Product Reviews

Four years on since FXpansion first launched its drum-sample plug-in BFD to great acclaim, drum-hungry musicians are spoilt for choice. With its BFD2 though, FXpansion has undoubtedly upped the ante.

It's also big: 55GB of 24-bit/44.1KHz audio samples, arranged into 5000 grooves, each featuring up to 96 velocity layers. There are 10 full kits, totalling over 90 kit pieces.

Naturally BFD2 provides full control over tuning, damping and ambience levels, the bleed levels and the velocity response, so any sample or groove can be suitably massaged or warped beyond recognition. BFD2 also supports stereo multi-velocity layer sample import if you have your own favourite files stashed away.

BFD2 sounds good and is flexible. The program is highly configurable, with five page views to work in (Kit, Mixer, Grooves, Keymapping/Automation and Preferences), covering all aspects of the program and presented in a single window.

The simplest approach is to load a kit then a Palette of Grooves - and start exploring. Kits and Grooves/Palettes

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can also be changed independently, which encourages mix-and-match experimentation. In addition you can easily adjust the tempo, add FX and adjust channel levels in the Mixer. And you can set up aux sends, sidechain busses and submixes, and drag-and-drop elements from the Grooves page to construct your song's drum track - or drag the Midi directly into your sequencer host.

The plug-in supports multi-channel export of the audio as well, so separate channels can be sent out discretely, though not yet in standalone mode. (Note that even with the latter, you'd need a host sequencer to adjust tempo or time signature.)

Browsing the thousands of grooves gave us much inspiration but we got even more from playing our own rhythms (using an Alesis Control Pad). It sounds - and feels - like you're playing real drums, with plenty of articulation, ghost notes, subtle timbral changes and velocity sensitivity. Kick drums are meaty and authoritative. Snares can be as crisp or as trashy as you like. Cymbals hits and crashes chime and ring beautifully and decay perfectly naturally.

G4 Macs are not officially supported, although BFD2 did work fine in tests on a PowerBook G4 1.67GHz. Performance is markedly enhanced on an Intel machine.

There is a disappointing lack of laidback, restrained drum content - no brushes and the like, even with 55GB of samples supplied. Inevitably FXpansion directs you to its Jazz & Funk or XFL expansion packs, should you require such styles which is a tad disappointing.

But these are minor complaints and we consider BFD2 to be the best-in-breed of acoustic drum sample software available.