FXpansion BFD 2.0 Reviews

4.1/5.0 based on 9 customer reviews

Sweetwater Advice

Ron Daniel

I've been a fan of BFD since the beginning, but version 2.0 brought about near perfection! I couldn't ask for a virtual drum instrument to do any more than BFD 2.0 does!

Chris McCown

If you have ever mixed a drum kit in a studio, then you will find the interface in BFD to be as close to the real thing as you can get in a software environment, except that you can control the bleed from mic to mic! If you have not mixed a drum kit before - BFD makes it easy. Being a drummer (among other things) myself, I appreciate the realism and ease of use BFD gives me. It currently provides all my drum tracks, and it sounds amazing.

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Customer Reviews

Bill Latimer
from Southern California
November 28, 2011Music Background:
Simi pro musician Project studio

BFD2 amazing sounds and versatility

This product will give you truly fantastic drum sounds, no matter if you are new to drum programs, have a project studio, or an advanced studio set up.
If you are a beginner there are plenty of presets here to get you started and as you progress with learning about BFD2 capabilities then you will be able to easily fashion the drum kits to fit your needs..

For the more experienced user, you can get deep into micing tuning, and dampening your drum kit pieces to your hearts content.

At last I do not have to have a drum set with a basket load of mics and worry endlessly about moving them for best sound, yet I can control overhead, room and, ambience easily. The bus and routing features give you a lot of control over the kit pieces and added in with effects and your own bussing should fit any circumstance for your recordings.

One reviewer mentioned that the reverb was not that great. To that I say use your fav Daw verb or outboard verb.. I personally have not been bothered by the included verb at all.
(
Bfd2 can be installed with 24 levels of articulation so If you have or want) to get a midi drum set you will be pleased at the natural responses to your hits. Some expansion sets even have up to 124 articulations. If you are a finger or keyboard drummer you will also not be disappointed with this product.

There are many more features to this product that simply can't be included in a review forum like this. I would say IMHO that when building your studio don't skimp on the drums. The asking price is a fair one especially after you find out all that BFD2 has to offer!

CONS:

You will want to make your own grooves (of course you can edit existing grooves)
A dual core processor would be advisable

Itzhak Yaron
from Los Angeles, CA
November 4, 2010Music Background:
songwriter

BFD2 Tutorials

I learned to use this from Eli Kreitzenberg a video on Groove3.com
Great sounding kit, easy to learn very reliable . User friendsly.

zappafanatic
from Santa Barbara, CA
April 28, 2009Music Background:
live sound engineer, hobbyist, professional

Best Drum Software on the Market

Awesome product! Over 55 GB of drum sounds (good luck trying to find that somewhere else) and a really powerful setup. Little bit of a learning curve for those inexperienced with programs like Logic / Pro Tools, but once you're familiar with the product you can begin making some studio quality drum tracks. I highly suggest this product!

John Olsen
from ca
June 11, 2008Music Background:
lots

BFD2

the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. some on the bfd forum say 2 uses the same resources aS 1. The reviewer's prob is he hasn't installed updates or has a particular prob. Ram use for me is same as 1, and cpu use is 5-6% more on my dual 2.8 intel 820d. It maybe less as I'm burning it in now and may stabilize lower-maybe not

Larry Mal
from Saint Louis
December 31, 2007Music Background:
Musician, Student of Audio Production

A home run from BFD

BFD has done it again. The new drums sounds are fantastic, and are even more able to be tailored than before. With a little work, I would think anyone could make BFD2 sound like the drums they wanted.

The Fibes kick drum has an incredible thump, reminiscent of a John Bonham kit you may have heard. The other kits are great as well. I should point out to any prior of BFD that the 1.5 kits show up in 2 as well, and of course any expansion kits you may have will be there as well.

In short, BFD 2 has great new sounds, all able to be much customized, it also has a fantastic new mixer (I'm still getting a handle on this one) and comes with a slew of effects. These affects range from the essential (compression for the kick) to the interesting (a reverb that is designed to be of less than great quality, to give snares an 80's "tinny" sound, possibly, or for dub reggae sounds).

I can't think of a better product out there at the moment. I should also mention that if you go to their forums, you'll find BFD to be run by a hands-on group of very nice people who will answer you questions personally. That won my admiration right there as well. Happy New Year!

Sean in Arkansas
from AR
November 16, 2012Music Background:
Hobby Musician and Engineer Hac

Now That is a Set of Fine Samples...but

The BFD2 Kit deal dollar for dollar is outstanding. The samples and the diligence that went into the recording of each drum sound was amazing. Watch the video on the BFD site and see for yourself. I drive the sounds with various Midi tracks or just drag their midi loops right into a ProTools track; it's that easy. It took a few minutes to figure out where the drum kits were at first. It would not load so, I Googled and found an article that said to do a default and rebuild; and the rest was easy. I think my only disappointment was that there is only 4 percussion sounds and those are pretty worthless: wood block red and blue: cowbell..."more cowbell", and claps & snaps. Here BFD2 gives you the ability to have a 32 piece kit but no percussion sounds to speak of. I guess I should have read the fine print. Now I have to buy some add on percussion sounds, but it is what it is. They have to make a living too! Overall I'm happy because the sounds are soooo good! If your in the market I would buy it!

Bruce
from NYC NY USA
December 28, 2007Music Background:
Musician

BFD

The samples in this product are second to none. Given that, you have do do some work to get a drumtrack out of it because there are just SO many options. The result will be far superior to the competitions after you get it right.

BFD2 Owner
from
March 30, 2008Music Background:
songwriter/musician/recording/mixing/project studio owner

Single core owners don't buy this product

Yes, it sounds great. It's powerful and expandable. The problem is that it's a huge cpu hog and unless you're running a core2 or quad etc, you're going to have issues. My pc has 4 gigs ddr ram, 3.2 Prescott P4, seperate drive for BFD2 etc and some kits are simply not useable for full use with the mixer. I can use the kit by itself, but not with the preset plug ins and settings etc. My cpu spikes, BFD2 freezes and I have to restart BFD2. I'm not the only one having this issue.
If you have a more modern computer with a multicore processor and lots of ram, you'll probably do just fine. It is some nice software. It's just a huge, huge cpu hog. I would compare it to running in the ball park of 15 very lush rtas reverbs at once.

Carlos
from Detroit Mi, USA
September 29, 2008Music Background:
Recording Engineer 20 + yrs. & Musician/Producer

BFD2 & Logic Pro 7

As Of Sept. 2008 BEWARE of existing & ongoing issues with BFD2 & Logic Pro 7.2.3 such as no Drag & Drop into your Arrange Page of Logic but they won't tell you that.

I recieved an email from FXpansion Audio prior to purchasing BFD2, they informed me of a (June 29, 2008) deadline to get BFD2 for the discount price of $ 200.00 available to owners of the original BFD 1.5 so I bought BFD2 thinking it was Bug- Free since they were basically letting me know the Price differential was limited until June 29, 2008.

Now my original BFD 1.5 was great until I loaded BFD2 on my computer, it caused me to lose the Drag & Drop functions that I once had with the BFD 1.5 version and BFD2 has never had Drag & Drop for Logic 7 and I have been waiting for months now for FXpansion to address this as well as many other issues with BFD2 & Logic Pro 7 but they told me it works well with Logic 8 which I still don't have and was not planning on spending another $200.00 to get the up-grade since Logic Pro 7 has been quite efficient & very Stable.However BFD2 is a Great Sounding Drum-Software with a lot to offer if it will work with your DAW but it is Very CPU-Hungry And Not Stable At All with Logic Pro 7.2.3 Buyers BEWARE !!! NO REFUND WILL BE GRANTED

Note: My opinion is BFD2 was released Pre-maturely for what ever reason(s) and they did not do enough pre -testing on this product . (FXpansion) has Truly forgoten about the integrity of what this Software is supposed to be about which is production of (Professional Sounding Drums in a Professional atmosphere) but if they ever get all the Bugs out it will be Great but I don't think that will happen anytime soon and they don't seem to care.

Oh yeah, Notice : How many awards have they won for BFD2 and How many Big-Name Endorsements have they gotten , Hint Hint !!

FXpansion BFD 2.0

Virtual Acoustic Drum Module with 55GB of Vintage and Boutique Drum Samples, plus Circuit-modeled Virtual Processors and Effects

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