TECH NEWS over every traditional element of the drum's sound. There are also an amazing amount of velocity layers for each drum (up to 96) giving you a vast amount of depth and realism when playing out your patterns. BFD also comes fully equipped with over 5000 grooves to spark some inspiration and a fully functional Cubase-style drum sequencer. It also fully integrates into your existing sequencer as a powerhouse drum module. The new GUI is a welcome sight and is much easier to navigate than previous versions. The Kit page is the default startup screen but there are 4 other s c r e e n s o n b o a r d : t h e M i x e r, Grooves,Keymapping/Automation and Preferences pages.
Big F***ing Drums! W
hen FXpansion named the BFD acoustic drum production workstation, they definitely didn't undersell the “big” aspect of the kit. BFD 2 comes with over 50 gigs of rare, vintage, boutique and classic drum sets. All of these sounds were recorded at the immaculate AIR studios in London, and they spared no expense when it came to detail on this collection of sounds. BFD2 has seen a complete makeover of the GUI and the sample data. Each of the 10 kits included is highly editable with onboard effects, super flexible routing and a plethora of mic positions for each piece in the kit, giving you a virtual access to the AIR studios in your drum productions. We're going to give the BFD2 a run for it's money and see if it really does live up to it's name.
The Rundown Included in the bundle are 10 drum kits and an array of extras including kicks, snares and toms. Each of the pieces of the kits was meticulously recorded with mic positions both inside and outside of the kick, snare tops and bottoms, close room mics and ambient mics. All of these elements of the kit can be tightly controlled via the onboard mixer giving you the most in control
What's In The Kit? On the default kit page you have the ability to load a 10, 18 or 32 piece kit for any drum needs you may have. Each module contains a clear picture of the drum sound, a mute/solo/volume for each module and a button to clear the selected cell. There's also a very useful set of functions down the left hand side of this screen for functions like clearing the entire kit, MIDI note learn and many others. On the upper right hand side of the screen you have all your various controls of the selected cell including Overhead/Room/Ambient mic levels, dampening controls, tuning, dynamics, kick and snare bleeds along with a full line of articulation controls. Below this window there's a chopped down version of the mixer including mic levels, humanize controls and controls for master dynamics and tuning.
everything in between. Get Groovy The BFD2 update showed a considerable update to the groove window, now offering you the ability to load up to 128 grooves at any one time. With over 5000 grooves in the box to choose from, there are many options to help stimulate your writing. This Cubase-style sequencer is easy and straightforward to use and also comes with controls for quantization, simplify, weight, swing and human time/value controls. There's a handy groove palette, which you can drag and drop groove from right into the sequencer to get the desired rhythm you're looking for. Everything Else The MIDI learn feature is definitely handy and accessible on the default page, but for those looking for more there is a MIDI learn page to get much more in depth with your control of the interface. It clearly shows each cell with its respective assignment along with velocity curves and all existing choke slots. There's also a section in the lower right hand corner where you can load existing keymaps. The settings page is pretty straightforward with settings for your default data path and preferences reset. Other tabs in this window offer you settings for grooves, session, MIDI, engine, GUI and health settings.
Bottom Line Although there are a good number of drum machines out that claim to “bring the boom”, it's rare that I actually see one live up to the hype right out of the box. As complex as the interface looks, there's plenty of kits and templates onboard to help you get that booming sound right off the bat. Another great feature of the BFD2 is the ability to purchase one of it's many expansions online, so you'll never have stale sounds. The $299 price tag might not appeal to a lot of people, but with over 50 gigs of Mixology sounds it's definitely a bang well worth the buck. For more info The second page on the BFD2 is a more detailed version of the and to pick up a copy of BFD2, visit www.fxpansion.com. Happy mixer section. The bottom half includes all the traditional fader drumming! controls you would expect to see for each cell including volume faders, mute/solo/record controls and gain controls amongst other controls. On the right side of the bottom of the screen there are volume controls for the mic returns, direct volume and bleed level controls on the mic tab. There's also tabs for the Send controls, preset selection, exporting and kit cell controls. The top of the window offers an extensive number of effects, although they are proprietary to the BFD interface and unfortunately you can't use VST plugins in place of the onboard effects. There are plenty of effects to work with from compressors to distortion and
Mix This With That With the way the DJ scene is developing in the world it seems as though everyone and his or her dog wants to be a DJ. A lot of new talent I'm seeing coming to the DJ field has little or no experience in music production and want that instant gratification that comes with DJ'ing. The problem with this is that people just start DJ'ing and playing the same tracks that everyone else is playing. With this approach you won't get any further than the button pusher sitting next to you less some really hard work in the promotional end of it. If you want to catch their attention behind the decks, one way to do it is by making your own mashups and megamixes to stand out. The problem with this is that it takes a certain amount of production knowhow to construct a proper mashup…until now. The release of Mixed In Key's Mashup will enable even the most novice of producers and DJ's to match and create the most seamless of mashups almost effortlessly. As a matter of fact, the people at Mixed In Key boast that you can create a good sounding mashup in under 5 minutes. Let's take a look.
Instant Gratification Upon pulling tracks into the audio bin, I notice it takes a bit of time for the program to analyze the files. After it completes this task I found out why. The program TELLS you which tracks mix together the best with a Harmonic Compatibility percentage right next to the file. No more guessing at what
will mix well. The program does that for you. Upon dragging the first couple of tracks in I notice that there is no work to do to match the beats. You just drag and align the tracks so the elements come in and out at the right times and presto! There is some end tailoring you can do to the tracks with EQ and volume to make them fit together better, but not much. Through simplicity comes appeal towards the masses that want that “instant fix”. The user interface is very clean and easy to navigate and there are really no huge hang-ups in the learning curve. Plus if you get stuck there is a quick start guide to get you on the right track.
Final Analysis If you're looking for something to get you running out of the box and you have little or no production knowledge, this is the product for you. If you are a seasoned producer and are looking for a feature-packed DAW powerhouse, it's best to look elsewhere. It's my thought that the guys over at Mixed In Key wanted to keep it simple so it didn't lose it's introductory appeal. To me it seems like there will be more to come with updates. Hey, either way at $39 you can't go wrong giving it a shot. If you want to know m o r e a b o u t M a s h u p o r t o p i c k u p y o u r c o p y, g o t o mashup.mixedinkey.com. It's definitely worth a look to make those stellar mashups that stick in people's heads after you're done on the 1's and 2's.