whoops... don't know why the samples didn't appear.... let me try again...

[MEDIA=soundcloud]fxpansion/sets/bfd-sphere

[MEDIA=soundcloud]fxpansion/colors

These were samples pulled directly off of BFD's SC page.

It sounds like they have the "room mix", mixed into that. I her what you mean The cymbals have a shifty sound.
Even though I like the mixer BFD has, I don't rely on it at all.
When I mix drums, I only use the dry mono sources.

How about others here?

I think samples are recorded dry on purpose, and dry samples will never sound good. Real instruments don't sound good completely dry with no natural space to reflect in either, which is why singing in the shower works.

You need room ambience, for one thing. I have a convolutional reverb set precisely for the task of imparting just a tiny bit of stereo field room ambience on pretty much everything that comes to me this dry. It is sort of like adding overheads on a close-mic'ed drum kit, and done properly, it makes all of these samples recorded in different countries in different decades sound like they are all happening at the same time in the same sound space. Glues them all together.

Samples in my Alesis DMPro sound great, but I had to go in and crank off all of that reverb and modulation to get them dry, so that I could add just the ambience I need after the fact. Don't oversalt the soup you sell me, let me decide. I think this is equivalent to cranking TVs up to torch mode at BestBuy, so they look good and can compete on the show room floor. But just like the TV looks better once you get it home and calibrate it out of torch mode, taking all of the fake ambience off of the Alesis samples that sounded so 'good' was necessary to give me total control over how I wanted to salt that soup.

Dry is not natural, so it sounds eerie and 'not good'. Some people even get nauseous in an anechoic chamber because it is so startling to have no room sound. And then hurl. So audition a sample with that in mind. It probably sounds 'not good' because it is drier than a popcorn fart, and not because it is not actually a good sample. You have to discern that this is what makes it 'not good' to judge the sample on its actual merits. Not saying that is a simple technique to master, but critical listening and critical thinking comes in handy.

If they recorded the samples in a reflective room, they would sound better, and more natural. But recording them dry allows you to have control over how much ambience you want.
It's like Hamburger helper. You still need to add the hamburger.

Plus, there is a lot of processing needed after the fact besides that to get them to sound good. EQ, reverb, modulation, compression, tuning. If you do this properly, good samples that sound bad because they are dry will then sound great. And if you don't, they won't.

DonnyThompson, post: 433712, member: 46114 wrote: Well, I don't know what "majority" is being defined as here... are all current commercial recordings using sample replacement? No, I don't think so... but I'd wager that they are being used a lot more than they were just a few years ago, and, I don't think it's indigenous to just one or two styles, either. I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn that sample replacement is currently being used in Rock, Country, Blues, hell, maybe even Funk and Jazz for that matter...

I don't think of samples as a necessary evil, and I don't think 'real' drum sounds, for instance, necessarily have anything over sampled sounds. 'Real' drums recorded properly have that room ambience quality I was speaking of above, but you can mostly impart that after the fact pretty realistically. Of course real drums recorded badly don't sound good, and not as good as samples, and there is no real way to go in and fix them after the fact.

But samples are absolutely necessary to get some of the sounds we want. I layer three bass sounds, at least two snare sounds, two acoustic piano sounds, and today I layered three EPs together to get a Rhodes sound I was searching for. Layering is essential, and you can't do that with live recording. With MIDI, you can layer and the performance is exact which can make it sound like one great AP instead of two good APs playing the same notes. Can't do that live.

I would expect that every big studio project regularly uses drum replacement, because that gives a MIDI track, and you have absolute control over what the final sound is after the fact. If the actual drums sound good and the beats are all on time, you can just throw the replacement track away. No blood, no foul. Or layer it in to improve the sound. Can't do that without samples and without MIDI. Can't really do that live and change after, but any serious live drumming in a real concert setting probably also uses drum replacement to layer samples over the actual drums. It's the way of the world.

I'm a fan of addictive drums... With minimum mixing time, you get a great sound.
It's very hard to get good demo on youtube, but I find this one that is not so bad ;)

Damn that sounds good! I'm not a drummer but I thought the hi hat sounded quite good and 'natural'. Samples are definatly the sound of modern commercial rock.

I know I've been layering samples under real drums since I learned the trick 5 years back. An aha moment for sure. As long as the phase is coherent it's a sound that can't otherwise be had. Addictive drums sound really really good.

pcrecord, post: 435905, member: 46460 wrote: I'm a fan of addictive drums... With minimum mixing time, you get a great sound.
It's very hard to get good demo on youtube, but I find this one that is not so bad ;)

Man, as someone who spent their formative years behind a kit in cover bands, I must say that sounds awesome Marco (y)

I must admit, Iv'e been looking at the Steven Slate Drum trigger for a while now, but you have just thrown a big spanner in the works for me....Doooh !!!!:rolleyes:

A few of years ago, I've tried many sample based drums and I wasn't satisfied. Addictive was the first that I found convincing enough to use on my recordings.
It's been a while since I checked, but I know Steven Slate makes great producst as well. I thinks it's worth it to trial both ;)
I usually use the clean presets of Addictive 2 and mix my way to the sound I want. The midi manipulation options are interesting too, if you don't use triggers to record the part.

I think I have a copy of EZ Drummer somewhere on my PC, although to be honest, I haven't really used it a great deal...

So I don't really know how it compares to others on the market. Maybe I should get my head around that first I suppose, but I'd be interested to hear how it compares with things like SSD or Addictive Drums from those that have used either or all of these.

A big part of a convincing Vsti Drum track is the way it was programmed or played. That's why I use a roland drum to make my midi.
I listened and tried EZ a few times with some disapointment..

I've been doing some googling looking for thoughts on BFD vs Addictive Drums. It seems to me that BFD is perhaps a bit more 'acoustic' sounding perhaps trying to emulate the recording sound and mixing of a kit in the studio. It also seems to be a bit more 'tweaky' in that multiple people said it took a bit of work to get exactly what they wanted.

AD seems to be a bit more 'processed' or 'finished/mix ready' out of the box. Kinda seems like it's less tweaky and a bit more straightforward. More modern pop/rock based 'radio ready' from the get go.

They way I've understood it it seems BFD is like working with great sounding raw tracks, and AD is like working with great sounding mixed/processed tracks. This is an intriguing couple options. Can't wait to DL the demos when the computer is ready. AD has a pop and punch that I haven't quite heard from BFD, although I've not spent a lot of time w bfds various kits.

I'd love to hear more thoughts on this from Marco. pcrecord , and anyone else. I'm wondering if one is more suited to performance as it could make a difference in perspective.

lol just for giggles, I came across this video, which is fairly irrelevant to the discussion, but it's one of those things where someone is soooo good, all I can do is laugh.

Although I think in the context of a mix it wouldn't stand up, particularly the snare, as it sounds quite good, but doesn't have that super punchy modern metal sound. Perhaps a little too 'open'

Wow, thats' tighter than a Scotsmans' purse strings...

kmetal, post: 435933, member: 37533 wrote: They way I've understood it it seems BFD is like working with great sounding raw tracks, and AD is like working with great sounding mixed/processed tracks. This is an intriguing couple options. Can't wait to DL the demos when the computer is ready. AD has a pop and punch that I haven't quite heard from BFD, although I've not spent a lot of time w bfds various kits.

I agree, when I tried BFD, I could only achieve good sound after some mixing time. Someone with skills and time may prefer that but it was a deal breaker to me. You see, I'm a drummer, I'd rather mix my drum than samples... At first try I was disapointed to have to deal with overtone problems in a tom set. BFD2 may be different but it leaves the fact that if you have to use more tools to make it sound good, it means more CPU usage.. got to think of that no ? My use of drum samples is mostly related to customers who don't have the money to do a full drum recording and mixing. To me it makes more sens to use a less time consuming tool.

Being an AD drum user for a while, you know can get the sounds pretty raw. I find that most presets are overmixed so I mostly use their clean kit and mixed them a bit..
I mostly have to work on the snare and bassdrum, most of the time the rest stays clean.

In the end I think BFD, AD and Slate, are pro caliber drum VSTi. I'm sure I could do a great sound on any of them, giving the time to learn them and having a good midi recording. That's why trials exist !!

It's funny that you put up that video and say they sound more raw, cause to me a natural drum doesn't sound like that. The click of the bassdrum and the gated verb of the snare makes it a great metal drum sound tho ;)