How is BFD ReWire used with Digidesign Pro Tools?

Run the BfdRewireApplet (located in your Applications folder on OSX, and in Programs/FXpansion/BFD in your Start menu on Windows).

Set the “Output setup” to “Group Outputs” (if you want 4 stereo buses, one each for Direct, Overhead, Room, and PZM) or “All Outputs” (for stereo Overhead, Room and PZM buses, plus individual direct outs for each drum mic). If you want to use “Stereo Output” then it’s unnecessary to use ReWire mode, as RTAS provides the same functionality.

Make sure “Enable BFD ReWire device” is set to “On”. Please disregard the “Alt. Panel Mode” option – this is no longer necessary.

* When Using Pro Tools (TDM/HD systems)
Create an Audio track. If you create a stereo track, it will only be able to handle the stereo buses – Overhead, Room and PZM, as well as the Direct Stereo bus in BFD (Group Outputs). Mono tracks can only handle the mono direct outputs from BFD (All Outputs).

Repeat the process depending on whether you are using BFD (Group Outputs) or BFD (All Outputs) and how many channels you need to monitor.

You then need to insert the BFD (ReWire) RTAS plugin on each of the Audio tracks used to monitor the ReWire channels from BFD. Set the Output selector of each ReWire plugin to the desired channel.

Only stereo buses from BFD will be available to stereo Audio tracks, while only mono direct outputs from BFD will be available to mono Audio tracks.

NOTE: Currently, the channels are labelled 0-1, 2-3, 4-5 etc. from 0-16. They correspond to 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 etc. from 1-17 in the BFD channel layout (see the manual for the full listing). This numbering scheme may be corrected in a future update.

Run the “BFD Launch ReWire” application (also located in your Applications folder on OSX, and in Programs/FXpansion/BFD in the Start menu on Windows) in order to bring up BFD’s interface. ReWire is a protocol which streams audio between two separate applications. The BFD Launch ReWire program is effectively a different application, and therefore needs to be manually launched. It follows that the BFD ReWire interface will not behave in the same way as your Pro Tools RTAS plugins.

You also need to create a MIDI track in Pro Tools in order to trigger BFD. Create a new MIDI track in Pro Tools and direct it to “BFD (Rewire) RW target – channel-1”. You can now trigger BFD via MIDI using an external controller or just by programming it in the Pro Tools Edit window.

Note that you won’t be able to record BFD’s output directly on these Audio tracks which contain the ReWire plugin. You need to output the Audio tracks to Buses, then record the Buses into new Audio tracks.

* When Using Pro Tools LE (MBox/Digi001/002 systems)
The procedure is the same as for Pro Tools TDM systems – with the difference that you can add the ReWire plugins on Aux as well as Audio tracks.

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