Neil Peart kit for BFD2

[Haggis-man]

Hi all,

I bought the Neil Peart kit for BFD2 a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd give you my thoughts on it in case you are thinking of buying it.

First off the good:

The snare is a cracker! I love it! there are some 80 - 90 layers in the standard hits alone. A little tweeking with BFD2 EQ really makes it shine too!


The toms:
I'm really disappointed here, and this is what I was most looking forward to. There's an unpleasant metallic ringing from the toms and I had to do a lot of EQ processing to get them half decent, but I'm still not happy with them. They're not nearly as dynamic as the standard 2box toms. Another disappointment is the lack of layers to play with, only 20 to 30 on each. Although I did mix layers in from the alternate hits to help the dynamics.

The hi hat:
Again I'm a little disappointed here. The hi hat is nice but lacks the layers of the standard BFD2 hi hats. Some of the hits only have 11 layers and about 30 at most while the BFD2 one's go up to 60 - 70 layers for the same hits! The resulting DSND really lacks dynamics due to the limited layers. A real shame as the hats do sound nice and crisp with a little processing.

The cymbals:
The cymbals are on par with the standard BFD2 one's with an adequate amount of layers, I particularly like the china with rivets, it sounds amazing!

So on the whole do I think it's worth buying? Well it depends. If you like the toms and the snare then it probably is. If like me however you don't like the toms, and are only using the snare and some of the cymbals then I don't think $80.00 is good value for money.

Cheers

[puttenvr]

Which sound of Peart is recorded?

I loved his drum sound from the mid 80s very much, but since Peart plays DW drums I completely dislike it.. I even wonder if his live sound is a heavily processed acoustic drumsound or mix from acoustic and Roland stuff. Esp. the tomtoms are like mud. So in that retrospect they are very well sampled ;-)

[Haggis-man]

Hi puttenvr,

Yes, I loved his drum sound on permanent waves, moving pictures and signals. I think the kit is sampled from the DW kit used on the snakes and arrows album and tour.

Cheers

[Jman]

Hi all,

I bought the Neil Peart kit for BFD2 a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd give you my thoughts on it in case you are thinking of buying it.

First off the good:

The snare is a cracker! I love it! there are some 80 - 90 layers in the standard hits alone. A little tweeking with BFD2 EQ really makes it shine too!


The toms:
I'm really disappointed here, and this is what I was most looking forward to. There's an unpleasant metallic ringing from the toms and I had to do a lot of EQ processing to get them half decent, but I'm still not happy with them. They're not nearly as dynamic as the standard 2box toms. Another disappointment is the lack of layers to play with, only 20 to 30 on each. Although I did mix layers in from the alternate hits to help the dynamics.

The hi hat:
Again I'm a little disappointed here. The hi hat is nice but lacks the layers of the standard BFD2 hi hats. Some of the hits only have 11 layers and about 30 at most while the BFD2 one's go up to 60 - 70 layers for the same hits! The resulting DSND really lacks dynamics due to the limited layers. A real shame as the hats do sound nice and crisp with a little processing.

The cymbals:
The cymbals are on par with the standard BFD2 one's with an adequate amount of layers, I particularly like the china with rivets, it sounds amazing!

So on the whole do I think it's worth buying? Well it depends. If you like the toms and the snare then it probably is. If like me however you don't like the toms, and are only using the snare and some of the cymbals then I don't think $80.00 is good value for money.

Cheers

I guess this is the most attractive to the guys that really want to have the sound of Neil's Snakes and Arrows kit, since that is what they sampled... I'm not really a groupie, so that didn't really matter to me... I saw it as a lot of toms mainly... cymbals, eh .... ok .... same on HH . And the toms don't really knock my socks off. But, all the toms have hits in the main folder of high 40's no. of hits to 50 hits, except the 6 floor and the 8 floor, which have 24 or 25 hits. I think there are adequate hits to get decent dsnds from them. One thing I notice, I think anyway ... with BFD2 and this Peart Kit is that the majority of the hits are in the High velocity to Med velocity range, with fewer hits in the low velocity range. So generally I make the dsnds using MIDI's with quite a few more hits than the original no. of hits ... which tends to smooth the transitions. The Peart kit is definitely not my favorite, but I see it as just one more choice/variation to what I already have.

The main thing I am really enjoying though with BFD2 is how different the kits can sound using different presets and mixer settings. After building default kits which are very real/raw, I've done quite a few kits with the JM Room 1, Full on Heavy Rock, Rock 120, Fat Rock, Deep an Fat ... etc... etc...  I don't think I've used any preset exactly as is, and have tweaked em to my liking, but it is really cool to hear how very different each one of those kits turn out from the default kits I built on round 1.

I know you can do much of this in SD2 also, since I have done lots of different presets and tweaks in that also .... but I tend to really enjoy the results with BFD2, and I think it is because the original kits seem so Real and Raw to start with and much different with various presets and varieties of mixing changes, Room, ambiance, OH mics, bleeds, FX, etc. To me it seems like there are almost limitless amounts of kits that can be built from the original.

[digitalDrummer]

. but I tend to really enjoy the results with BFD2, and I think it is because the original kits seem so Real and Raw to start with and much different with various presets and varieties of mixing changes, Room, ambiance, OH mics, bleeds, FX, etc. To me it seems like there are almost limitless amounts of kits that can be built from the original.

Hopefully, one day we'll be able to apply the FX on the module!

[Jman]

I had this response Brian had made in this thread ..... via email notification just before the site crashed ..... quote from Brian in the teal colored print:

"Hi all,

I feel I was a little unfair in my review of the Neil Peart kit after having it for a good while now and also having a better understanding of the processing in BFD2.

I have to say that I now love the toms and they are some of my favourites!

I went back and spent a few days setting up the EQ and ambience for the toms and I have to say I'm stunned at how different they sound now! They are very rich and lively sounding and I now find them a real joy to play.

The only downside I would say to this package (as I previously stated) is the lack of layers in the hi hats compared to the standard BFD hi hats, but all in all the rest of the package is really worth it if you put the time in to get the best out of it.

Cheers"

After purchasing a boatload of VST programs now, I think the majority of VSTs do not have a super deep sample pool as far as the number of individual hits .... many instruments with 20 some hits to 40 some hits especially on toms .... higher number of hits usually on snares ... Many cymbals and Hi Hats have individual hits in the 20's .... or even fewer and that even goes for the Zildjian Gen 16 Digital Vault packs which have beautiful sounding cymbals. For the most part I have ended up with very nice dsnds from these programs even if there are fewer hits. In many cases I use MIDIs with more hits than the number of hits in the original instrument ... an example would be a tom with 30 some hits ... I might use a MIDI of 40 some to 60 some hits .... some hits will be repeated with a dif velocity level,  but this tends to spread the velocities more evenly, gradually .... making the transitions smoother and a nice dsnd resulting. On my more recent HH dsnds I generally use MIDIs in the 20s .... smaller dsnds than my earlier ones where I used 33 or more hits per articulation .... but again the resulting dsnds are very playable and I find it hard to tell the dif on the kit.

Here's a nice exception to this .... BFD Deluxe generally has a nice deep amount of individual hits .... some with 127 velocity layers ... most toms have over 60 up to the 90s .... When building dsnds from BFD Deluxe I tend to use MIDI files with less hits than the original instrument ... like a MIDI with 98 hits for a snare head that has 127 hits in the original. The spread of velocity layers resulting from Deluxe is very nice and evenly spread.

But in the end I still think the dsnds from instruments with lower no. of original hits usually turn out very nice and pretty tough to tell the dif. in the actual playing experience from the 2Box module/kit.
Just my opinion though .... J

[Jman]

I mentioned how I really enjoyed BFD earlier .... and yes, like Brian I have found a treasure trove in this program via the mixer settings and even the available presets. By using the mixer and or presets it is possible to get resulting instrument sounds that are very different from the default sounds you will hear. For the most part the default sounds are pretty real and raw through BFD with quite a bit of top head attack in the overheads, room and ambiance (at least that is what it seems to me) ..... just by raising the direct mics on the toms for example or keeping the direct mics normal and lowering everything else a bit .... you will get a tom which is still very real and acoustic, but with a nice rich direct sound ....
I went back on many of my kits and made a "default 2" kit .... with more direct mic emphasis on the instruments. Nice to have that variety IMO .... J

[Haggis-man]

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for posting my post! I thought it was lost and couldn't remember exactly what I wrote to post again.

All the best

[Jman]

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for posting my post! I thought it was lost and couldn't remember exactly what I wrote to post again.

All the best

Your post was the last notification I got before the crash. I was going to post in the thread that day, but the site was down .... 

[10keven]

Hi Everyone.

I found this post quite interesting because Im not a RUSH fan by any stretch.. In fact im more of a Stuart Copeland fan in his sound and its production.

Is there an expansion that would give me more of Copelands sounds from the BFD collections ?.

Kev

[Haggis-man]

Hi Everyone.

I found this post quite interesting because Im not a RUSH fan by any stretch.. In fact im more of a Stuart Copeland fan in his sound and its production.

Is there an expansion that would give me more of Copelands sounds from the BFD collections ?.

Kev

Hi Kevin,

According to Wikipedia Copland currently uses a Tama SC145 snare with Tama toms. In the 80's he used  Tama imperial star toms with a Pearl Jupiter snare.

The standard BFD doesn't have any of these. I don't own SD2 but i think Sd2 has the toms? But I'm not sure about the snare though.

All the best

[edtc]

Hi Kevin,

According to Wikipedia Copland currently uses a Tama SC145 snare with Tama toms. In the 80's he used  Tama imperial star toms with a Pearl Jupiter snare.

The standard BFD doesn't have any of these. I don't own SD2 but i think Sd2 has the toms? But I'm not sure about the snare though.

All the best

More than the drumkit itself , I think that most of Copeland s sound comes from his hitting style , expressivity , skins and tuning , and also effects added in studio ( long reverbs and som edelays  )

Maybe with another Brand's drumset and some tweaking in BFD you could achieve something approaching ...   


Another solution is to convince Steward Copeland to record a pack  for BFD , with one kit for every   popular police song ....  this pack should be expensive just because of the lawyers expences  

[10keven]

Ill get on the phone to Stuarts agent straight away lol..

Actually, To back up what Brian and Jerry were saying about BFD, I downloaded the demo of Addictive Drums a few months back.. I didnt like the GUI to be honest but it came with 1 kit only but had about 15 presets and the amount of variance that you got using the presets along on just one kit were staggering.

Some kits were almost synth like.. very "8 Bit" and the next preset gave you a huge room ambience so it goes to show you just how much power is available were you to have the time to tweak..

Speaking of time and Tweaking.. When im on the Roland Vdrum forum, one of their arguments NOT to get the 2box is the task we are talking about right now. Creating DSOUNDS and the process to do it..

Now I think people are just looking at the process in the wrong way. They see it as a chore.. a burden.. something to give the 2box negative connotations... IMO quite the contrary.. If ROland had a proper software editor that allowed you the create from scratch and give you access to reverbs, mic placements, MFX etc.. all on screen... Everyone on the ROland site would say.. WOW what a great piece of software.. allows us to create stuff from nothing or work on existing stuff and then PORT it to my TD30 to play it live...

Isnt that exactly what we are doing with BFD ?.. creating from nothing.. adding our mic placements and Reverb and then porting it to our 2box.. ? the same process but with a positive slant on it.. Because we have been forced to work this way to create sounds.. psychologically it becomes a negative.. but if 2BOX had included BFD as an editor and said "this is how you create the kit you have always wanted".. we would all be thinking its the mutts nuts !!!

erm...... im hyperventilating now..   

[Jman]

Building dsnds from VST programs has become quite the hobby for me. If I don't tinker with a new set of sounds for a week or 2 .... I start to get a twitch in my keyboard fingers

[10keven]

I imagine by now you have some amazing sounds Jerry.. Its a shame that we cant share what we create. I have BFD and have created a  good snare thanks to Brians tutorials but im not so much a tinkererer..  I struggle with understanding the macro rather than the big picture.

I would sooner pay for a good selection of 2Box snares or Bass drums created on BFD.. Its just me personally... Im waiting for  someone to sell me some..Im sure 2Box are due to put some more on their site. I do admire your and Brians ability though..