for snapping and quantizing to the Editor grid (see section 6:4), except that the Groove FX Quantize effect grid is altered rather than the Edit Grid for snap editing and destructive quantizing. Double/Half time effect Activating the Double time button makes the Groove engine play at double time (double the current tempo). Activating the Half time button makes the Groove engine play at half time (half the current tempo). Simplify effect The Simplify control dials in an algorithm that selectively mutes events in terms of ‘importance’ to the Groove. It’s something of a ‘complexity gate’, with the control acting as a threshold parameter. It is very useful if you find a Groove to be too ‘busy’ – for example, with a lot of ghost notes that intrude upon the rest of your song too much. The function judges events based on their velocity and distance from the current Quantize grid settings. At smaller settings, low velocity events that are subtantially away from the quantize grid division are muted. As the control is increased, more and more events are carefully removed in order to simplify the Groove further. Dynamics effect Compress This control reduces the range of dynamic variation in the playing Grooves. Turning it all the way to the right makes all events play at the maximum velocity (127), assuming that other Groove FX that affect event velocity are inactive. Do not confuse this with the audio compressors in BFD2’s Mixer page, which alter the dynamics of audio signals. The Compress effect in the Groove FX is an event velocity compressor, which is more akin to telling a drummer to use less intense accenting or, at extreme settings, to play every hit at exactly the same force. Weight The Weight control allows you to scale up or down the velocity of playing Groove events - this is like asking a drummer to play more softly or harder overall. It is useful as a ‘makeup velocity gain’ control when used in conjunction with the Compress control. It works in a similar way to the Master Dynamics control elsewhere in BFD2, although it applies only to the Groove engine. Nor- mal triggering of articlulations via MIDI is unaffected. -
Page 111: Swing Effect
The Swing effect applies a variable amount of non-destructive swing to playing Groove events. A number of timing grids are available, with variable amounts of swing. This is a non-destructive Swing function as opposed to destructively quantizing events to a swung grid in the Editor Functions. Also, within the Groove FX section, do not confuse the Swing effect with the Q-Swing parameter in the Quantize effect. The Q-Swing parameter allows the use of swung grids in the Quantize effect, whereas the Swing effect allows you to apply a separate layer of swing with a different feel and timing grid. When used in conjunction with each other, the Quantize and Swing effects allow you to neutralize the feel of a variety of Grooves and apply a totally different feel to them. Because of the number of variable controls in these two effects, a huge range of different timing feels can be achieved. Swing template type This drop-down menu allows you to choose the timing grid for the Swing effect. You can choose between 8th note and 16th note swing templates. A number of bonus Swing templates from FXpansion’s GURU sample rhythm workstation are also provided. If you own GURU you can create swing templates within it – simply create a new groove from a pattern’s ‘Shift’ graph values (see the GURU documentation for details on how to accomplish this). Then copy the Groove file you created from the GURUdata/Grooves folder into the following folder: <user location>/BFD2/SwingTemplates Swing The Amount control varies the intensity of the swing. No swing is applied with this control at the centre position. If you increase the control, events are swung towards the previous or next grid division, up to a maximum of a third of the way towards the neigh- bouring beat division. The swing amount is also shown as a graphical control, in maximized view only. Click and drag the representative ‘event’ diamond to the left or right of the centre to set the amount of swing. Humanize effects The Humanize Velocity and Humanize Timing effects are randomization effects, with a control to dial in the amount of randomiza- tion required. Humanize Velocity This effect is a great way of adding a more human feel to Grooves, by applying varying degrees of randomiza- tion to Groove event velocities. This effect applies to Grooves only: if you want to humanize incoming MIDI notes for triggering sounds directly, you need to use the separate Humanize control in the Kit page, which applies only to incoming MIDI. The Amount control defines the maximum amount of random velocity variation (higher or lower than the original velocity) that can be applied to events. Humanize Timing The Humanize Timing effect is another way of making Grooves sound more human by applying varying amounts of timing randomization to playing Groove events. Lower settings are recommended for subtle and... -
Page 112: Chapter 07: Grooves Page Part
07 GROOVES PAGE part 3 auto-play, drum track and other ways of using grooves 7:1 Auto-Play mode Auto-Play vs. MIDI triggering MIDI Triggering BFD2’s Grooves can be triggered with MIDI notes – by default playing while the note is held down. Optionally, you can enable Latching mode in the Grooves preferences, which toggles playback of a Groove when its MIDI note is played. As described in chapter 5, a Groove’s playback behaviour when it is started and when it ends are configurable. Using these methods, it is possible to construct drum parts on the fly by playing MIDI notes. Start and end behaviours can be set to keep certain Grooves playing or playback moving to other Grooves, firing off fills at opportune moments, and so on. You can record these MIDI notes in your host sequencer when running BFD2 as a plugin, or simply use BFD as a live jamming tool – if you’re a guitarist it’s a good idea to use a MIDI footswitch board to switch to fills and different sections. It’s also possible to use Palette slots’ preview buttons to jam Grooves live, although this doesn’t allow as much ‘hands-on’ freedom as using a dedicated MIDI controller. See chapter 5, especially sections 5:4, 5:5 and 5:6, for more details on using Grooves in the above ways. Auto-Play BFD2’s Groove engine features several Auto-Play modes, which allow you to use BFD2 as more of a tradi- tional drum machine or auto-accompaniment module. When an Auto-Play mode is enabled, the Groove engine starts playing automatically when you start your host sequencer transport, or when clicking the Play button on the BFD2 transport when the host is stopped or when running BFD2 as a standalone application. - Page 113 Current When playback is started the currently selected Groove in the Palette is played, following the behaviour defined by Groove Ac- tions. Since the currently selected Groove is also the Groove shown in the Editor, this Auto-Play mode is very useful when editing a Groove. Set its End Groove Action to ‘Loop’ so that the Groove keeps looping while you edit. Clicking on another Palette slot that contains a Groove causes it to start playing and stops the original Groove. Note that this oc- curs regardless of whether Polyphonic mode is enabled in the Session preferences. The transition follows the relevant Start and End Groove Actions as normal. This is the default sub-mode for the Palette Auto-Play mode. Groove In this sub-mode, you can specify a specific Groove to play when the transport is started. The Groove is specified via an accom- panying setting in the preferences, Palette Auto-Play Groove, by setting the MIDI note of the desired Groove slot. Random In this sub-mode, a random Groove from the Palette is started when the transport is started. Drum Track Choosing the Drum Track Auto-Play mode allows you to assemble a sequence of Grooves within BFD2 itself, and play it back in sync with your host when running BFD2 as a plugin. This feature is very useful if you use the standalone version of BFD2 as a live drum accompaniment tool – you can put together a whole song’s worth of drums, with as many changes as you like, and manipulate each part in the Editor. You may even find that you prefer BFD2’s drum editing environment to that in your host, and choose to construct your project’s drum parts within BFD2. The state of the Drum Track is saved with Palettes and BFD2 Presets, making it easy to quickly load up a whole song’s worth of drums in new projects. Another major advantage of using the Drum Track is that BFD2 features a built-in offline export function allowing you to export the whole track as a multi-channel bounce, faster than real time. This is very beneficial if you want to create drum bounces quickly and your host does not offer an offline mixdown feature. When using BFD2 as a plugin in a host, the play position in the Drum Track is always synchronized to the host playback position when the host’s transport is running. You can reposition the playback position marker (using the mouse or the Return to start button in the transport) and use the BFD2 transport to start and stop playback when the host is stopped, or when using BFD2 as a standalone application.
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Page 114: Enabling The Drum Track
7:2 Drum Track Introduction The Drum Track allows you to put together a sequence of Grooves to form an entire track of drums. Enabling the Drum Track The Drum Track remains inactive until Auto-play is enabled and the Auto-play Mode is set to ‘Drum Track’. Drum Track synchronization Playback follows the host tempo and time signature if you are running BFD as a plugin within a host, and synchronizes to its the host playback position when the host transport is running. If you are using the standalone version of BFD2, or if the host transport is stopped, use the transport, tempo and time signature controls in BFD2’s status bar to control playback. You cannot create tempo or time signature changes in the BFD2 Drum Track. If you need such functionality, you must use a host that is capable of this. BFD2’s Drum Track follows host tempo changes. It also tracks host time signature changes, but does not represent them graphically. Therefore, if you use tempo changes, we recommend that you sequence BFD2 entirely from the host. Looped playback If the Loop button is enabled on the BFD2 transport, playback does not follow the host playback position. Instead, when the play position reaches the end loop indicator in the Drum Track ruler, playback loops back to the position specified by the start loop indi- cator. The Drum Track playing in sync with Pro Tools when running BFD as an RTAS plugin... -
Page 115: Drum Track Display
The red insert marker indicates the insertion point when adding a part to the Drum Track and when moving or copying parts within it. It also specifies the point at which part split operations occur. Changing the insert marker position To change the position of the insert marker, click the desired position in the Track lane. This is used for the Split Part at marker function in the Part context menu. Start marker When in standalone mode or when the host transport is stopped, the start marker specifies the point in the Drum Track to which to send the position marker when pressing the Return to start button on the transport. This means that playback next starts from the start marker point. You can press the Return to start button during playback, which causes the playback position to jump to the insert marker without interrupting playback. When running BFD2 as a plugin in a host, the Drum Track playback position always starts in sync with the host position. You can click the Stop or Return to start buttons on BFD2’s transport during playback in order to ‘disconnect’ the synchronization between host and plugin. Changing the Start marker position To change the position of the start marker, click the desired position in the Track ruler. Loop start and end markers (Looped playback only) When the Loop button is enabled on the BFD2 transport, the Loop indicators appear on the Drum Track ruler. When the position marker reaches the end loop indicator, playback loops back to the position specified by the start loop indicator. Click and drag the start and end loop indicators by clicking and dragging them left and right along the ruler. Zoom in/out The zoom in/out buttons at the bottom-right of the Drum Track display control the horizontal zoom level of the Drum Track. You can also use the mousewheel while holding down the ALT key to change the zoom level. -
Page 116: 7:4 Working With The Drum Track
7:4 Working with the Drum Track Adding parts to the Drum Track Dragging a Groove to the desired point in the track, represented by the insert marker To add a Groove as a Part on the Drum Track, drag and drop any groove from the palette to the desired point in the Drum Track. Here, the Groove has been dropped into position, creating a new part on the track Once a Groove has been dropped onto the Drum Track, it is referred to as a ‘Part’. -
Page 117: Part Context Menu
Moving selected Parts To move Parts on the Track lane select one or more parts and then drag them along the Track lane. The posi- tion at which they will be dropped is shown by the insert marker. Release the mouse button to drop the part at the desired position. If there is a gap of the same or greater size as the moved Part between the insert marker and another Part in the track, the Part simply slots into the gap. If there is no gap, or a gap smaller than the moved Part, between the insert marker and another Part in the track, all subsequent Parts in the track are nudged later in time by the length of the moved Part – in other words, the gap is preserved. Copying selected Parts You can copy Parts using drag and drop by holding down the ALT key while moving them. This function follows exactly the same behaviour as that which occurs when moving Parts, except that the original Part is not moved, it is copied. Changing the size of Parts It is possible to make a Part shorter in the Drum Track by clicking and dragging its extreme left and right edges. When you move the mouse cursor over the extreme right edge of a Part, you’ll notice it change to reflect the fact that you can click and drag at this point. Click and drag towards the left in order to shorten the Part. An indicator appears at the right of the Part to indicate that it has been truncated. If you move the mouse cursor over the extreme left edge of a Part, the cursor changes to reflect the fact that you can click and drag from this point towards the right in order to change the start point of the Part. A ‘...’ indicator appears at the left of the part to indicate that the start point has been changed. It is not possible to change the length of a part beyond that of the original Groove. Part context menu Right-clicking on the Drum Track brings up a menu with a number of additional functions for manipulating Parts. Exactly which functions are available depends on whether you right-click on an empty area of the track, or if you click on one of a selection of Parts. Cut Selected Parts This function removes the selected Parts from the track and stores them in the clipboard. Copy Selected Parts This function stores the selected Parts in the clipboard. -
Page 118: 7:5 Loading, Saving And Exporting The Drum Track
7:5 Loading, saving and exporting the Drum Track Saving and loading Drum Track contents You cannot load and save only the contents of the Drum Track, since they are dependent on Grooves in the Palette. Therefore, the Drum track can only be saved and loaded along with the Palette. Exporting the Drum track as MIDI You can export the entire Drum Track as a MIDI file by using the Export Drum Track MIDI... function on the BFD2 Control bar Save menu. This results in a system file save dialog being displayed, prompting you to for a filename for the saved MIDI file. If you need to, navigate to a different location before typing a filename, and then hit ENTER or click Save. The current MIDI mapping is used for the export. If an articulation is mapped to more than one key, the lowest key to which it is mapped is used for its MIDI events in the exported file. Using the MIDI export mode setting in the Groove preferences, you can choose to export a MIDI file containing one track for all kit-pieces, one track per kit-piece or one track per articulation. Exporting the Drum track as audio The Export Audio function performs an audio export of the Drum Track, from the begin- ning to the end of the last part on the track. -
Page 119: Setting Up The Midi Output Function
7:7 Using BFD2’s MIDI Out In compatible hosts, you can use the output of the BFD2 plugin’s Groove engine as a MIDI input stream to trigger other instru- ments on entirely different MIDI tracks. Currently, the only plugin format that supports this feature is VST, and even then only in some hosts – the main sequencing hosts that include this functionality are Ableton Live and Steinberg’s Cubase and Nuendo. Additionally, some modular hosts such as Plogue Bidule and Energy XT provide the ability to patch MIDI between plugins. Setting up the MIDI output function To use the MIDI output, you first need to enable the function in BFD2. In the Session preferences, enable the Send MIDI Out set- ting. By default, MIDI channel 1 is used for transmitted note events. This can be changed using the MIDI Out channel setting, also in the BFD2 Session preferences. Using the MIDI output as a MIDI input in your host Once the BFD2 MIDI output is enabled, it becomes available as a MIDI input in your host. This can be used as a MIDI input source for MIDI tracks routed to any instrument. The actual method with which the MIDI routing is accomplished varies between hosts. Typically, in sequencer hosts, you need to set the MIDI input port of a MIDI track to the BFD MIDI Out, and also set the channel according to the MIDI Out channel setting in the BFD2 Session preferences. Modular hosts, on the other hand, involve graphical patching of between the MIDI output and input ports on modules. Please consult your host’s documentation or support services for guidance on performing such tasks. Latency of the MIDI Out... -
Page 120: Chapter 08: Mapping Page
• you have an electronic drumkit • you want to layer individual articulations on a single key • t he pre-made maps and simple mapping technique do not suit your working methods and you need to set up more complex mappings Automation mapping view (sections 8:7, 8:8, 8:9 and 8:10) Mapping BFD2 parameters to MIDI CCs and notes (8:7, 8:8, 8:9) BFD2 parameters can be mapped to MIDI continuous controllers or notes. Notes are especially useful for button-type controls. Mapping BFD2 parameters to host automation parameters (8:7, 8:10) You can also map BFD2 parameters to host automation parameters, which are high-resolution automation systems provided by advanced host sequencing environments. Switching between views Use the Key and Auto buttons in the Mapping page toolbar in order to switch to the Key mapping and Automation mapping views respectively. -
Page 121: 8:2 Loading In The Mapping Page
8:2 Loading in the Mapping page Loading key maps To load a key map, click the Load button in the BFD2 Control bar and use the Load Key Map... func- tion on the Load menu that appears. This opens the key map chooser. All available key maps are displayed with an image representing their contents. Delete key map from database Sticky button Key map listing: click to select or double-click to load Info Click to load the selected key map To load a map, select it by clicking on it and then click the Load button. You can also double-click any map in the listing in order to load it. View size This drop-down menu selects the size of the key maps shown in chooser panel listing. A... -
Page 122: Key Map Loaded When Bfd2 Is Launched
Load Auto Map Too With this button enabled, loading a key map also loads an automation map with the same name if it exists in the <user location>/Maps folder. If no automation map exists with the same name, the current automation mappings are unchanged. Load / Cancel buttons To load the currently selected key map, click the Load button. You can also load any key map in the listing by double-clicking it. If you change your mind and decide you don’t want to load a new key map, click the Cancel button. Keyboard operation You can navigate around the available keymaps with the cursor (arrow) keys. The selected keymap can be deleted from the database by pressing the DELETE key. Load the selected keymap by pressing the RETURN or ENTER key. To exit the key map chooser panel without loading anything, press the ESC key. Info The info area displays information about the currently selected keymap. Photo The large key map photo, representing the hardware or software it supports, is especially useful if you are using the ‘List’ or ‘Details’ views. Info The info display shows any relevant information provided with factory-made keymaps. Key map loaded when BFD2 is launched When an instance of BFD2 is launched, it reloads the last key map that you loaded. However, if you have specified a startup preset in the BFD2 Data preferences, the key map contained within it overrides the last map that was loaded. -
Page 123: Loading Automation Maps
• T he Load Auto Map Too button is replaced by a Load Key Map Too button, which loads a key map with the same name if it exists in the <user location>/Maps folder. Delete automation map from database Sticky button Automation map listing: click to select or double- click to load Info Click to load the selected automation map Automation map loaded when BFD2 is launched When an instance of BFD2 is launched, it reloads the last automation map that you loaded. However, if you have specified a startup preset in the BFD2 Data preferences, the automation map contained within it overrides the last automation map that was loaded. -
Page 124: 8:3 Saving In The Mapping Page
8:3 Saving in the Mapping page The Mapping page allows you to save a number of different types of files. The save functions are accessed from the Load menu on the BFD2 control bar. Save Key Map This function opens a system file save dialog, prompting you for a filename in order to save the current articulation mappings as a BFD2 key map. Save location When you save your own key maps, you are prompted by default to save them in the user level BFD2 folder at the following location: <user location>/Maps We recommend that you save your maps into this folder in order for them to be visible in the keymap chooser panel. Wherever you save a key map, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned. Key map files are saved with the .bfd2map extension. A default image file is saved with key maps. Save Automation Map This function opens a system file save dialog, prompting you for a filename in order to save the current automation settings as a BFD2 automation map. Save Location The default save location for automation maps is the same as that for key maps: <user location>/Maps It is recommended that you save your automation maps into this folder in order for them to be visible in the keymap chooser pan- el. Wherever you save a map, it is added to the BFD2 database. It is very important to remember, however, that if it is removed from the database (or if you trash and rebuild your database), items not saved in the user location are not re-scanned. Automation map files are saved with the .bfd2auto extension. A default image file is saved with automation maps. Save Key + Automation maps This function opens a system file save dialog, prompting you for a filename in order to save a key map and automation map with the same name (although the two resulting map files have different extensions – .bfd2map and .bfd2auto). -
Page 125: 8:4 Key Mapping View
8:4 Key mapping view BFD2’s keymapping mapping process involves dragging and dropping a kit-piece from the kit-piece listing to a MIDI key in the keyboard layout. Kit-piece listing Clear All Keys Keyboard layout Selected key MIDI event log Keyrange selector Mapping inspector Kit-piece listing The kit-piece listing shows all the kit-piece slots in the current kit size. You can map a kit-piece slot even if no kit-piece is loaded into the slot: the default choices of articulations for the slot are map- pable. You can map a kit-piece slot even if it has no kit piece loaded. If you map a slot that has nothing loaded in to it you can only map the default articulations available for the slot. Keyboard layout and keyrange selector The keyboard layout shows a region of 1 1 / 2 octaves of the keyboard at any one time. Each key is labelled with its MIDI note. The keyrange selector, effectively a scrollbar, allows you to access the entire keyboard range. -
Page 126: Key Labelling
Key labelling Keys containing a single articulation mapping are shown in the following format: [Slot name] : [Artic index] [Kit-piece] [Articulation] If more than one articulation has been mapped to a key, it is labelled as follows: <Multiple> [no. of articulations] For example, if a snare is loaded into the snare1 slot and the drag articulation is mapped to a key, the following is shown: S: <Snare Drag> If you delete this articulation from the key, and then load a tom into the same slot, the following would be displayed on the key: S: <Tom Hit> If you now map any other articulation to the key without deleting the current mapping, the label would change to read as follows: <Multiple> <> Other labels • Groove notes are labelled with: <Groove> • Slot chokes are labelled as follows: Slot [slot number] Choke • Mappings whose articulations are not currently loaded are labelled with a (!) indicator. Key colours Keys are shaded to represent various states. -
Page 127: Single-Articulation Previews
Key context menu By right-clicking on a key, the key context menu appears. This menu allows you to cut, copy and paste mappings between keys. Removes any mappings from the key and stores them in the clipboard. Copy Stores the key’s mappings in the clipboard and leaves them intact on the key. Paste If the clipboard contains cut or copied mapping settings, this function pastes them to the key. MIDI event log The MIDI event log displays a list of all MIDI events received by BFD2. It is very useful for troubleshooting and making advanced mapping tasks easier. Log display The log displays incoming MIDI data in the following format: Notes Channel [1-1] Note On [C0 - G10) Velocity [1-1) MIDI Continuous Controllers (CCs) Channel [1-1] CC [0-1) Value [1-1) Other MIDI messages (e.g. -
Page 128: 8:5 Working With The Key Mapper
8:5 Working with the key mapper Mapping an articulation to a MIDI key 1. Using the keyrange selector, select the desired part of the keyboard 2. D rag & drop the kit-piece to a key. If you want to move to a different area of the keyboard without abandoning the drag & drop operation, move the mouse cursor at the top or bottom edge of the keyboard layout, so that the viewed area scrolls up or down the keyboard. 3. A fter you release the mouse button over the desired key, select one of the kit-piece’s articulations from the pop-up list that ap- pears Click and drag a kit-piece from the listing to a key Select an articulation from the list that appears Mapping multiple articulations to neighbouring keys 1. Using the keyrange selector, select the desired part of the keyboard 2. D rag & drop the kit-piece to a key. Remember that you are also mapping to keys above or below the note on which you drag &... -
Page 129: Layering Multiple Articulations On A Single Key
Layering multiple articulations on a single key You can place as many articulations as you like, from any kit-pieces, on a single key. This offers a more advanced means of layer- ing sounds than using the Link function in the Kit page. Simply keep dragging additional articulations from any kit-piece to the same key. Please note that you cannot layer slot choke articulations. If you try to drag a slot choke onto a key containing one or more exist- ing articulations, you are prompted to overwrite the current assignments for the key. Likewise, if you try to drag another articula- tion onto a key containing a slot choke, you are prompted to overwrite the slot choke with the new assignment. Special articulations Slot Choke Any kit-piece can be choked by playing a slot choke key. This stops the decay of any kit-piece according to its fade settings in the BFD2 Engine preferences. Please note that you cannot layer a slot choke note with any other articulation - placing a choke note on a key overwrites any mapping that already exists on that key. If you use an electronic drumkit that supports manual cymbal choking using polyphonic aftertouch (poly pressure) messages, you can enable the Choke with aftertouch setting in the BFD2 MIDI Preferences. Please note that aftertouch choking only works on cymbals. All Articulations, upwards All Articulations, downwards These are used for mapping all articulations to consecutive keys, going either up the keyboard from the selected key, or down. Variable tip (hihat slot only) Variable shank (hihat slot only) These articulations appear for hihats only. Please see section 9:3 for more details. -
Page 130: Articulation List
8:6 Mapping inspector When any MIDI key is selected by clicking on it or playing the note via MIDI (as long as the Select keys with MIDI notes prefer- ence is enabled), the mapping inspector displays a number of settings for the key, which can be applied to any of the articulations currently mapped to it. Articulation list Selected key Variable articulation controls Low & High velocity Articulation list Each articulation that has been mapped to the key is shown in the articulation list. Click any articulation to select it and edit its parameters. Low & High velocity These parameters allow you to proportionally scale incoming velocities over a certain range. For example, if Low is set to 64 and High is set to 127, an incoming velocity of 0 produces an output velocity of 64, while an incoming velocity of 16 produces an output velolcity of 72, and so on. Velocity Curve This parameter controls the velocity curve of triggered note events. Clicking and dragging the parameter causes a small graph curve to appear and change shape. The graph represents incoming velocity (x-axis) against output velocity (y-axis). Delete articulation Clicking this button while any articulation is selected removes the assignment from the key. Variable articulation controls When any variable articulation is selected, an extra set of controls are available. • Selecting the variable tip articulation displays the variable hihat tip controls. • S electing the variable shank articulation displays the variable hihat shank controls. -
Page 131: Overview
8:7 Introduction to BFD2 automation Overview BFD2 allows you to change most of its controls over time by using hardware controllers or messages from your host. MIDI con- tinuous controllers (MIDI CCs), MIDI notes and host automation parameters can be assigned to the available software controls. MIDI CCs and host automation MIDI CCs and host automation both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. BFD2 supports both methods so it’s entirely up to you which to use. MIDI continuous controllers allow a maximum resolution of 128 steps. While RPN and NRPN commands allow higher resolutions, it is relatively rare for hardware MIDI controllers to support them, because of the complexity required to program these functions. Host automation, on the other hand, allows far higher resolution for continuous parameter control. The amount of resolution can vary depending on the capabilities of the host and the plugin format, as well as any hardware control surfaces used. It tends to be anything from 14-bit (16,384 steps) to 32-bit floating point (effectively continuous). While it is easy to ‘draw’ host automation curves onto track lanes in your host, hardware controllers for this type of automation tend to be expensive and specialized. Also, the controls available for plugins on these hardware automation devices tends to be rather fiddly and uncustomizable, usually having to page through many parameters to reach the one you need at any one time. MIDI controllers tend to be easier to customize to your needs, and because they are cheaper they make it affordable to have more dedicated hardware controls at once. MIDI note automation BFD2 allows you to map MIDI notes to software controls. This is very useful for button type controls. You can also assign a con- tinuous control such as a fader or knob to a MIDI note – the note toggles the control between minimum and maximum values. Parameter MIDI learn function in the status bar Virtually all BFD2 faders, knobs and buttons can be assigned to MIDI quickly and intuitively by using the controller learn function in the BFD2 Status bar. This function is covered in section 1:5. -
Page 132: Automation View Interface
Automation parameters source table Key and Auto buttons If the Mapping page is currently in key mapping view, click the Auto button to show the automation mapping view. Click the Key button to return to key mapping view. Automation type These three buttons allow you to choose between the 3 automation mapping types. Each automation type covers a different type of automation method. MIDI CCs Click this button to view the MIDI CC mappings and map BFD parameters to MIDI CCs. This view is recommended for faders and knobs. MIDI notes Click this button to view MIDI note automation mappings and map MIDI notes to BFD2 parameters. This method is especially useful for button controls in BFD2. Host automation Click this button to view host automation mappings and map host automation parameters to BFD2 parameters. BFD2 parameters This column displays all assignable parameters in BFD2. A number of global parameters are shown, along with further param- eters for the Kit, Mixer and Grooves pages, which are arranged in a tree-view list. Depending on the current automation type, any parameters that are already mapped are highlighted in yellow. The Kit section contains a list of all 32 available slots, each expandable to show its automatable parameters. Mixer The Mixer section has a number of global mixer parameters and also shows a list of the current channels, each expandable to reveal its controllable parameters. The available channels in this list is updated dynamically as channels are added to the mixer. Groove The transport controls are shown in the Groove section, as well as an expandable item for the Groove FX controls. Automation source The contents of this table varies according to the current automation type. See the next few sections in this manual for a full guide to using this table when using each of the automation types. - Page 133 Clear All Auto Click this button to clear all assignments for the current automation type. The labelling of this button changes to reflect the current automation type. BFD2 asks for confirmation before applying this function. Learn mode With the Learn mode button enabled, sending a MIDI CC or playing a MIDI note causes the relevant CC or note to become se- lected in the automation source table. The automation type must be set to the relevant type of control for this function to work – in other words, if the automation type is set to ‘MIDI CCs’, playing a MIDI note does not change the selection, and vice versa. Delete selected mapping When a MIDI CC, note or host automation parameter is selected in the automation source table, clicking this button results in the mapping being cleared. This button has no effect if the selected automation source is not mapped to a BFD2 control.
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Page 134: Automation Source Table In Midi Cc View
8:8 Mapping MIDI CCs to BFD2 controls To map MIDI continuous controllers (CCs) to BFD2 controls, select ‘MIDI CC’ as the automation type. Automation source table in MIDI CC view When ‘MIDI CCs’ is selected as the automation type, the automa- tion source table switches to MIDI CC mode. It is comprised of three columns. CC ID There are 128 available CCs per MIDI channel in the MIDI specifica- tion, with an ID from 0-127. MIDI CCs are listed in the table arranged numerically by their IDs. CC Name Many CCs are commonly associated with a more meaningful name, which is listed in this column. Parameter When a mapping has been created, the assigned BFD2 parameter is shown in this column. When no mapping exists for a CC, this column is blank. Mode This column allows 2 different modes of MIDI CC control behaviour. Continuous (default) This is the default mode and the most obvious way to control a fader or knob in BFD2 – the fader or knob’s value follows the MIDI CC values continuously. Switch This mode is intended to be used when controlling buttons in BFD2 with MIDI CCs. When you set this mode for a MIDI CC to note assignment, the MIDI CC range is divided in two, with each half of the range setting the state of the assigned button. BFD button state... -
Page 135: Automation Parameters Table In Midi Note View
8:9 Mapping MIDI notes to BFD2 controls To map MIDI notes to BFD2 controls, select ‘MIDI note’ as the automation type. Automation parameters table in MIDI note view When ‘MIDI note’ is selected as the automation type, the automation source table switches to MIDI note mode. It is comprised of three columns. Note There are 128 available notes per MIDI channel in the MIDI specifica- tion. Notes are arranged in the table from the lowest note (C-2) to the highest note (G8). Mode There are two possible modes – momentary and toggle. Momentary mode engages the control while the MIDI note is held down – upon release the control returns to its ‘off’ state. Toggle mode, on the other hand, is a ‘latching’ behaviour – play the note once and release it to engage a control, and play/release the note again to return it to its ‘off’ state. BFD2 decides on a suitable default setting for the mode, depending on the BFD2 parameter being mapped. By clicking in this column, you can override this setting. Parameter When an mapping has been created, the assigned BFD2 parameter is shown in this column. When no mapping exists for a note, this column is blank. Mode This column allows 2 different modes of MIDI note control behaviour. Toggle (default) Toggle mode is a ‘latching’ behaviour – play the note once and release it to engage a control, and play/release the note again to return it to its ‘off’ state. Momentary In this mode, the assigned BFD2 control is engaged when the MIDI note is held down (when it sends a MIDI note on message). -
Page 136: Automation Parameters Table In Host Automation View
8:10 Mapping host automation to BFD2 controls To map host automation to BFD2 controls, select ‘MIDI note’ as the automation type. Automation parameters table in host automation view When ‘Host automation’ is selected as the automation type, the automation source table switches to host automation mode. It is com- prised of two columns. Auto ID There are 128 available host automation parameters, with an ID from 0-127. Host automation parameters are listed in the table arranged numerically by automation IDs. Parameter When an mapping has been created, the assigned BFD2 parameter is shown in this column. When no mapping exists for a host automation parameter, this column is blank. Creating a host automation mapping 1. First make sure that ‘Host automation’ is selected as the automation type. 2. Find the BFD2 parameter you want to assign in the BFD2 parameters column. 3. In the automation source table, find the host automation parameter to which you want to map the BFD2 parameter. 4. Drag and drop the BFD2 parameter from the BFD2 parameters column to the desired host automation parameter ID in the automation source table. Alternatively, you can also select the desired host automation parameter in the automation source table and double-click the desired parameter in the BFD2 parametercolumn. Mapping indication in BFD2 parameter table If a BFD2 parameter has been mapped to a host automation parameter, it is highlighted in yellow in the BFD2 parameter column. -
Page 137: How Electronic Drumkits Work
09 ELECTRONIC DRUMS AND BFD2 9:1 Intoduction to using electronic drumkits with BFD2 BFD2 supports the use of electronic drumkits for triggering sounds. Pre-made maps are provided for most kits. However, if you want to customize the response, or if you need to map a kit that isn’t supported in the provided presets, this section explains how to best use BFD2’s mapping system for working with electronic kits. Most triggers/pads on electronic kits are fairly straightforward to map to BFD2’s sounds. However the hihat requires more atten- tion, as does the snare if you want to utilize positional snare information for switching between the ‘hit’ and ‘half-edge’ hit. If your kit supports ‘grabbing’ a cymbal trigger to choke it, BFD2 can support this too. This chapter assumes that you are familiar with using the MIDI view in BFD2. Please make sure you read the previous chapter fully before this one. How electronic drumkits work Electronic drumkits, or ‘e-drums’ usually consist of a number of pads which transmit trigger signals as control voltage over an audio connection. Additionally, a pedal mechanism that transmits the variable state of the pedal between open and closed, again using a control voltage over an audio connection. The audio signals are routed to a converter box, commonly referred to as a ‘drum brain’, which translates audio signals received from pads into MIDI messages. The brain often also has onboard sounds, which are rather limited due to memory constraints. Common e-drum systems include D-Drums (formerly made by Clavia), Roland V-Drums, the Yamaha DT series and Alternate Mode Drumkat. Note that some budget e-drum systems such as the Ion kit do not support variable hihat pedals, instead using a switch type pedal that simply changes between open and closed states. You cannot utilize variable hihat control with such kits. Cross-talk between triggers and zones It s very common to experience cross-talk symptoms when using e-drum systems – when you strike one pad, the resulting vibra- tions are picked up by other pads’ sensors. This is often made worse by the fact that most e-drum systems are supplied with a... -
Page 138: 9:2 Simple Hihat Control
Bus traffic problems You may find it particulatly difficult to achieve low latencies on laptops and smaller machines with limited expansion potential – no ability to install dedicated internal drives or audio interfaces. This means you may need to chain devices on the same firewire bus, for example. This often leads to dropouts at lower latencies. It is highly recommended to run the hard drive containing BFD2’s sounds from a separate bus to the audio interface. Numerous options are available – Cardbus or ExpressCard Firewire/E-SATA cards are one option, while USB2 hard drives or audio interfac- es represent another solution. Some laptops feature fast 7200 RPM internal drives – in such cases, running BFD2’s sounds from the internal drive is another potential option. Recommended systems for low latency If you’re serious about drumming with BFD, you must assemble a system which can get down to very playable low latencies. Au- dio interfaces such as those by RME and Lynx can deliver latencies as low as 64 or 32 samples (1.5ms or 0.75ms at 44.1 kHz). A PCI or PCI-Express solution is recommended, with CardBus and ExpressCard interfaces on laptops being of similar quality. A Firewire interface on its own bus is the next best option in our experience. An internal 7200 RPM drive for the sounds is preferable – if this is not possible, use an external drive on its own bus (Firewire, USB2 and E-SATA are all potential options). If you also use a good MIDI interface (PCI/PCI-Express is better than USB) and a fast computer, you can achieve a very respon- sive feel when playing BFD2 with e-drums. If it is not possible to assemble a system capable of stable low latency operation, it may be best to record your performance while monitoring the sounds in your drum brain, and then afterwards route the recorded MIDI to BFD2’s sounds. 9:2 Simple hihat control The easiest way to control BFD2 hihats with an electronic kit is by ignoring the MIDI CC transmitted by the brain according to the hihat pedal position and instead simply using the open, closed and pedal hihat notes transmitted by the brain. The drum brain calculates whether to send out an open or closed hihat note depending on the state of the hihat pedal. Some brains that support multi-zone triggers are capable of sending out different open and closed notes for tip (also known as bow) and shank (edge) triggers. A pedal note is transmitted when the hihat pedal controller is fully depressed. These notes are mapped to suitable BFD2 articulations. Example: Roland TD-20 The following table shows how to map the notes transmitted by a Roland TD-20 to achieve non-variable hihat control. Roland note MIDI note (note no.) -
Page 139: Overview
Closed Bow F#1 () variable tip Open Edge D0 () variable shank Closed Edge A#-1 () variable shank Pedal G#1 () pedal The Roland brain decides whether to send the ‘open’ or ‘closed’ note depending on the pedal controller value and a setting on the brain dictating the transition point between open and closed. This distinction is unimportant to BFD2 because it contains additional 1 / 4 -open, 1 / 2 -open and 3 / 4 -open sounds. Therefore the open and closed sounds are mapped to the same variable articulation. BFD2 makes its own decisions about which actual hihat articulation to play, depending on the value of the pedal controller. The pedal note, meanwhile, chokes any playing open sound and plays the hihat pedal articulation (the ‘foot-chick’ sound). -
Page 140: Assigning The Hihat Height Pedal Midi Cc
1 / 4 -open, 1 / 2 -open, 3 / 4 -open and fully open articulations). Each of these points displays a value from 0 to 127, which corresponds to the hihat height MIDI CC value at which the transition occurs. Drag the points up and down to adjust them. For example, let’s say that the points for the variable tip control are set at values of 10, 50, 80, and 110. This means that the ‘zones’ of MIDI CC values are as follows: open 10- -open 0- -open 0-10 -open 110-1 closed When a variable tip is triggered in BFD2, the concurrent value of the hihat pedal MIDI CC is analyzed. Depending in which ‘zone’ the value lies, the appropriate articulation played. For example, if the value is 30, a 3 / 4 -open tip articulation is played. If it is 110, a closed tip is played, and so on. When using a hihat with less than the maximum amount of articulations, BFD intelligently remaps triggers to the most appropri- ate articulation that does exist. This occurs if you unload any articulations in the Kit view, or if you use hihats from previous BFD libraries. The original BFD library did not include 1 / 4 -open or 3 / 4 -open articulations, while all pre-BFD2 expansion packs do not include an open shank articulation. Lock Tip and Shank If you don’t need to adjust the variable tip and variable shank responses separately, you can enable the Lock Tip and Shank button. This results in locking the settings of both articulations together, so that the Pedal Position slider controls are exactly the same for both articulations. -
Page 141: All Hihats Variable Setting
Possible problems Apart from a problem in getting the MIDI to BFD2 (check your host MIDI filter settings), it is possible that your pedal may not be sending out the maximum possible range of MIDI CC values. For example, its maximum value (when fully closed) may be 90 instead of 127. If this is the case, adjust the transition point between closed and 1 / 4 -open so that it is at or below 90, and move the other sliders to appropriate points over the rest of the available range moving down towards 0. You can use the MIDI event log to examine the range of values transmitted by your hihat pedal. You may also be able to adjust this range of the MIDI CC in your drum brain. All Hihats variable setting This setting, located in the BFD2 Session preferences, represents a quick way of changing a set of regular hihat articulations into a variable hihat setup. It works by changing all hihat articulation mappings (with the exception of the pedal articulation) to variable equivalents using a single preference check-box. To illustrate this using the Roland TD-20 example: Roland note MIDI note (note no.) BFD default ‘All hihats variable’ mapping enabled Open Bow A#1 () open tip... -
Page 142: 9:4 Other Settings Related To Hihat Control
9:4 Other settings related to hihat control Preferences Hihat reopen threshold Most drum brains constantly send out hihat pedal movement MIDI CC messages while the pedal is moved. One of the few brains that does not operate in this manner is the Roland TD20, which only sends out hihat pedal CC messages during and very close to a hihat trigger. When brains constantly send out the hihat pedal CC, potential problems are created with BFD2’s transmuting features, such as turning a closed hat into an open hat when the pedal is moved up very shortly after a closed hat trigger. If CC messages are sent continuously, the transmuting would always be active, which is not desirable. The ‘HH reopen thresh’ parameter sets a time limit (defined in musical notes) after a hihat trigger for transmuting to occur if the pedal is moved. It is set at 1 / 64 -note by default, which is optimal for most situations. However, if you need to adjust this response, you can de- crease it to 1 / 128 -note, or increase it up to a maximum of 1 / 16 -note. Retrigger threshold As mentioned in section 9:1, the Retrig Threshold setting exists to combat double-triggering problems. Hihats can be especially prone to spewing out lots of notes, especially dual zone triggers. Increasing the Retrig threshold may help in overcoming such problems. Hihat transition fade time The ‘Hihat trans time’ parameter defines the speed of the transition between sounds during the transmuting process. If you set... -
Page 143: Kit-Piece Inspector
0.00 Hihat pedal choke fade 0.00 These settings tell BFD to only perform a fast choke on a playing hihat articulation if a pedal note (usually G#1) is received (it also performs a fast choke on closed tip articulations – more on that later). Most drum brains send out a pedal note when the hihat pedal is fully depressed, in addition to the MIDI controller messages for pedal movement. Everything else is choked much more slowly, allowing more natural cymbal-style choking for open hihat sounds. meaning that BFD won’t choke hats when drum brains send out masses of MIDI notes because of cross-talk between zones etc. Additionally, there is a separate choke fade setting for closed tip sounds. This is provided for keyboard drummers and program- mers who are unfamiliar with needing to choke an open hat with a pedal sound. You may find that your e-drum system is demonstrating a lot of cross-talk between hihat zones and perhaps sending out unde- sired closed tip notes. If this is the case, try increasing the Hihat closed tip choke fade setting to a larger value. Please also note that since the closed shank articulation is quite a splashy sound, not unlike a 1/4-open tip, it is treated as an ‘open’ articulation - i.e. it won’t have a fast choke unless the global hihat fade choke fade settings are set to small values. Kit-piece Inspector Amplitude scaling with velocity If you’re accustomed to the way that e-drums’ onboard sounds respond, you may want to add some amplitude scaling over the velocity range. By default, BFD2’s sounds are played at natural recorded levels, with the kit-piece struck at varying inten- sities to form the velocity layers. While it is difficult to achieve on a real kit, you may require a more linear scaling of loudness when playing an e-drum hihat, as it can simply feel more playable, probably due to limited dynamic response of trigger- ing technology. If this is the case, you can increase the Vel to Amp parameter for the hihat articulations. This control is located in the Kit-Piece Inspector in the Kit view. To set it for all hihat articulations, select the hihat kit-piece in the Kit view, and in the Kit-Piece Inspector’s Articulation selector, choose ‘All articulations’. Then increase the Vel to Amp parameter to dial in the amount of scaling required. Levels of different hihat articulations You may want to adjust the levels of the different hihat articulations in relation to each other. This can be achieved using the ‘Artic Trim’ control in the Kit-Piece Inspector (in the Kit view). -
Page 144: 9:5 Positional Snare Control
9:5 Positional snare control The BFD2 soundset features a ‘half-edge’ snare articulation, which is the head of the snare struck halfway between the centre and the edge. The regular ‘hit’ articulation, on the other hand, is a result of the snare head being struck in the centre. The Variable snare articulation allows you to access the hit and half-edge articula- tions using the positional sensing of snares in electronic drum systems such as those by Roland. Positional sensing works by the drum brain sending out a MIDI CC representing the distance from the centre (where the value is 0) and the edge (value 127). In order to utilize this functionality, a variable snare articulation must be mapped in BFD2. Typically, you should assign it to the key normally assigned to the ‘hit’ articulation, typically D2. Please make sure that it is the only articulation on the key – delete any articulations that may have originally existed on the key. Variable snare controls Once a variable snare is mapped, select the key on which the mapping exists and select the variable snare articulation in the mapping inspector. The variable snare controls are shown. Variable snare controls Snare position MIDI CC MIDI CC Firstly, define a MIDI continuous controller to use as the source for the positional information. Click and drag the MIDI CC value up and down to set the CC number. You can also define this MIDI CC in the MIDI page Automation view by mapping the relevant kit-piece slot’s ‘Position’ parameter to the desired MIDI CC. On Roland kits, this MIDI CC is usually CC #17. Adjusting positional response A position slider is also provided in the variable snare advanced mapping settings, in order to define the MIDI CC# value repre- senting the boundary between the hit and half-edge articulation ‘zones’. Simply drag the point up or down on the slider in order to change the boundary between the zones. If the point is set at 64, this means that the two zones are set as follows: 0-... -
Page 145: Chapter 10: Bfd2 Preferences Customizing Bfd2
10 BFD2 PREFERENCES customizing BFD2 10:1 Preferences page overview Click the Preferences button in the BFD2 Control bar in order to show the Preferences page. Sub-categories containing relevant preferences Preferences toolbar containing various categories BFD2 contains two types of preferences: 1. Session preferences: These are settings that are not needed often enough to merit a place on the main user interface. However, they are the kind of settings that are useful to set and save with each project. Therefore, these settings are saved along with a BFD2 preset and with your host project when running BFD2 as a plugin. The Session preferences category is accessed using the Session button in the Preferences toolbar, or via shortcut buttons in the MIDI and Groove preferences categories. 2. Global preferences: All other categories in the Preferences page contain the kind of settings involving BFD2’s performance and underlying engine that you won’t need to change very often. They are stored in a dedicated preferences file in BFD2’s system folder, and are used whenever you launch BFD2. They are not saved with each project or preset. -
Page 146: 10:2 Data Preferences
10:2 Data preferences Preference Options RESET ALL PREFERENCES Clicking this button, and agreeing to the subsequent confirmation dialog, results in all your preference settings being trashed, reverting to factory default settings. Scan Data Paths for new files Clicking this button causes BFD2 to scan its data locations for new files. The locations that are scanned include any set up in the Data Path setting (see below) and the BFD2 user storage location. Any files which have been removed from the database using the various chooser panels are ignored. Trash and rebuild all databases This button results in your entire database being trashed and rebuilt from BFD2’s data locations. The locations that are scanned include any set up in the Data Path setting (see below) and the BFD2 user storage location. This function rescans any items that have been removed from the database, but which have not been deleted. Remove unreferenced info from database If you have deleted any kit files, presets, Grooves or other files used in BFD2 from your hard disk, clicking this button removes their entries from the database. Data Path The data path specifies the location of the BFD2 folder containing the sample data and other files like keymaps, Grooves and so If you have spread out your BFD2 data over several drives, you can set up as many data paths you like. You can also select a BFD folder from a BFD 1.0 or 1.5 installation. Always make sure to select the BFD2 or BFD folder when specifying a data path – in other words DO NOT select BFD2/Audio, BFD/Data or any other folder. -
Page 147: 10:3 Groove Preferences
10:3 Groove preferences Show Groove Session preferences There are a number of session-based preferences concerning the behaviour of the Groove engine. You can view and edit these settings by clicking this button, which is a shortcut to the Session Preferences category, also accessible using the Session button on the Preferences toolbar. Session preferences are saved with a BFD2 preset or host project containing the BFD2 plugin. Therefore, they can be set inde- pendently for each BFD2 session. See section 10:4 for more details on these settings. MIDI Import Import MIDI key map This setting lets you specify a MIDI key map to use in several circumstances within BFD2. 1. It is used for mapping notes in imported MIDI files 2. It is used for mapping notes in imported BFD 1.x Bundles and Grooves See section 5:7 for more details on these functions. The default setting for this preference is the BFD 1.5 key map, meaning that BFD2 is ready to accept BFD 1.5-format MIDI files immediately. Unmapped MIDI note mode When this preference is set to ‘Warn on unmapped notes’, BFD2 warns you whenever importing a MIDI file containing notes which do not exist on the specified import MIDI map (this setting can be found in the MIDI preferences category – see section 10:5). By default this is set to ‘Ignore unmapped notes’, which means that any encountered notes that do not exist on the keymap are ignored. -
Page 148: Editor Preferences
Editor Preferences MIDI export Mode This setting specifies the track structure of exported MIDI files in BFD2. You can choose between 3 settings: • One track for all kit-pieces • One track per kit-piece • One track per articulation Record lead-in (bars) You can set a lead-in time in bars for BFD2’s Groove recording functions. Recording only starts after this time when hitting the Play button while MIDI recording is armed. Simply enter a number of bars to use as a lead-in. Enter 0 if you do not want a lead-in when you record. Groove record commit mode This setting determines if Loop Commit mode is used, in which a ‘commit point’ is set at the end of each Groove cycle when recording in Loop record mode. See section 6:6 for more details. Each commit point can be considered as an ‘undo point’ – by using the Undo function you can undo each cycle of recording. No record commits are made during the recording. Pressing Undo after recording would undo the whole take. Recorded events are committed at the end of each loop cycle, forming an ‘undo point’ for each loop cycle during the take. During or after recording, you can keep clicking the Undo button to regressively undo the notes played during each loop cycle in the take. A commit is only performed at the end of a loop cycle if events are received within it. Maximum undo steps Here you can set the maximum number of undo steps in the Groove Editor’s unlimited undo function. More steps use more RAM! Export tail length (seconds) This preference allows you to specify the size of the tail retained at the end of an audio export. The length of the tail is set in seconds. Retaining a tail at the end of exports makes sure that any lingering decays are captured. However, if you are trying to create au- dio files that are an exact number of bars long (for example with the Export Groove Audio feature), leave this setting at 0. Preview/load tempo/time sig if possible If this setting is enabled, Grooves are previewed at their original tempo in the Groove and Palette choosers when using BFD2 as standalone, or while the host is stopped when using BFD2 as a plugin. -
Page 149: Metronome
High-accuracy song position display This setting is enabled by default and results in a highly accurate position marker in the Groove Editor grid. This can cause more CPU usage on some systems so if you find you are experiencing audio artifacts when using the Groove Editor, disable this set- ting. Metronome Metronome type There are a selection of metronomes included with BFD2. Select the one which suits you best. Metronome volume This setting allows you to specify a volume level for the metronome, and ranges be- tween a maximum of 100 and a mimimum of 1. Metronome mode This setting determines when the metronome is heard. Two settings are possible: Record only When the metronome button is enabled, it is heard during recording. Record and Play When the metronome button is enabled, it is heard when playing back and recording. -
Page 150: 10:4 Session Preferences
10:4 Session preferences Session preferences are settings that are not needed often enough to merit a place on the main interface, but which are useful to save on a session-by-session basis. If you want any settings in this category to be applied when BFD2 is launched, you need to create a suitable startup preset with BFD2 set up the way you want it. To do so, proceed as follows: 1. set BFD2’s parameters as you want them 2. set up BFD2’s session preferences as desired 3. save a BFD2 preset 4. go to the Data category in the Preferences page 5. set the BFD2 preset you just saved as the startup preset Session MIDI prefereces Reset to factory default values Clicking this button reverts to the factory default settings for Session MIDI preferences. Notes MIDI channel Grooves MIDI channel Controller MIDI channel These settings specify the MIDI channels on which BFD2 re- ceives MIDI data for the following purposes: • triggering articulations with MIDI notes • playing Grooves with MIDI notes • automating BFD2 controls with MIDI CCs and MIDI notes By default, all of these are set to Omni, which means that articulation keymaps, Groove notes and MIDI automation receive on all MIDI channels. It is very likely that you will start to run out of MIDI notes in particular if you have large, complex kits, lots of Grooves or lots of MIDI note automation. If this is the case, you can make BFD2 receive MIDI data on different channels for each of these purposes. -
Page 151: Session Playback Preferences
Session Playback preferences Revert to factory defaults Clicking this button reverts to the factory defaults for MIDI session preferences. Auto-fill period This setting defines how often fills are triggered when using the Auto-fill function. Set the number of bars you want between fills here. Palette Auto-Play mode If you’re using the Palette Auto-Play mode, this setting allows you to choose between 3 behaviours when BFD2’s transport is started (either using the Play button on BFD2’s transport, or by starting the host transport when using BFD2 as a plugin). Current (factory default) When BFD2’s transport is started, it starts playing the currently selected Groove. This mode is particularly useful when working in the editor, while setting the edited Groove’s End Action to ‘Loop’. Groove When BFD2’s transport is started, a specific Groove from the Palette is played. This Groove is specified using the Palette Auto- Play Groove setting. Random When BFD2’s transport is started, it plays a random Groove from the Palette. Palette Auto-Play Groove If you’re using the ‘Groove’ Palette Auto-Play mode, this setting lets you specify the MIDI note of the Groove you want to start playing when BFD2’s transport is started. Groove engine active You can switch off the Groove functions in BFD2 entirely if you wish by disabling this setting. The Groove functions do not work at all with this setting disabled. Latching mode When this mode is enabled, Groove are started and stopped with a MIDI note on message, instead of keeping a key held down to keep it playing (note on to start, note off to stop). When the Groove ends, its behaviour follows its defined Groove Actions. -
Page 152: 10:5 Midi Preferences
10:5 MIDI preferences MIDI Channels Show Session MIDI There are a number of song-based preferences concerning the behaviour of the Groove engine. Click the Show MIDI Song Set- tings button to view and edit these Preferences. Song preferences are saved with a BFD2 program. Therefore, they can be set independently for each BFD2 session. Song preferences allow you to save a set of defaults to use as initial settings when BFD2 is launched. They can be changed on a per-session basis while retaining the defaults unless they are specifically changed and re-saved. MIDI Input Transformations Auto pedal event This setting is to be used when using variable hihat control with electronic drum brains which do not send out a pedal (foot-chick) note automatically when the hihat pedal is closed. When enabled, BFD2 generates and play a pedal note whenever the hihat height MIDI CC reaches the first value within the ‘closed zone’ defined with the Variable zone slider for the Variable Tip articulation (see section 9:3). If your drum brain sends out a pedal note when the hihat pedal is fully depressed (D-Drum and V-Drum brains fall into this cat- egory), then you should disable this setting. Auto splash event When using an electronic drumkit with variable hihat controller, enabling this setting causes BFD2 to generate a hihat splash sound when the hihat pedal is closed and opened in very quick succession. Choke with aftertouch Enable this option in order to make BFD respond to polyphonic pressure (aftertouch) signals for choking cymbals. This method of cymbal choking is commonly implemented in electronic drum brains such as those in V-Drum and D-Drum systems. MIDI display -2 octave naming... -
Page 153: Key Mapping Preferences
MIDI Learn Note Wizard preferences These settings control the behaviour of the MIDI note learn wizard in the Kit page. MIDI learn wait mode default This setting determines whether Wait mode is enabled by default. It is enabled in factory default settings. Only learn 1 note per articulation When this setting is enabled, the MIDI note learn wizard does not allow you to use the same key for more than one articula- tion. When you attempt to map an articulation to a note that is already mapped to another articulation, the previous mapping is removed. MIDI learn next slot mode default This preference specifies whether next slot mode is enabled by default. It is enabled in factory default settings. MIDI learn accept time (sec) This setting defines the amount of time that BFD2 allows for you to play an alternative MIDI note before moving to the next articu- lation. By default, this is set to 5 seconds. MIDI learn skip time (sec) When wait mode is disabled in the wizard, this setting specifies the time delay before the wizard moves onto learning the next articulation (or the next kit-piece, if the current articulation is the last in the current kit-piece and next slot mode is enabled). By default, MIDI learn skip time is set to 15 seconds. -
Page 154: 10:6 Engine Preferences
10:6 Engine preferences Streaming Engine Load all to RAM With the Load all to RAM setting enabled, BFD2 loads the entire kit to RAM, and no data is streamed from the disk. Please ensure you have enough RAM before using this option! The size of each kit-piece is shown in the Info tab of the kit-piece chooser panels. To use this option with the highest kit-piece de- tail levels, you would realistically require several gigabytes of RAM. However, if you use this option in conjunction with 16 bit mode and a low Maximum velocity layers value, it can be a viable option when using smaller amounts of RAM. 16 bit mode In this mode, sample data is loaded into RAM and streamed from disk at 16 bit instead of 24 bit. Because 24 bit data is stored in memory as 32 bit floats, using 16 bit mode effectively halves the memory footprint required by BFD2. Preview RAM audio only This setting makes BFD2 play only the initial part of the sounds which are held in RAM, with no disk streaming taking place. It can be useful as a preview mode while composing in order to avoid disk usage, and disabled during mixdown. The actual amount of each sound stored in RAM is determined by the RAM Buffer setting. Mixer in own thread If you have a multi-core CPU, you may want to enable this option to devote one of the cores to BFD2’s mixer engine. Please note that this mode increases latency by one host buffer (usually this is defined by the buffer size setting for your audio card). This is for technical reasons and is unavoidable. Restart engine If you change any of the following settings, it is necessary to click the Restart engine button in order to make them active: • Load all to RAM • 16 bit mode • RAM buffer • Stream buffer • Max cache buffers... -
Page 155: Synth Options
RAM buffer This value, in sample frames, is the size of the portion of each sound held in RAM to enable low latency operation within BFD2 (to circumvent the inherent latency involved with hard disk seek times). The portion held in RAM plays while BFD2’s streaming engine cues up the rest of the data from the hard disk. A larger value gives the hard drive longer to deliver the data, but is more demanding on RAM. If the setting is too low for your system, you are likely to suffer from dropouts and other audio artifacts. This value determines the length of each sound played when the Preview RAM audio only option is enabled. Settings of 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768 and 65536 samples are possible, selectable via a drop-down menu. A setting of 16384 or 32768 is fine for most systems, while very fast newer machines may be able to run at 4096 or 8192. You should try to use the low- est setting possible on your system. Stream buffer The Stream buffer is the size, in sample frames, of the buffers of data being streamed into RAM from the hard disk for each voice. Generally, hard drives are more efficient at reading fewer large chunks of data than many smaller chunks. However, a larger Stream buffer uses more RAM, and may be inefficient if not all the data is used, such as when notes are choked. Settings of 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768 and 65536 samples are possible, selectable via a drop-down menu. Settings of 8192, 16384 or 32768 are fine for most systems: you should try to use the lowest setting possible on your system. If you set a value that is too low for your system to handle, you are likely to hear dropouts or other audio artifacts. Max cache buffers This setting represents the maximum number of disk streaming buffers cached in RAM. If the same velocity layer is triggered repeatedly, it is possible to avoid reading from the disk by reusing the disk streaming buffers with the same data. This param- eter determines how much of your RAM you want to set aside in the hope of acheiving such reuse. If you have even a moderate amount of dynamics in the performance, or if you are using Humanize velocity or Anti-machinegun mode, you may find that not much reuse occurs at all, and could possibly reduce this parameter a little. You still need at least 1 cache buffer per voice! Max voices The Max voices setting dictates the maximum number of voices BFD2 can play simultaneously. If the voice limit is exceeded, BFD2 implements an intelligent voice-stealing system, based on the oldest voice which is still playing. The number of voices required for a performance can be larger than you think. For example, decaying cymbals and toms can raise polyphony requirements quite considerably. 64 is a safe number to use, and voices don’t use much RAM. Max velocity layers You can limit the amount of velocity layers used by BFD2, thereby reducing the strain on the hard disk and RAM, at the expense of detail. If a kit-piece is loaded that has more layers than the number specified with this setting, BFD2 only loads the selected velocity layers at proportional intervals over the velocity range, so you still get the benefits of BFD2’s natural variations in kit-piece timbre and dynamics, only with less ‘resolution’ over the velocity range. -
Page 156: Fade Preferences
Anti-machinegun mode With this setting enabled, BFD2 never plays the same velocity layer twice in sucession for an articulation. This effectively removes the ‘machinegun’ effect which can make drum rolls and other intricate parts sound unrealistic. If the Vel Rnd parameter is set to 0 for any articulation, it is not affected by the Anti-machinegun mode setting. See section 2:8 for more information on using the Vel Rnd parameter for articulations. All Hihats variable The All Hihats variable setting provides a quick way of turning a set of regular hihat articulations into a variable hihat setup. It works by changing all hihat articulation mappings (with the exception of the pedal articulation) to variable equivalents. See section 9:3 for more details of this function. Retrig threshold This setting defines a period of time after each received MIDI note, within which further received notes are ignored. This setting is useful if you own a triggering system prone to cross-talk and double triggering. The value is set in seconds. The default value is 0.050 (50 milliseconds). Hihat reopen thresh Hihat Trans time Hihat tip tighten (base) Hihat tip tighten (range) Hihat shank tighten (base) Hihat shank tighten (range) These settings are related mostly to controlling hihats from electronic drum systems. See section 9:4 for a guide to setting these... -
Page 157: Detail
Special concerns for hihats Hihats have a few extra fade parameters, as in many ways the hihat has the most complex choking behaviour within a drumkit. There are 3 separate choke fade types for hihats: pedal notes and closed tip notes have separate choke fade times to the rest of the hihat’s articulations. It is recommended that the pedal and closed tip choke fade times are kept at low values, while the other hihat choke fade times (covering all open articulations as well as the closed shank articulation) should be kept at higher values. The pedal is the only thing that chokes an open hihat when playing a drumkit. When playing BFD2’s sounds from an electronic drumkit, the pedal note sent out when the pedal is moved down fully is the note used to choke an open hihat. It has also become conventional for sample-based drumkits to choke open hats with a closed hat note. Therefore, the closed tip choke fade time is also provided and is set to a low value by default. Open hihat positions and the closed shank articulation are splashier sounds that react similarly to cymbals when played repeat- edly in succession. Default choke fade (base) The minimum fade time for all kit-piece slots without indi- vidual fade times (kicks, snares and percussion). Default choke fade (range) The maximum fade time for all kit-piece slots without indi- vidual fade times (kicks, snares, percussion). -
Page 158: 10:7 Gui Preferences
10:7 GUI preferences Control behaviour Circular knob motion When this setting is enabled, circular mouse movement is required to control knobs in BFD2. When the setting is disabled, knobs are controlled by vertical mouse movement. The setting is disabled by default. Left-right velocity-scaled preview support With this setting enabled, BFD2 reverts to a BFD1-style preview mechanism of velocity increasing from left to right. This occurs in the following preview hotspots: • ALT-clicking a kit-piece slot window in the Kit page • ALT-clicking a kit-piece in the kit-piece chooser listing • ALT-clicking a kit-piece’s direct channel photo in the Mixer page • ALT-clicking a key in the keymapper’s keyboard layout If this setting is disabled, clicking anywhere in these preview hotspots results in a preview with a fixed velocity of 95. Launch web browser for images When this setting is enabled, clicking a photo associated with a mixer preset (in the Mixer page’s mixer preset panel) or a Groove Palette (in the Groove page’s Palette Info inspector), results in the author’s website being launched in your system’s default web browser. If you are not connected to the internet, or simply want to disable this functionality for any other reason, this setting provides this possibility. Display tool-tips Enabling this setting results in a tool-tip – a short piece of context-sensitive help – appearing when the mouse cursor hovers over a part of the user interface for a certain amount of time. The amount of time required to hover over a control or other part of the interface can be defined with the Tool-tip appear time set- ting. While tool-tips are very helpful when first starting to use BFD2, you may eventually find them distracting. If this is the case, you can disable this setting. Note that context-sensitive help always appears in the context info display in the BFD2 status bar, whatever the status of this set- ting. -
Page 159: Mixer Gui Options
Kit Page Connect kit and slot With this setting enabled, moving the mouse cursor over a kit-piece in the graphical kit display results in the corresponding kit- piece slot window being highlighted with an overlaid green connecting line. Disabling this setting turns off this behaviour. Select triggers preview When this setting is enabled, clicking a kit-piece slot window in the Kit page with the Select tool results in a preview being heard. By default, this setting is disabled, meaning that you must ALT-click a kit-piece slot in order to preview it. Clear slots on kit load By default, when loading a kit, any kit-piece slots that do not contain a kit-piece in the loaded kit are unaffected. By enabling this setting, the entire previous kit is cleared before the new kit is loaded. Default kit size This setting allows you to specify the kit size when BFD2 is launched. You can use kits with 9, 18 or 32 kit-piece slots. Keyboard Shortcuts BFD2 allows you to set up keyboard shortcuts for important functions. Please note that many hosts ‘steal’ keyboard input from the plugin – in such cases, BFD2’s keyboard shortcuts do not work. Shortcuts are assigned to functions by clicking the function in the list, and then clicking the Learn button above the list. You can now press the key that you want to use as a shortcut for the function. CTRL, SHIFT and ALT modifiers are accepted. Select a function and click the Clear button in order to remove the assignment. The following functions can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut: Function Default keyboard shortcut Kit page Mixer page... -
Page 160: Chapter 11 Programming Tips
Choose the right kit-pieces Choosing the right Kit-pieces is paramount to getting the right sound. If you want a tight kick sound, start with the tightest-sound- ing kick you can find! Pay close attention to the composition of your kit and be creative – BFD2 allows you a lot of freedom by allowing you to mix and match toms and to load any type of Kit-piece into any type of slot - it’s very easy to use a floor tom as a kick, for example. Mix and match There is absolutely no reason to stick to pre-defined manufacturer-based kits. Most drummers regularly mix and match parts of the kit for different musical needs, and it takes a matter of seconds in BFD2. Having said that, there is absolutely nothing wrong with finding a kit that works for you and sticking to it. There are infinite ways in which to shape a single kit to sound good in any type of context. Likewise, there is no need to stick to the same library when building a kit. Although the various expansion packs are recorded in different rooms to the original library, there is no reason why they can’t sound good in the mix together. 11:2 Using Velocity layers The importance of utilising BFD2’s velocity layers A very easy mistake to make with BFD2 is to use maximum velocities all the time. When you do this, in effect the drummer is playing with maximum force all the time - something that does not happen often in real life. As a consequence, the drum part sounds robotic and machinegun-like. A drum kit is a massively expressive instrument: it sounds very different when played with soft hits (low velocities) than when it is played with brutal force (high velocities). The BFD2 library has up to 96 velocity layers. What this means is that the drums are recorded being struck by up to 96 levels of intensity. It’s vital to make good use of these velocity layers in order to achieve realistic drumming. Deploying velocity layers effectively It is vitally important to remember that intelligent use of different velocities and accenting is an important element of ‘groove’, and can contribute to swing-like effects even with tightly quantized patterns. Try making a straight closed hihat pattern quantized to 1/16th notes, with each note at a velocity of 100. When this pattern is played back it sounds pretty rigid and robotic. Now select every off-beat 16th note and reduce its velocity to around 50. When this pattern is played, it offers a much more inter- esting sense of groove, without any timing changes having been appliled. -
Page 161: 11:3 Using Articulations Effectively
11:3 Using articulations effectively The various articulations are a very important aspect of BFD2, and making intelligent use of them can contribute to the realism of your drum tracks. Articulations such as snare drags offer quick access to elements of a drum performance which are not always straightforward to program or play. Other articulations represent different ways of playing a Kit-Piece. Kicks Kicks are typically recorded with a snare present, meaning that it also contains the sound of the snare wire resonating when the kick is hit. However, some kicks also offer a ‘no snare’ hit, which does not contain the snare rattle, due to the snare drum being removed. Snares BFD2’s snares generally contain a hit at the centre of the drum head, another hit halfway towards the edge, a rim and a sidestick as well as drag rolls. Some expansion packs contain different other articulations such as flams. When using the drags, remember that BFD2’s choking mechanism lets you cut the sound of a Kit-Piece with another hit. A choke event is ideal for cutting short a drag if it’s too long and you don’t want to choke it with another snare hit. Hihats Hihats have the most possible articulations of any Kit-Piece type in the BFD2 library. Tip and shank sounds are provided at a va- riety of degrees between open and closed, as well as pedal (foot-chick) sounds. ‘Tip’ is used to describe the tip of the stick hitting the top of the hihat, while ‘shank’ refers to the body of the stick hitting the edge of the hat. For most applications where you need a classic ‘open’ hat sound, you should aim to use the 1/2-open articulations. The open tip sound is more like a ‘hihat bell’ - the top cymbal in a hihat actually sounds more like a ride than a hihat when it is not vibrating against the bottom cymbal. It’s also good to remember that a drummer generally chokes an open hihat by moving the pedal down, which results in a foot- chick while stopping the two hihat surfaces from vibrating against each other by bringing them to a closed position. Therefore, you should use low velocity pedal hits in the appropriate place after an open position for choking. 11:3 Damping, tuning and tightening Damping kicks, snares and toms The damping controls in the Kit-Piece Inspector act as an envelope to control the length of a sound’s decay. Increasing the damp- ing amount shortens the decay time. Snares and kicks can become more powerful and cutting, while you can dramatically reduce the duration of toms to stop them dominating the mix. The damping function in BFD emulates real-world damping methods, such as using a damping ring on snares and toms, or filling kick drums with duvets, blankets or pillows. -
Page 162: 11:4 Layering
11:4 Layering Introduction to layering This technique is widely used in modern production, whereby a sampled snare and kick are layered over the original drum track’s kicks and snares, doubling them up. The usual method for this production trick, called ‘drum replacement’, is fairly cumbersome - you need to isolate the kicks and snares from any bleed in their tracks, and use the transients to trigger the required sounds in a sampler. When using BFD2, it’s far easier. Simple layering using the Link function If you want to layer two snares in BFD2, load the first into the Snare1 slot as normal and then load another into the Snare2 slot. Then, using the Link function in the Kit page, link the two slots. This results in Snare2 being triggered whenever Snare1 is trig- gered. BFD2’s user sample import function allows you to use any samples for this purpose, including stereo samples from specialized drum replacement sample libraries. Layering individual articulations in the Mapping page You may want to layer specific articulations, for example Snare1’s main hit with an imported kit-piece in one slot, and its sidestick with a separate imported kit-piece in another slot. In order to do this, load the kit-pieces, and drag and drop the relevant kit-piece articulations onto an empty key in the Mapping page key mapping view. Play this key whenever you want the layered effect. Creative and experimental layering There is a lot of room for creativity when using layering techniques. For instance, you can use different amounts of ambience and damping for each snare, and use the tuning controls to adjust the sound further. This is even before using processing to take it even further. You can use similar methods on kicks to make them huge with thunderous low-end. You don’t need to restrict layering to drum replacement applications – it’s also great for designing strange and experimental kits,... -
Page 163: 11:5 Programming Patterns
11:5 Programming patterns A guide to drum pattern programming is beyond the scope of this manual - like good melody and harmony parts, there are no shortcuts to good drum composition! However, here are a few hints and tips to point you in the right direction. Drumming fundamentals Consider how a drummer would play a pattern. Most drummers have 2 hands and 2 feet: 4 limbs in total. It therefore logically follows that generally, up to 4 things can be played at any one time. It’s good to watch a few drumming videos (a good source of these can be found at drummerworld.com) or study some drum scores to get a better idea of how drum patterns are composed. Study a few points of drumming rudiments: things like single and double strokes, paradiddles, and so on. Understanding how drummers build rhythms is vitally important in creating realistic drum parts. Physical interfacing with the computer Drumming is a very physical activity! It’s good to play something in real time to capture real spontaneity and groove, instead of us- ing a mouse on a piano roll. A keyboard action is not ideal for drumming, as there is a lot of travel required to trigger the note. Keyboard mechanisms were designed to move hammers that hit strings, not to play drum sounds! It’s better to use something more tactile and responsive like a drum-pad unit (such as the M-Audio Trigger Finger, Korg PadKontrol, Akai MPD-16/24 etc) or an electronic drum kit. Transcribe, study and edit existing drum parts Try to transcribe the drum parts from your favourite records. If you find it difficult to program drums that you can hear with your ears, then it’s unreasonable to expect yourself to program drums that you can only hear ‘in your head’. The more you practice drum programming techniques, the more skills you learn. A good way to transcribe a pattern is to import a looping segment of a song into a track on your sequencer. While looping the part, program the drum sounds until it sounds right, then mute the loop. Whatever remains should be a reasonable approximation of the drums. Another valuable resource for study is BFD2’s library of Grooves. Even if the patterns in the Groove library aren’t your cup of tea, you can study them as MIDI parts in your sequencer to see how a drummer pushes and pulls against the ‘grid’ of hard beat divi- sions. It’s also a good idea to look at the event velocities, to get a feel for how accenting and velocity variation can help the feel of a drum pattern. If you like the feel of a Groove or a Fill but not the actual pattern, it’s very easy to to create new patterns by moving notes ‘up and down’ to different kit-piece articulations in your sequencer’s piano roll or in BFD2’s Groove editor. Many sequencers also contain tools for ‘groove quantizing’ – extracting the feel from a MIDI part (such as an exported Groove) and using it as a quantize tem- plate for other MIDI parts. See your sequencing host’s manual for details of such features. -
Page 164: Chapter 12 Mixing And Effects Usage
12:1 Mixing basics How to approach mic channels, panning, gain, EQ and compression. 12:6 Mixing each part of the kit Some helpful pointers on using EQ and other processing on various parts of the kit. 12:7 Routing scenarios A guide to using BFD2’s routing functions for three common scenarios: creating a sub-mix, achieving mic channel separation over separate outputs and creating a send to an external reverb. 12:8 External processing More creative advice on using external processing to take your drum sounds even further. BFD2 FX guide The BFD2 FX all contain a number of common controls, located at the top of each effect’s interface. See section 3:7 for more details about these controls, as well as for information on launching and managing effects in your mixes. The guide in this chapter contains suggested uses for common controls where particularly applicable, such as when using the Mix control for quick parallel compression effects. Note that it is beyond the scope of this guide to provide a full explanation of each effect and how it works – some familiarity with these types of processors is assumed. 12:2 EQ and filtering A guide to BFD2’s EQ, Filter and FilterMod FX. 12:3 Dynamics processing A guide to using BFD2’s dynamics processors: CompChan, CompBus and NoiseGate. -
Page 165: 12:1 Mixing Basics
12:1 Mixing basics Mic channel usage Using ambience It’s important to remember you do NOT need all mic channels at maximum levels in the mix. In most normal mixing situations, drum ambience is turned down to quite subtle levels. You wouldn’t normally have three wet reverb signals turned up as loud as the dry sound, so why do it with real ambience? The ambience in BFD2 is there if you need it. If you don’t, turn it down and work with the direct signals. Room and PZM signals tend to be the biggest-sounding channels, which really give a heavy impression of space and increased sustain. If you want a dry, intimate sound, turn these down. The Overhead channels still provide a lush sense of ambience without sounding too huge. You can adjust ambience levels for each Kit-piece, using the Kit-piece Trim controls (as opposed to the Direct Trim). Therefore, if you need a tight kick but a huge snare, turn down the Kit-piece Trim on the kick and leave it up on the snare. These controls act like reverb sends, while the OH, Room and PZM faders are effectively like return levels for 3 different reverb algorithms. Mic channel selection There are all kinds of ways of using BFD2’s mic channels. Many recording sessions are conducted with just a set of stereo overheads, perhaps with some kick reinforcement with a dedicated direct kick mic. There’s nothing wrong with just using one mic bus such as the directs or overheads. It is entirely up to you and depends upon the sound you want to achieve. You can recreate virtually every mic-ing technique in BFD2, so be creative! A good technique for an all-purpose drum sound is to use the direct mic channels for punch, a touch of overheads for a sense of space and a mono room dialled in to taste. Mono rooms are great because they sound very punchy and thick, and since it’s virtu- ally impossible to get a symmetrical response that follows the stereo placement of a kick, this is a very common technique so as not to interfere with a kit’s panning. To bleed or not to bleed In practical terms, using bleed gives a more natural recorded drum sound, as it always exists in real-world recordings. However, artificial separation is an ideal situation: mix engineers often use gates to eradicate bleed as much as possible. You may find that bleed is more problematic on some kit-pieces rather than others. Therefore the possibility of controlling bleed for one or more kit-pieces is provided in the Kit-Piece Inspector. If you’re not interested in bleed at all, and are only concerned with achieving separation of the different kit-pieces, you can eradi- cate it completely by turning down the master kick and snare bleed controls in the Mic Tools panel in the BFD2 Mixer page. -
Page 166: Approaching Eq And Compression
Approaching EQ and compression EQ (equalization) and compression can be used in a variety of ways. The traditional approach is to use these processors in a subtle way so that instruments fit together better in the mix, tame over-dynamic tracks to ‘level them out’ more, and so on. In terms of getting a good mix, well-balanced levels (between the various drum mic channels, and between the drums and the other instruments in your song) tend to be more important than EQ or compression. Seasoned mix engineers use heavy amounts of EQ and compression only as a last resort, usually to fix a poorly-recorded instrument or as a creative effect. Approaching EQ When using EQ, cutting rather than boosting can often lead to the same perception of the sound, without eating into headroom. This doesn’t always seem desirable, but in the context of a mix it often works best. It leads to a cleaner mix - boosting lots of ele- ments can result in a mess which is more prone to distort. Another pitfall to avoid is the mistake of constantly EQ-ing in solo mode. Make your EQ adjustments with the rest of the song’s instruments playing! EQ-ing only makes sense in the context of the rest of the mix! It’s called ‘equalization’ because you’re making different elements sit together better by restricting their frequency range if they ‘clash’ with each other. What might sound great solo’d doesn’t always work in the mix - it can often be overbearing in the mix context. If you properly EQ elements in context, indi- vidual parts can often appear weak while solo’d. Always remember that not everything has to sound huge if you want a powerful mix. One basic use of EQ is to cut the low frequencies on sounds that don’t really need it, such as hihats and cymbals. This can result in a less muddy low end, allowing kicks and toms more space to achieve their impact. It also benefits the rest of your mix too, beyond the drums. Approaching compression It’s a good idea to carefully EQ a sound before it hits a dynamics processor such as a compressor or gate. Unnecessary frequen- cies can adversely affect how a dynamics processor reacts to the signal. Compression can be used creatively as well as for ‘functional’ reasons like taming heavily fluctuating dynamics. With the right ap- proach, creative compression can have a very powerful effect that is commonly heard on commercial recordings. However, always remember that any compression is in fact making the sound smaller – a compressor ‘squashes’ the dynamics of a signal so that you can make it louder without clipping. It is incredibly easy to overdo it and completly ruin the sound of the drums, or make them excessively intrude into the rest of your song. See section 12:6 for a guide to processing specific parts of the kit. -
Page 167: 12:2 Eq And Filtering
12:2 EQ and filtering BFD2’s EQ is based on a well-known classic console design. It offers 4 bands of EQ, includ- ing two parametric mid bands. Low and High bands The Low and High bands are switchable between a bell (with a fixed Q of 2.5 octave) and a shelving response (with a fixed rolloff of 12 dB per octave). • Low band frequency range: 40 to 600hz • Low band gain range: +/- 16.5 dB • High band frequency range: 600 to 14khz • High band gain range: +/- 20 dB Parametric Mid bands The Mid bands feature bell curves with adjustable Q. • Low Mid Band frequency range: 200hz to 2Khz • High Mid band frequency range: 800hz to 7khz • Q range: 0.5 octave to 2.5 octave • High band gain range: +/- 20 dB Band power Each band has its own Power button allowing you to save CPU by only using the bands you need. Enabling the EQ’s SC button allows you to EQ the channel’s sidechain input. This can be very useful to EQ a sidechain input before it enters a compressor, for example. For this function to work, the EQ must be placed before the sidechain processor in the channel’s effect slots. Frequency Display control You can change EQ curves by clicking and dragging the graphical display in the EQ effect interface. -
Page 168: Filter Mod
Filter Mod This is a state-variable self-oscillating multimode filter with a response of 12 db per octave. It has a built-in envelope follower to modulate the filter’s cutoff frequency relative to the input. This stage is modelled on an analog full-wave rectified envelope follower. Additionally, the filter frequency can be modulated at audio rate by the input. The filter is modelled on classic multimode synthesizer filter designs at the circuit level, with its sound characteristic reminiscent of the well-known Oberheim filter (although it is not an exact model of this filter). You can also use the channel’s sidechain input as the source for the envelope follower and for the audio rate FM. For example you could use a bass drum tuned very low as a rough and ready LFO to modulate the filter. Mode 4 filter modes are available, each offering different filtering functions relative to the cutoff frequency. Low pass Allows through only frequencies below the cutoff frequency. High pass Allows through only frequencies above the cutoff frequency. Band Pass Allows through only a band of frequencies around the cutoff frequency. Notch This is the opposite of a band pass, in that it allows through all other frequencies except a band of frequencies around the cutoff frequency. Modulating a notch filter can give phaser-like results. In drive This control sets the amount of signal gain before the non-linearities of the filter. As well as increasing the gain, using more drive results in a rich and complex interaction with the filter’s resonance. Out drive This is an OTA-type non-linear amp function at the output, in order to boost and colour the filtered signal. Pitch This control adjusts the cutoff frequency of the filter. It is measured in octaves to be more musically relevant. This control adjusts the resonance of the filter. You can think of this as having a similar effect as the Gain control on an EQ – it accentuates the frequencies around the cutoff point. This is achieved by feeding some of the sound at the cutoff point back into the filter. High resonance settings cause the filter to self-oscillate – be very careful with your speakers and your ears when using such settings. Attack This control changes how quickly the envelope follower section responds to transients in the input signal. Longer attack times mean that the filter takes a longer time to respond to amplitude changes. -
Page 169: 12:3 Dynamics Processing
Common compression parameters Attack The Attack control on a compressor represents the speed at which the gain is reduced when transients pass through it. This control is often misunderstood. Always remember that the attack does NOT indicate the amount of time taken before the compressor starts to compress. Release The Release control on a compressor sets the speed at which the gain level returns to normal after a transient has passed. Ratio The ratio specifies the gain reduction applied by the compressor. The numbers in the ratio represent the change in gain before and after compression. For example, assuming that the threshold level has been breached, then a ratio of 2:1 would mean that for every 2 dB of in- creased signal level coming into the compressor, the output level rises by 1dB. Advanced features in BFD2’s dynamics processors The BFD2 Comp Bus and the NoiseGate feature a sidechain function. By enabling the SC (Sidechain) button, the processor reacts to the channel’s sidechain input rather than the main input, while still applying the processing to the main input. This allows you to control the dynamics of the main input signal with another signal entirely. Sidechaining is not available on the Comp Chan. Key HP (Key signal High-pass) This control allows you to apply a variable high pass filter on the key signal that is used for the compressor’s amplitude detection. It applies to either the main input or the sidechain input, whichever is being used to trigger the compressor. However, it is never applied to the actual signal that is heard at the output. This control is useful when there is too much low-end in the sidechain signal, resulting in the compressor reacting too heavily. Parallel compression and the Mix control Parallel compression involves mixing a compressed signal (usually fairly heavily compressed) with the original dry signal, in order to achieve the ‘huge’ sound of a compressed drum mix while keeping the transients of the original drums intact. -
Page 170: Comp Chan
Comp Chan The CompChan (channel compressor) is derived from a classic ‘feedback-based FET limit- ing amplifier’ design. It is also what is known as a ‘fixed-threshold’ design – the threshold at which compression starts is not adjustable. In practice, this means you may need to adjust the input and output levels when changing ratios. Input & Output This control varies the input level going into the compressor. Once the input level has reached the internal threshold, compression begins. When this happens, use the Output control to turn down the increased input. The Input control ranges from -20 tp +40 dB, while the Output control ranges from -40 dB to +20 dB. Attack The Attack control has a an arbitrary range of 0 to 10, which equates to a real-world range between 0.02 ms and 0.8 ms. Release The Release control has a an arbitrary range of 0 to 10, which equates to a range between 50ms and 1.1 seconds. Ratio Ratios available are 4:1 , 8:1 , 12:1, 20:1 and ‘Nuke’, which is an emulation of the ‘all buttons in’ mode on a classic limiting ampli- fier design. It results in a particularly brutal type of compression. Comp Bus This compressor is based on a classic bus compressor design from the centre section of a well-known British large-format mixing console. It is most commonly used to add ‘glue’ and power to a drum bus. However, it also works very well as a channel compressor in its own right, offering a different flavour of compression compared to the Comp Chan. Attack Six attack times are available: 0.1 ms, 0.3 ms, 1 ms, 3 ms, 10 ms, 30 ms. Release Five release settings are available: 0.1 ms, 0.3 ms, 0.6 ms, 1.2 ms and Auto. Ratio Three ratio settings are available: 2:1, 4:1 and 10:1. Threshold Unlike the channel compressor, the buss compressor allows you to adjust the threshold, which represents the input level at which the compressor starts to react. Make up gain This control allows you to increase the output gain after the compressor circuit has applied gain reduction to the input signal. -
Page 171: Noise Gate
Noise Gate A noise gate is a type of dynamics processor that mutes or attenuates the input signal until its amplitude exceeds an adjustable threshold level, at which time the gate ‘opens’ to allow audio through at its actual level. They are often used during drum mixing in order to isolate drums within signals containing bleed or spill from other drums. Another common use is to reduce the decay of toms and kicks. Noise gates are often referred to simply as ‘gates’. While BFD2 contains bleed in the kick and snare channels, it can easily be turned off rather than having to use gates to minimize bleed. Likewise, the decay of kit-pieces can be adjusted using the damping controls in the kit-piece inspector. However, using gates can be good for creative effects, or simply for recreating the types of techniques used in real drum mixing sessions. BFD2’s Noise gate has a sidechain function, allowing you to create triggered pulsing effects very easily. For example, route any channel such as a hihat or a user sample direct channel to the master channel’s sidechain input and insert a noise gate in one of the master channel’s effect slots. Enable the sidechain button for the gate and adjust the threshold until the sidechain input trig- gers the audio on the channel. When setting very fast attack and release times, it is common to hear ‘clicks’ in the audio, especially with sounds predominantly comprised of low frequencies such as kicks and toms – this is totally normal and you simply need to increase these times slightly to eradicate the problem. Attack This controls the speed at which the gate opens once the threshold has been exceeded by the input signal’s amplitude. Hold This parameter controls the amount of time the gate remains open after the input signal has dropped below the threshold level. Release This controls the speed at which the gate closes at the end of the hold time. Threshold This control allows you to set the level at which the gate starts to open. When the input signal amplitude exceeds the level speci- fied by the Threshold control, the gate starts to open to allow audio through. Like the compressors, the NoiseGate features a sidechain function. By enabling the SC (Sidechain) button, the gate reacts to the channel’s sidechain input rather than the main input, while still applying the gating process to the main input. This allows you to control the gating of the main input signal with another signal entirely. LP Freq & HP Freq These controls allow you to filter the input signal used to trigger the gate, while leaving the actual processed signal unfiltered. This allows you to isolate certain frequencies in the input to improve the gating response – for example, excessive low frequencies in the input can make the gate react more than required. -
Page 172: 12:4 Distortion
12:4 Distortion Drive BFD2’s Drive effect offers 4 distortion circuit models, useful for adding colour, grit or more extreme distortion to your pristine drum sounds. Mode Diode Diode clip circuits are found in countless guitar pedals and other distortion units. It gradually drives the input throughout the amplitude range. It shapes the input signal’s amplitude as shown in fig.1. OTA (Operational Transconductance Amplifier) This mode models the behaviour of an overdriven OTA chip. It shapes the input signal’s amplitude as shown in fig.2. fig.1 : Diode fig. : OTA OpAmp (Operational amplifier) This mode models the behaviour of an overdriven OpAmp chip. It shapes the input signal’s amplitude as shown in fig.3. HalfRect (Half Rectifier) This type of distortion allows through the top half of the input signal’s waveform. It shapes the input signal’s amplitude as shown in fig.4. fig. : OpAmp fig. : HalfRect Drive This control sets the amount of distortion that takes place. -
Page 173: Bit Crusher
Dirty & Clean The Dirty control sets the amount of post-distortion signal that is heard at the output. The Clean control sets the amount of the clean signal, which is comprised of the signals filtered out by the low-pass and high- pass crossovers before the distortion stage. In other words, all the frequencies removed from the signal by the filters. It is important to remember that these are not ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ controls – use the standard Mix control at the top of the effect inter- face in order to mix between the pre- and post-effect signals. Tone The Tone control is a simple -6 dB per octave low-pass filter for the Dirty signal after the distortion stage. It allows you to roll off harsh high frequencies that may have been generated in the signal as part of the distortion effect. Bit Crusher The Bitcrusher effect provides a type of digital distortion that occurs when the sample-rate and bit-depth of the audio is reduced. It allows you to simulate the sound of early samplers, useful for underground hip-hop and other ‘lo-fi’ styles. Bits This control reduces the bit depth from a maximum of 16 bits to a minimum of 1.82 bits, which is effectively almost pure digital noise. The noise generated by the bit-reduction proc- ess is called quantisation noise. Early digtal drum machines and samplers tended to have 8 or 12 bit resolution. Freq This control adjusts the sample rate frequency of the audio processed by the effect. and ranges from a maximum of 100 kHz to a minimum of 1 Hz. Lower sample rates result in an aliasing effect on the processed audio. Drive This is an OTA-type distortion stage after the crossover filters, enabling you to add gain and colour to the signal before it is proc- essed by the bit and sample-rate reduction stages. LP Freq & HP Freq These crossover filters exist before the bit and sample-rate reduction stages, allowing you to dictate which part of the signal is processed. For example, you can process the high end of a kick drum while leaving the deep low end unchanged. The low-pass filters frequencies above the specified frequency. It has a slope of -6 dB per octave, and ranges from 1Hz to 100 The high-pass filters frequencies above the specified frequency. It also has a slope of -6 dB per octave, and ranges from 1 kHz to 100 kHz. These filters are crossover filters – the frequencies that are filtered out before the distortion stage are accessible via the Clean control. Dirty &... -
Page 174: 12:5 Other Effects
12:5 Other effects Gain The Gain effect is a simple tool for increasing or decreasing a channel’s gain. Gain This is the only control on this effect, and lets you increase the channel’s gain up to 18 dB, or decrease it up to -inf dB. Delay BFD2’s Delay effect can operate as a stereo or mono delay line, depending on whether it is used on a stereo or mono channel. Sync & Time The delay time can be set either in absolute time values in seconds or in tempo-based values. In tempo mode the delay is synced to BFD2’s tempo. It is possible to adjust the Time parameter smoothly in realtime without suffering glitching like many digital delays. The delayed signal simply changes pitch smoothly towards the new delay time, in a similar way to an analog BBD (bucket-bridge delay). BPM mode When the Sync parameter is set to ‘BPM’, the delay time is set in tempo-based values. Possible values range from 64th note to 2 bars, including dotted and triplet variations, the latter being especially useful for classic shuffle grooves using simple ¼-note input. Seconds mode In this mode, the delay time is set as an absolute time value, ranging from 31ms to 4 seconds. Feedback This control sets the amount of delay regenerations, caused by feeding the delayed signal back into the input. Higher values feed the delayed signal back in at a higher amplitude, leading to more regenerations of the input signal. Settings of 100% lead to in- definite regenerations until the value is reduced, and with good use of the built-in filtering can result in classic psychedelic, dubby analog delay effects. Swing The BFD2 delay features 2 taps, which are played at the same time with the swing control at the centre position. By turning down the Swing control, you can move the left tap before the right tap, up to a distance of half the delay time. By turn- ing up the Swing control, the right tap is moved up to a distance of half the delay time before the left tap. This control opens up a huge array of swung delay grooves, which can add a wide variety of rhythmic feels to the delay effect. LowCut and HighCut These filters allow you to apply tonal shaping to each delay regeneration. -
Page 175: Flanger
Flanger The Flanger effect is a short modulated delay line with feedback to the input. It is used for a sense of movement and for psychedelic effects from the subtle to the extreme. The modulation source is a sine LFO with adjustable frequency. Freq The Freq (frequency) control affects the speed of modulation of the delay time. Depth The Depth control adjusts the amount of modulation of the delay time. Display The needle display in the Flanger effect represents the current delay time. Position This is a fixed delay time which is added to the delay time which is modulated by the internal LFO. It is a very short delay, ranging from 0 ms to 15 ms. Feedback This control adjusts the amount of the flanged signal that is fed back into the input. Higher feedback settings result in a more pronounced flanging effect. Settings over 50% lead to extreme comb filter type effects. Spread (stereo only) This control allows you to adjust the panning of the left and right channel processed signals. Phase (stereo only) The Phase control offsets the phase of the internal LFOs for the left and right channels. Mode By default (with this button turned off), the flanged signal is in positive phase with the input signal. Enabling this button results in the flanged signal is out of phase with the input signal. A positive phase setting tends to lead to a more obvious flanging effect. Chorus The Chorus effect is a modulation effect that is pitch-based. It is used for thickening up sounds. Freq The Freq (frequency) control affects the speed of pitch modulation. Depth The Depth control adjusts the amount of modulation away from the input signal’s original pitch. Display The needle display in the Chorus effect represents the speed and depth of modulation in relation to the original pitch (the centre position). Spread (stereo only) This control varies the panning of the left and right pitch-modulated signals. -
Page 176: Ringmod
RingMod A ring modulator multiplies two signals together, giving you the sum and the difference between them and the output. The RingMod in BFD2 has an internal oscillator that provides one of the signals, the other being the drum sound passing through it. This effect is great for radical timbral changes for more experimental-sounding mixes. Mode Changes the waveshape of the internal oscillator which is multiplied with the audio input to the effect. Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square and Parabolic oscillator shapes are available, as well as white or pink noise. Pitch This control adjusts the pitch of the internal oscillator. The range of this control provides a huge variety of effects. Drive This control introduces an adjustable amount of distortion on the input signal – overdriving the signal in this way changes the waveshape of the input, leading to further variations in the resulting effect. Frequency shifter Not to be confused with a pitch shifter, a frequency shifter works in a similar way by chang- ing the frequency of the sound passing through it. However, unlike a pitch shifter, the result- ing signal does not result in a harmonic series. Pitch The Pitch control adjusts the amount of frequency shifting, and is represented in semitones. You can shift the input signal’s frequencies up or down by up to 36 semitones (3 octaves). The Amp control adjusts the level of the output signal. TinCanVerb This effect is a recreation of a cheap-sounding room reverb unit, perfect for trashy sound- ing drum mixes and an antidote to the lush, real ambience in BFD2’s recordings. It is not intended to serve the function of a premium quality digital reverb – for this purpose, it’s best to use a good quality external reverb plugin or hardware unit. Size The Size control lets you adjust the size of the virtual reverberation room. Smaller rooms offer subtle ambience, while large rooms result in a more ‘cavernous’ and reflective effect. Decay time This control adjusts the decay time of the reverb effect. Use smaller decay times for subtle small room effects, with larger times useful for special effects. Damp Increasing the Damp control results in less high frequencies in the effected signal, leading to a darker reverb sound. At least some damping is essential to avoid overly tinny and fatiguing results. Pinch & Squeeze These controls manipulate the shape of the virtual reverb room, leading to a variety of resulting effects. They make the reverb... -
Page 177: 12:6 Mixing Each Part Of The Kit
Alternatively, roll off some of the top end for a more relaxed, ‘woofy’ sounding kick, more suitable for jazzy or funk music. Mic channels The inside and outside kick mic channels sound very different to each other. The inside kick sound gives you the brighter, more aggressive sound with less low-end and some ‘shell resonance’. This is because the mic is pointed much closer to where the beater strikes the skin. The outside kick sound is much more like the kick sound as we hear it while standing next to the kit. It is often deeper in bass and less ‘attacky’. How you balance these signals is up to you, but just remember that the outside mic gives you the depth and weight while the inside gives you the attack and definition. Damping and tuning On faster songs, choose a tighter kick and use more damping. The quicker the tempo of the song, the less bass and decay you can get away with on the kicks. Tuning the kick drum to the key of the track can also help to make things gel together nicely. This is a common solution to situa- tions where a bassline and kick are not sitting nicely together. Snares The low-end ‘thump’ of a snare is usually around 100-140 Hz (depending on its size and tuning as always). Rolling off the very lowest frequencies can help a snare to cut through a mix. Also, lowering the amount of bass affects the response of any compres- sion applied to the snare. Less bass energy means that compressors respond better to the the transients of the drum. Side-chain compression is an alternative way of dealing with this. Cutting the low mids at around 250-400 Hz ‘opens up’ the sound of the drum, while removing some mids at 700 Hz reduces the ‘bark’ of the snare. The crack and attack of the snare is usually to be found between 2 to 7 kHz. If it’s any lower than 2 kHz it tends to ‘honk’. Boosting some very high frequencies at around 12-15 kHz really accentuates the ultra-high-end ‘sizzle’. If the snare is sounding too aggressive in the mid range, cutting at 1-2 kHz by 1 or 2 dB smooths it out whilst still retaining the bite and weight. Mic channels For classic pop snare sounds, use more top mic channel than bottom. For a crunchier sound use more bottom snare, which lets through more of the actual snare wire, resulting in more top end ‘crack’ and sizzle. A lot of the apparent top-end crack of a snare also comes through the overheads as well as the bottom snare channel. Damping If a snare sounds too ringy, use BFD2’s damping functions to control its decay. Introducing damping can radically alter the charac- ter and feel of a snare. Hihats Rolling off the low-end on the hihats is very useful. It removes a slightly ‘gongy’ element to some hats which can often be undesir- able. Cutting the low-end in this way also helps hihats to sit better in the mix. Accentuating the frequencies around 1-3 kHz tends to make the ‘stick’ aspect of the sound more pronounced, while boosting above this range, especially at 5-10 kHz, results in more of the classic hihat ‘sizzle’. -
Page 178: Toms
Dynamics While compression can tame hats and balance the levels of different hihat articulations, remember that it’s always nice to retain a good amount of dynamics for the hihat, as this can contribute a lot to the feel of a groove. Therefore, try not to over-compress hihat channels. You can, of course, adjust the levels of individual hihat articulations in the kit-piece inspector, something which is sometimes vital as EQ-ing in particular can pronounce the energy of non-closed articulations. Toms The bass energy of toms tend to lie in the 50-120 Hz range. Obviously, larger toms have much more bass energy than smaller ones. The main body of the toms, in the 120-500 Hz range, can be very troublesome - there is a danger of them ending up sounding too thick and heavy. Some good use of a narrow-bandwidth EQ cut (tuned to taste) helps the toms to sit in the mix better without overpowering everything else. The attack of the toms lies in the 1-7 kHz range - this contains ‘the bite’ of the tom. If you remove a lot of mid-range, then you’ll be left with this frequency range, with the toms having very little apperent sustain. Tom selection If you want thunderous toms, use larger ones! Don’t stick to preset conventions on tom selection. BFD2 allows you to mix and match toms, so you can assemble custom tom sets. Two floor toms and a rack tom can be great, even if the 2 floor toms are not from the same set - once they are EQ’d and compressed in the mix it is very hard to tell that they’re from different kits. Replacing the high tom with a mid tom is often a good idea, as many high toms are too small (and therefore high-pitched) for some applica- tions. Damping Using BFD2’s damping controls on toms is a great alternative to using gates to ‘tame’ the toms. Most of BFD2’s toms are re- corded undamped to allow maximum flexibility. For certain types of music, they can last too long in their untreated form. Use large amounts of damping (over 50%) for funk and other groove-based music, where an excessively resonant set of toms would take over the mix. The same applies to metal, where the beats are just too dense to accomodate undamped toms. Panning Try not to heavily pan the toms – there aren’t many drummers with arms 12 feet across. Also, toms with lots of low-end (such as floor and large mid toms) usually sound better when mixed in both speakers. Cymbals Like the hats, it’s very useful to high pass filter the cymbals heavily. Again, it gets rid of ‘gongy’ tones and low-end ‘bark’. Don’t be afraid to cut too heavily, even all the way up to 2 kHz or more - this is a very common technique in the context of modern rock or pop production. Take care when boosting treble on cymbals, as it very easy to overdo it and up with an cymbal track that is too bright and messy. Mic channels It can be good to use more ambience than direct signal with cymbals. Using the overheads makes cymbals sit in the mix more realistically. However, try and retain a good amount of the direct channel for rides, as this helps the attack to cut through. General guidelines for EQ and compression Remember to read the ‘Approaching EQ and compression’ topic in section 12:1. This contains some important general guidelines... -
Page 179: 12:7 Routing Scenarios
If you want to send each mic channel out of the BFD2 plugin into your host’s mixer without performing any mixing or processing in BFD2’s mixer, proceed as follows: • S et each kit-piece’s direct mic channels to an individual output. Since they are mono, it is recommended that you use mono output routings. • Set each ambience bus to a pair of stereo outputs from the plugin. • B FD2 has 16 mono outputs and 8 stereo outputs, so if you are using a large amount of kit-pieces you need to route some direct channels through the same outputs. You can set more than one channel to the same output, although it can be more manage- able to route the required channels to an Aux channel to set up a sub-mix, and route this channel to the appropriate output. • T here are no rules about how you should set up your routing – everything depends on your creative needs and what you want to achieve. • O nce you have separated out the mic channels to individual outputs from BFD2, set up your host’s mixer to receive them. See your host’s documentation for details of how your host implements this functionality – BFD2 operates in the same way as any multiple output plugin. • Y ou can then process the mic channels through whatever plugins you choose in your host, route the channels out of your audio interface’s physical outputs in order to use external processors and effects units, or simply record them as audio tracks. Creating sends to an external reverb If you have invested in a high quality reverb plugin or hardware unit, it is very simple to set up one of BFD2’s outputs as an exter- nal aux send. • Create a stereo aux channel. • C reate a send on each of the direct mic channels that you want to send to the reverb, and enable them. • F or each Send, set the Send To destination to the Aux channel you created earlier, and Set up the Send From routing and the send level as required. -
Page 180: 12:8 External Processing
12:8 External processing The following techniques involve knowledge of routing and other functions in your host, and familiarity with other software. Note that this section is intended as creative advice with the best intentions. Please don’t ask us how to achieve these techniques! There is a wealth of information available via search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Artificial reverb Don’t be afraid to use an artificial reverb, especially on the snares and toms. Using a fake space in addition to, or instead of, BFD2’s recorded ambience can open up a new world of sounds - engineers often do this with real multitracked drums too! Ex- tremely short, bright plate reverbs can completely change the nature of the drums. You can also use larger rooms and add bus compression to achieve huge drum sounds, just like you would do with BFD2’s ambience. If things are sounding too ‘reverby’ for the mix, try to find a reverb program with a very strong early reflection element, and use more of this than the main reverb tail itself. This is also great for achieving ‘slapback’ room effects, especially when combined with pre-delay. Also, don’t go crazy on the ‘room size’ and ‘reverb time’ parameters - be sensible! Reverbs that are too long simply clutter up the mix and sound messy. Pre-delay can be very useful - it can help to seperate the drums from the reverb and keep the mix sounding more defined, instead of ‘distancing’ the drums to the back of the mix. Pre-delay is the time between the beginning of the dry sound and the beginning of the reverb. A setting of between 10 and 25 ms can work very well. Extreme settings can produce slapback effects, like when using the Distance controls for the ambience buses in BFD2’s mixer. Using mono reverbs can really pin the drums to the centre of the mix and, as described earlier, is a very common production technique for getting big drum sounds. Distortion and re-amping Some distortion or overdrive mixed back in with the dry drum mix, can add dirt, grit and colour to the drums while not killing the definition and quality of the sound and transients. It’s good to keep some subtlety by mixing distorted signals at low levels, and heavily EQ-ing these signals so as not to end up with a messy mix. While you can obviously use the distortion effects available within BFD2, it can be good to think outside the box – try re-amping the drums for example. Route a channel via an Aux set to its own output to a mic’d up guitar/bass amp or small PA speaker, and record it back into your host. You could even try some headphones, hi-fi speakers or, if you’re lucky enough to have access to one, a Leslie rotating speaker for really organic, psychedelic swirling effects. You can even create your own real analog reverbs by doing this in the garage or whatever other space you can possibly take your rig! Noise Don’t be afraid of noise. At the risk of sounding rather controversial, its presence in a mix can actually make it sound warmer, more organic and more ‘alive’. A noise-free digital production can risk sounding clinical, flat and lifeless. Recordings always con- tain some noise, and most commercial productions are also mixed on an analog console through analog processors, a process which always contributes some noise to the mix. It is a natural, real-world phenomenon and we are used to hearing it! Try running some channels through some hardware processors instead of hyper-clean plugins, or experiment with bouncing parts to tape. Even simply running the audio out of a good D/A converter and back in through a good A/D can give your recordings...
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