Love the the way they sound, and the selection BFD offers.

Sounds great. Very flexible. Very unstable on latest macOS and Logic. Crashes randomly and regularly. As every other review has mentioned for the last few years, the need to wait for license verification EVERY time you open the VST is very tedious. Feels like once great software possibly on its way out.

Worth buying into if you have a lot of patience and believe they will be coming out with a BFD 4.0 at some point and the v3 libraries will be compatible, since they can be had for very cheap at the moment.

I already own another drum program but this one gives me a lot of freedom to build different drum sets. The sounds are really good as well.

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 bought this before I read the reviews. I didn't know a different company acquired it. Nothing but trouble. Spend your money on Handy Drums for a real hassle free drum sampler.

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!

it takes forever to log in, and you have to log in everytime....so annoying, its not the nuclear launch codes.
Then there are stock drum sets, but if you want to use percussion...you have to download those extra....

When you open the player it covers up the whole screen so you cant see the top and bottom. If you reduce it to 75%...still cant see the top, and you cant drag it anywhere....

Just save yourself the misery and get something else

Let me start with this: For RAW drum samples, this is STILL the software to beat, over 10 years later. For % off sales that are actually set at attractive prices? BFD all day. UNIQUE drum kit sounds? BFD all day. Also BFD has one VERY important feature that BY ITSELF is what made me buy it in 2013---the rudiment paint tool. If you know, you know. This feature is EVERYTHING.

Here's the deal though, BFD was pretty much dropped off on the doorstep of InMusic a few years ago, and it took a VERY long time for them to do anything with it. In that time, many of its users have had to deal with bugs galore, compatibility issues, installation issues, samples with inconsistent volume..all sort of stuff. It's been a mess.

Because of this, I've had to move on to more reliable software, but I will always have love for BFD. The samples are second to none, but the support is ultimately why this software fell under the way it did. I advise anyone thinking of buying this not to pay the full $ (as I did in 2013) and wait until there's either some massive sale on it, or just wait until BFD4 (which will be quite a while, but it IS coming)

The installation was an awful process, requiring the help of support to get it working. I believe there was a bug that was preventing me from getting it to load initially.

The UI itself is confusing, and I have not found it to be intuitive or user friendly. The sounds this plugin can produce are pretty good, but getting there is a battle.

The BFD3 License Manager will sometimes fail to detect previous authorizations, resulting in the plugin disabling itself and muting all samples. Re-authorizing isn't a big deal, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn my samples back on in the kit I had been working on. Had to try and rebuild that kit again from scratch which was annoying. I'm sure there must be a way to reenable the samples, but I couldn't figure it out. Again - not a user friendly UI.

Will be ditching BFD3 and looking elsewhere. Perhaps Superior Drummer.

I have to concur with the other one star reviews for BFD3. I've been using it since BFD1. Aside from the fact that it's never been easy to use, I liked it because the sound quality was so good. And in the early days when it was being supported by FXpansion, it was pretty well supported. But since InMusic has taken over, there is virtually no support and very few updates. My support requests have all been summarily ignored. It's a real shame because this was quite a powerful software.

I would also agree that the Toontrack products are far superior. And if you own one of the Toontrack products and you can still get BFD3 to run, you can import all the grooves en masse from BFD to either/both Superior Drummer and EZDrummer with a simple drag and drop.

Never worked. Support did their best I guess.

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 own a couple of Toontrack drum products and am very satisfied with them. Before I purchased BFD my sales rep cautioned me, but I did not listen. I've given BFD years of experience to see if it would work well for me. But, it has not.

I am in the middle of simple upgrade now and as usual nothing is working as I've been informed it would. Just a simple upgrade requires a lengthy check of all the downloads already downloaded.

I own a lot of related software and this is the only one I regret purchasing. Save yourself time, money and sanity and go with Toontrack.

When BFD was owned by FXpansion it was great; However, now that it is owned by InMusic it is horrible!! After migration I lost all my Presets and most of my Grooves. It also looks like I'm missing my Core Library. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!

Drums sound good if you can ever navigate the hopeless download process and tolerate having to work one inch from your computer screen. The newer version (3.4.x) supposedly has resizable windows so that one is not forced to work with micro-sized controls, but how would you know? The migration process from FXpansion to the Inmusic version does not work, and only robo-response from support.
I will avoid any brand associated with Inmusic going forward, as they do not appear to be concerned about their users.
Certainly not appropriate for anyone who needs to meet any kind of deadline. Lack of support makes it for hobbyist only.

The BFD 3 drums have a strong realistic sound. They seem to have been very well recorded, and stand out from other popular drum instrument plugins.

There is a learning curve involved in getting started with them, and there seems to be a shortage of good startup materials such as tutorials, etc. But there are a few good video training courses on the Internet that are very affordable. Google search for "BFD 3 Drums Explained."

As far as using the drums, they provide a large amount of control for the individual drum kits and for adjusting the sound of each drum and cymbal sound. Processing effects such as eq, compression, and reverb are built into the software, so effects can be applied to each drum component.

Overall, I am very pleased with the BFD 3 drums. I will probably be using them more than other drum plugins, because they simply sound great.

Wasn't digging it out of the box. But I got some Extra stuff from Platinum Samples.
WOW! Andy Johns and the Hirsch kits are what makes this even better. The cherry on the top is the service you get from Rail at Platinum Samples. This bloke is a dead set legend for customer service. He is the best customer relating owner, producer, tech nut and service provider out there. BFD3 core is superb as is the Vintage recording techniques and the Modern retro stuff. But my favorite feature is awesome third party Expansions like Platinum Samples. Superior Drummer 3 is awesome too. But you can't beat the third party stuff here. BFD3 or FXansion service is pretty good too. Wouldn't have got the product without the third party options though. Rail is the Bossssssssssssssss of all bosssssssssseeeeesssssss.

Pros:
• Authentic, pristine-quality drum sound samples, with loads of layers
• Enormous collection of presets, kits, and grooves. Browser does a good job of finding what you want.
• Amazing level of room and kit sound control
• Every level of detail is there for the tweaking
• Great collection of grooves by world-class drummers
• Very good sample load times; auditioning is quick.
• Stable with Pro Tools 2018 (Mac)
• Easy to create tracks
• Actively supported product (last update was March 2018)

Cons:
• GUI is too small. Wish there was one more level of magnification for us older studio cats.
• Requires significant study to fully understand the concepts

Summary:
I've been using BFD iterations from the beginning on my Pro Tools (Mac) system, and I've never wanted for any additional quality and realism than coming out of BFD 3. The product is solid, deep, and well-supported. It's worth the effort if you want full mastery of your drum track.

BFD3 core library samples are a NIGHTMARE to download. AVOID THIS VERSION NO MATTER HOW CHEAP THEY SELL IT. I just hope Sweetwater is good enough to let me upgrade to the USB version minus what I already paid for this version.

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.

The Download instructions on the FXpansion website are 100% incorrect. You more than likely will need Sweetwater tech support to help you. FXpansion tech support is non existent; if they do reply to you it will be very vague and not helpful. Sweetwater's tech support is good. I've been dealing with the downloading this product for week now. Its still downloading. It has froze twice already. Even Sweetwater tech had very difficult time getting the downloads started; there seemed to be some sort of obstacle each step of the way; his most used words were "That's not good." FYI . . . my computer has plenty of gigs and my internet speed is fast. I'm hoping the patience I've been practicing for the last week are worth it. I still haven't used it. In reality the product gets One Star . . . until I KNOW that it is actually on my computer and I can really use it. FYI . . . I use a macbook pro with OS Sierra.

I don't write a lot of reviews, but this one deserves recommending.

It's just ******* great.

I'm a serious student of drumming and own a lot of nice acoustic drum gear. Still, recording acoustic drums is tricky, and I want a good in-the-box platform. BFD3 sounds to me like really great drum recording.

I own a lot of computer sound software, and BDF3 is among the best of any program I've heard for sonics and engaging usability, so it's among my 'desert island computer audio' gear. I own the two other 'big name' drum sample libraries and drum playback engines -- those sound really good too, but they sound to me like great drum libraries with a noticeably computerized playback. Not so with BFD3, IMO they really nailed the groove engine and humanizing so that, if you want it to, it sounds like a great drummer recorded in a great room with a great engineer. Andrew Scheps did the mixing, so BFD3 was literally mixed by a Grammy winning engineer, and the sounds are mix-ready if you like them in their initial state.

Where BFD3 really kills the other drum programs IMO is in its joy of use. FXpansion really made a large number of very thoughtful choices to make BFD3 feel like an instrument and be fast and pleasing to use. And if you want to go deep, man this thing is super deep, but never baffling.

On the strength of BFD3 I checked out FXpansion Geist, the drum sampler / groovebox. That is also very good, but different from BFD3. All told, I think FXpansion has really cracked the code on fun, great sounding computer-based drum instruments. Very worth checking out, and on sale at a good discount in Spring 2016 at the time this is written.

There are demo versions available, and good videos online for tutorials / previews.

One thing I have not done yet is used BFD3 connected to my MIDI drums. I have no opinion on that, but there are a lot of forum posts around comparing which is the best platform for connecting to MIDI drums. I would demo things aggressively and compare what has the best sound and lowest latency on your rig if you're going that route.

I put off checking out the FXpansion drum gear (as I already owned others) but glad I finally did. It's great!