BFD or EZdrummer?

[Frankie]

Can I please have some input on these two produts?
From experience can someone tell me the difference?
What would you buy and why?

Thanks

[SPISHAK]

Well I'm a noob at this stuff, but I can tell you this.....EZD will be easier to use for someone like us to start our path down the road to vst + Edrums. BFD takes a LOT of hard drive space and there is a lot more you can do with editing different drum samples as in mic placement and such. Both are excellent, but EZD is EZer.

[Joe_K]

EZdrummer is going to be less resource intensive, less expensive and less tweakable. It has about a 250 - 300 MB footprint for memory for loading an entire kit (depending on the kit or EZX expansion). The sounds are really good, though you aren't going to be able to change the pitch or fade of samples. There is no MIDI mapping ability within EZdrummer ... Toontrack's goal for the product wasn't to be part of an EDrumming solution, they have the "Superior Drummer" product for that (previously known as "dfh Superior"). However, it works REALLY well as one ... the underlying engine is really robust for triggering ... certain performance aspects, like cymbal chokes, work without any configuration required with a Roland TMI.

I use dfh Superior and I've tweaked the sounds and triggering just as I want them, however I still like to load up EZdrummer in stand-alone mode all the time. It is a fun package to sit down and play with.

[tripp2k]

BTW Joe K...nice recordings. The drums sound PERFECT!

[almazza]

I have both loaded on my Macbook. As JoeK mentioned, EZdrummer is less resource intensive, I've really had to go in and tweak BFD2 to get better performance (to avoid dropouts or skipping) and I have 3G of RAM in this machine and am using an ASIO driver for my USB2 attached Alesis board/sound card.

That being said, BFD2 is more flexible when it comes to tweaking settings to your liking. It also comes down to what you want to use them for. When it comes to just practicing, I prefer to fire up Toontrack solo (the stand alone app for Ezdrummer) and play. For using as a VSTi inside of cubase for recordings, I have been using BFD2.

Adam

[Joe_K]

BTW Joe K...nice recordings. The drums sound PERFECT!

Thanks. Much appreciated!

[dave_b]

Having used both, I prefer BFD2 these days. It's much more expensive so that isn't unexpected. EZD sounds great, but if you like to tweak, you may be frustrated. I personally think BFD has the edge on expansion packs, too.

Another one to consider is Addictive Drums. It's much more flexable than EZD and sounds at least as good to my ears. I've played with it long enough to realize I would take it over any of the EZD products. Just my opinion.

[JrummerJ]

Having used both, I prefer BFD2 these days. It's much more expensive so that isn't unexpected. EZD sounds great, but if you like to tweak, you may be frustrated. I personally think BFD has the edge on expansion packs, too.

Another one to consider is Addictive Drums. It's much more flexable than EZD and sounds at least as good to my ears. I've played with it long enough to realize I would take it over any of the EZD products. Just my opinion.

I tried the demo for addictive drums for a short while and came across the same problem that lots of others had at the time, which was mainly that AD didn't have support for e-drums. It was really difficult to get the hihats to respond since AD didn't support cc4 messages.

Has this changed? Anybody know if AD is working at least as well as EZD with an e-kit?

J

[dave_b]

I tried the demo for addictive drums ... AD didn't support cc4 messages.

Has this changed? Anybody AD working at least as well as EXD with an e-kit?
J

That's a very valid point that I'd forgotten. I've read that AD was promising it a few months back (on the Ableton forum), but nothing so far. IIRC they use note-switching to handle the hats.

[miles267]

I have a Roland TD-3KW kit and have tried both EZ Drummer, BFD2 and BFD 1.5 at a friend's house. EZ Drummer appeared to be very limited but worked w/ zero setup out of the box. When we hooked the set up to BFD 1.5, the app didn't even pick up on the midi output from the Edirol MIDI USB device as it did in BFD2. Are all of the BFD expansions compatible with BF2 now or is it necessary to run both 1.5 and 2.0 on the same system?

Also is it possible to feed the MIDI sounds from BFD 1.5 or 2.0 from the PC -> the TD-3 module so that the sounds can be heard from TD-3 via headphones? I'm trying to determine which app I should buy and my wife isn't going to want to hear it out loud

[Pimenta]

The expansion packs are compatible wth BFD 2 - you won't need BFD 1.5.

Regarding the sounds yes it is possible ... audio out from your computer to the audio in .. in your TD3.. headphones on and good to rock.

Pim

[sarge201]

I tried the demo for addictive drums for a short while and came across the same problem that lots of others had at the time, which was mainly that AD didn't have support for e-drums. It was really difficult to get the hihats to respond since AD didn't support cc4 messages.

Has this changed? Anybody know if AD is working at least as well as EZD with an e-kit?

J

Try mapping all hi hat events (minus pedal sounds) to note #54, worked for me.