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BFD BFD 3.5 Virtual Acoustic Drum Software

Virtual Drum Software with 51 Kits, 60 Preset Kits, 48 FX, and Groove Construction Engine - macOS/Win Standalone, VST2, VST3, AU, AAX Native

21 reviews Write your review Item ID: BFD3-e

BFD BFD 3.5 Virtual Acoustic Drum Software

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6 months

$16.50/month with 6 month financing^‡

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Software Compatibility

Most software is compatible with both macOS and Windows, but check to make sure.

If you're using Pro Tools, AAX plug-ins are what you need. Most other DAWs on macOS support Audio Units (AU) plug-ins, while VST is compatible with many DAWs on oth macOS and Windows. Be sure you choose plug-ins that work with your DAW!

To learn more about software compatibility, check out our buying guide.

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Step into the Virtual Drum Room of Your Dreams

Load up BFD's BFD 3.5 virtual drum software, and it's as if you're standing inside an incredible-sounding room with every must-have drum component at your fingertips. This third-generation library gives you an array of sounds and presets, totaling 60 mix-ready kits for immediate use in any project. Plus, an updated browser design makes working inside BFD 3.5 easier and faster than ever. BFD 3.5's onboard presets (recorded in two locations) span dedicated rock, metal, jazz, and brush kits to provide the sounds you need to fit any project, regardless of genre. Want to make enticing grooves? You're in luck. An improved groove engine and a groove-building rudiments tool make putting together great grooves with BFD 3.5 a snap, with plenty of groove palettes preloaded for immediate experimentation.

Supreme drum sounds on tap

While BFD 3.5 packs more incredibly detailed drum sounds than its predecessors, new data compression methods mean the BFD 3.5 library doesn't take up any more space than previous versions. That said, BFD 3.5 packs a punch with 60 onboard mix-ready preset kits, each armed with customizable parameters, articulations, and effects for ultimate authority over every aspect of your sound. The updated interface is so intuitive that you won't have any problems creating your own custom kits.

Users at Sweetwater report that BFD 3.5 sounds more realistic than ever, thanks to the company's innovative modeling technology. With control over tom resonance and cymbal swells, you can create drum arrangements with more organic, lifelike character than ever before. Likewise, custom mic perspectives, control over velocity, dampening, and tuning, and onboard audio effects make it easier than ever to sculpt the perfect tone for any project in the books.

Seamless groove-building tools

The built-in groove construction tools in BFD 3.5 let you create grooves without switching between BFD 3.5 and your sequencer. Speaking of which, the plug-in's enhanced groove engine comes fully loaded with 82 groove palettes, ensuring immediate playability and creativity for any mix. Finally, with many of these pre-played grooves designed by world-class drummers like Steve Ferrone, Brooks Wackerman, Peter Erskine, and more, you'll have no shortage of inspiring drum parts to work into your projects.

BFD BFD 3.5 Features:

Virtual drums and groove creation software instrument
Preinstalled on 64GB flash drive
Expanded core library contains 51 drum kits for a wide scope of sounds
60 ready-to-go preset kits with customizable parameters, articulations, and effects for incredibly vast percussive potential
Mic perspective, pitch velocity, dampening, and tuning controls for every drum for total authority over every tone
Kits were recorded with a variety of recording chains for a wide range of available sounds
Tom resonance and cymbal swell modeling add an extra layer of realism and natural sound
Per-channel mic level adjustments and attenuation
Updated interface and faster, more efficient audio engine let you work fast and reliably
Fully editable groove engine with 82 groove palettes makes it easy to construct and manipulate your own patterns fast

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Tech Specs

Software Type: Virtual Acoustic Drums
Platform: Mac, PC
Upgrade/Full: Full
Download/Boxed: Download
Bit Depth: 32-bit, 64-bit
Format: Standalone, AAX, AU, VST
Hardware Requirements - Mac: Intel Core i5 2.0 GHz or higher (Apple Silicon support), 4GB RAM or more recommended, SSD drive recommended, 55GB Dr
Hardware Requirements - PC: Intel Core i5 2.0 GHz / AMD Ryzen 3 or higher, 4GB RAM or more recommended, SSD drive recommended, 55GB Drive Space
OS Requirements - Mac: macOS 12 or later
OS Requirements - PC: Windows 10 v1909 or later
Manufacturer Part Number: 4010

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Reviews

3.0

21 Reviews

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Very nice software. Make sure you have enough disk space to load. The instructions that Sweetwater sent me really made it easy to install.

I am not a drummer, but wanted a small electronic kit for my studio. Now, I have a band and we use the drum kit for practice. The sound module left my drummer a little...apprehensive about the quality of live performances. Some research started and it finally led to BFD 3. It's stand alone interface makes integrating individual kits for each song an ease, and the dynamics of the drums compared to the nitro makes a happy drummer. And with Sweetwater 's price it was a no Brainerd. Thanks Sweetwater and BFD!

Seems like a few people recently have had trouble with download/installs.
I did have a slight issue with an expansion pack. But Sweetwater helped out with that one. All good.

I originally had BFD2 in a Muse Receptor that actually died. So I retooled with a new PC running Performer.
Installed BFD3 no problem and away I went.

You could actually build a kit with the just the ambient mics if that's what you wanted. It's amazing.
The cool thing is being able to adjust OH and ambient mics after the fact.
The level of nuance options with bleed, tuning and damping is also amazing.

Just within the program itself - you really don't need any plugins.
But if you throw your fav compressor on the BDF channel insert in the DAW...it's
yet another level tailoring the kit to your track.

After putting up with all the drum machine sounds of the past... knowing they were never really it.
Though you could fake it pretty good. Kind of. In the long run it just wasn't the real thing.
And you can hear it.

BFD is the real thing. If you don't have the ability, facility and the money to properly record real
drums. BFD will get you there.

A lot of the comments here, both good and ugly, are at least partially true. I've had BFD for well over a decade and I use it on everything. It's literally the standard I measure everything else by. I went to go buy Geist 2 for an electronic sounding drum VST, at least partially because of how much I love BFD and they no longer sell it.

Things HAVE gotten worse since they sold everything off. And it's not a particularly fun install although only moderately worse than NI Komplete. They're big samples and they take a long time to download, but that's the price you pay for sound quality. For comparison, Komplete is an overnight download taking at least a good 8 hours and this is more like 1 hour and I have some expansion packs included in that. But Komplete is Battery plus half a bajillion other VSTs, samples, loops, etc. which is not an apples to apples comparison.

Tech support from the new company was a little hard to get, but far from impossible and once I got ahold of them they were very friendly and helpful.

But even though there's a grain of truth, at least, to every negative comment here, it's still one of the only pieces of software I can NOT make music without. Period. I have NI Battery and don't care for it as well as some hardware drum machines and NI is not even in the same ball park for realistic sounding drums, which is what BFD does - REAL sounding drum kits.

I'm taking a Drum programming and mixing class at Berklee and looking deeper at BFD's settings, but it tends to sound pretty good right out of the box. And if you're a professional audio engineer there's a lot to tweak under the hood like mic bleed between drums.

I also play drums a little and have a DW kit and my ears can't tell the difference between BFD and a real drum kit when I program drum grooves. It just sounds like a drummer "should", even the cymbals. And it just gets better the more I learn how to use it because it does go insanely deep contrary to what you might think when it just sounds good pretty much as soon as you lay it on a MIDI track straight out of the box.

I have no idea what I'll do if they stop selling it. So far I haven't heard anything that can even touch it. Out of the countless VST plugins I own from Komplete, dozens of Universal Audio plugins, Seventh Heaven, numerous VST synths from at least half a dozen different companies, Amplitube, to everything else - if I could only have 1 VST plugin BFD would be it. In comparison, everything else for making music is "optional".

I have used several drum emulation software programs( including Addictive Drums 2 and Battery 3) in my recording and by far BFD is the most realistic sounding. It fairly easy to use and is extremely flexible and expandable. While it does not seem to remove all the computer "artifacts" it comes closest to a realistic sound. With the proper mixing and mastering I believe that can be achieved. The user interface is extremely easy to use and adjusting the sound of each of the drums and cymbals is quite intuitive. The snare drums that come with BFD could use some improving but some of the expansion packs such as Metal Snares solve this problem. The drums can be routed into separate outputs in your DAW. The built effects are pretty good. Overall this is a very good drum emulation program for those of us who want to record but can't afford to go into a studio and record live drums. I concur with one of the previous reviews this product IS difficult to install and get up an running. This is in part because the application and libraries are installed separately. The problem did not seem to occur with installation of the expansion packs. After the installation BFD automatically detected the new content. So in my opinion this the best drum emulation software I have used thus far and is a good addition to your software library.