FXpansion BFD 3 - Box

BFD3 is the third generation of FXpansion's flagship software acoustic drum studio: new levels of realism and ground-breaking features in an intuitive redesigned engine.

With stunning new kits with mix-ready presets and modelling technology for tom resonance and cymbal swells, BFD3's audio engine delivers uncompromising detail. The revamped interface has a new mixer and sound browser for the easiest BFD experience yet.

BFD3's all-new library is recorded in two fantastic rooms by engineers including Andrew Scheps, Rail Jon Rogut and John Emrich, giving you a diverse palette of drum tones out of the box. The sounds include a brushed kit and processed drum presets for fast custom kit-building. BFD3 also contains a powerful built-in environment for pattern creation and editing, complete with a range of performances by legendary drummers for effortless production of drum tracks indistinguishable from the real thing.

Instant Results with unlimited depth

BFD3's interface lets you easily browse for entire presets or compile great-sounding kits while also providing the depth to truly sculpt any drum sound you desire. Presets can be moulded into new shapes by retuning, damping and changing the velocity response and many other aspects of the kit and also by processing the hyper-detailed multi-microphone sounds in BFD3's internal mixing engine. The built-in Groove section offers a versatile range of session drummer performances alongside pattern editing and Groove creation functions. Select from a wide range of musical drum rudiments and simply paint your own realistic parts.

A newly-recorded varied library

The new BFD3 library was recorded in 2 locations for varied room ambience and allowing as many diverse sounds as possible. Kits 1-4, recorded in LA's Ocean Studios, feature additional mono and hardware-compressed room channels in addition to stereo overhead and room mics, while kits 5-7 are stick, brush and mallet versions of a custom Mapleworks kit recorded in a clean and tight but vibrant room at Omega Studios in Rockville, Maryland. With detail levels of up to 80 velocity layers, rim-clicks and rim-shots for toms and bells and splashes for hihats, BFD3's sounds are more expressive than ever before.

Efficient engine with intelligent modelling

BFD3's new features reduce the impact of this high detail on your system resources. The library makes use of zero-loss compression for audio data stored on disk resulting in less strain on your hard disk, with decompression while streaming incurring minimal overhead. The new audio engine is more efficient and introduces modelled tom resonance and bleed for even more realism without using any memory-hungry audio data. The modelling augments and blends the kit together with a natural-sounding 'glue' which varies depending on the characteristics and tuning of any combination of drums, something that cannot be achieved only by using samples.

Mix as deeply as you want to

The internal mixing engine has DCAM-modelled compression, filtering and other effects alongside great-sounding EQ and algorithmic reverbs. External signals can be used as compression sidechains, ambient channels for individual drums can be isolated and processed separately. BFD3's new workflow enhancements even let you hide multiple drum and ambient mics for adopting simpler mixing approaches.

Exporting audio and using external processing

BFD3 makes it easy to route multiple channels to discrete outputs for processing with other plugins or outboard gear. It even provides multi-channel audio export direct to disk. Grooves can be exported using drag and drop - perfect for compiling loops. BFD3 is a complete workstation usable for any production styles that demand stunningly realistic mix-ready acoustic drums.