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**Paul Ennis** · 10-07-08, 05:42 AM

**Gastric** · 10-07-08, 06:42 AM

BFD 1.5 (based on what I've read as I have no direct experience), BFD2, and Superior 2 seem to be the only products that really offer enough e-drum support out of the box. Superior 2 works well though seems geared completely toward acoustic drum reproduction, and BFD2 seems the most robust e-drum VSTi with it's hihat mapping capabilities and tons of presets out of the box. See this video here: http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=10&tab=84

Addictive Drums doesn't utilize any CC4 pedal information and thus cannot provide intricate hihat control natively, you'll have to use some 3rd party intermediary MIDI Mapper to do the work such as eDrum MIDI Mapper or Edrum Monitor. I spent hours trying to get AD to give awesome hihats with my Alesis Trigger IO and simply couldn't do it, though the Trigger IO is a big hindrance regarding hihats.

I'd done some reading on Battery 3 but the sound samples I heard sounded the least real of the bunch so I never pursued it further.

**Relayer** · 10-07-08, 07:51 AM

First off, see if you can get your money back for Battery 3. I've never heard of anyone who's been able to successfully configure the hats. It's fine for percussion/loops but ill-suited for full drum kit integration.

I use Addictive Drums with a MIDI mapper, and the hats work just fine - better than in BFD2 as a matter of fact. Which mapper are you using? If it's the edrum MIDI mapper, I can probably help you out.

I play keyboards and have been using all manner of VST's for several years. BFD2 is perhaps the most complex plugin I've ever used. The sounds are superlative, but you'll spend as much time tweaking as you will playing. You also need to know a fair amount about engineering drums to bring of the best in them. YMMV.

In this thread - http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42506 - I basically made the argument that no one has made a drum plug that works perfectly with edrums "straight out of the box" - yet. The S2 crowd seem very satisfied with its edrum performance. However, the full install is 20GB, and it seems to me that you get limited content for that much disk space.. BFD2 is 60GB, but you get 10 full kits plus loads of extra snares, cymbals, etc.

Good luck.

Steve

**Sabre** · 10-07-08, 02:14 PM

I use Addictive drums with Ableton Live 7.0 and map it through e-drum midi-mapper. The hats work perfectly with my TD-3 / FD-8 combo. Very satisfying foot splash, and open & closed sounds.

My cymbals don't choke because Ableton Live doesn't support polyphonic aftertouch, but thats a minor trade-off for all the other things it does so well.

Superior 2.0 has a 'learn' function that works really well, and eliminates the need for the intermediary mapper applications. I believe S2 is about the closest you'll come to native out-of-the-box e-drum support, but that doesn't mean you can't get very impressive results with other combinations.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

**Osmodiar** · 10-07-08, 09:19 PM

Thanks everyone, all the responses so far have been interesting.

BFD2 sounds like it might be worth a look.. I'm intrigued to hear some of you have addictive drums working tho, better than i have obviously.. if i recall correctly i think the tool i used was edrum midi mapper.. i'm not 100% sure tho. I know i had to use a virtual midi cable plugin to route the TD9 into the midi mapper, and then pick the midi-mapper output as input for Ad. Drums.

If you've got a midi map that will work for a TD9 that solves the hi-hat controller issue i'm having i'd really love to take a look at it !

I wish this feature was better supported.. i mean who wants to play these complex drum VST's with a piano keyboard?? Surely having a "Full V-Drum Support" sticker on the box would be a massive selling point to the extensively numerous v-drum owners out there who would probably all fancy some new sounds. If consumers are going to the trouble of hacking their own midi map solutions surely it's feasible and worth implementing support into the VST's directly. I just can't help think that it shouldn't be this hard!

I know there's a whole bunch of requests and posts about this on the xlnaudio forums, and 'rumours' that this is planned for the future but it's impossible to get a straight answer from the developers and the months keep rolling by with no update!

**Relayer** · 10-07-08, 10:54 PM

For setting the hats using edrum MIDI mapper with AD, your input note will be whatever the hh open note is on your module. I have a TD-6 and the note is A#2 - dunno what it is on the TD-9. Keep in mind that you have to have 3 notes as your outputs for a hh pad - Open, Closed, and Pedal. Those notes in AD are G3, E3 and C3. Check the box that says "Roland mapping", set the CC number to 4, channel is 10 of course, and you should be good to go.

Good luck.

Steve

**Gastric** · 10-08-08, 04:50 PM

I pretty much second Relayer's comment that there's no perfect VSTi out there for e-drummers.

Addictive Drums has instant fun within a few minutes of installing and setting it up. It's the easiest to use and has a TON of presets that cover a huge swath of genres. It just lacks e-drum support, specifically the hihat. Whether a MIDI mapper works for you I can't say.

Out of the box Superior 2 if the closest to great in my opinion, but lacks truly serious hihat controls like BFD offers. But S2 is easy to setup and use and sounds great for the types of sounds it provides. I only wish it had BFD-like hihat setup features. And a wider variety of sounds such as electronic, etc. like AD provides.

BFD 2 I don't have specific experience with. But overall on paper it would seem to be THE VSTi to get. Full e-drum configuration, tons of presets, huge kits supported, etc. But it sounds very machine-like to me. And it's certainly very resource hungry from what I've read with slow sample loads and what not. But it seems to provide the absolute most e-drum tweaks that I've seen. VSTi provided foot chik and splash triggering based purely on CC4 data, and some truly serious hihat open/close transition configuration. That removes all the requirements from the drum module and lets the VSTi do all the logic which is really how it should be for VSTi.

**Joe_K** · 10-08-08, 06:43 PM

Originally posted by Relayer

The S2 crowd seem very satisfied with its edrum performance. However, the full install is 20GB, and it seems to me that you get limited content for that much disk space.. BFD2 is 60GB, but you get 10 full kits plus loads of extra snares, cymbals, etc.

Of course, everyone has different preferences and needs, I'm just adding info to a point that you made.

If you mean "limited content" in the sense of kit pieces, it is certainly true that S2.0 does not have as many drums as BFD2 out of the box, but it actually has a few more cymbals than BFD2 by my count (and cymbals take more hard disk space than any other sample due to the length of decay ... if you capture it all).

You can also install S2.0 in 4GB ... having all the library's drums and cymbals hit with just sticks (no mallet, rods, brush samples) and foregoing the bulk of microphone bleeds and all the extra Ambient microphones, except the Close Ambient mic. I like having all of the bleeds and ambient mics myself ... they help the drums sit in the mix when used judiciously ... but I could get by without them if I had to. I think they are worth the space though, personally, and I'm glad to have that hyper-realistic content as a resource in mixing.

For extra content, kits are sold in "EZX" packs between $70 - $80 and already include Nashville, Twisted Kit, Vintage Rock, DFH, Latin Percussion and Claustrophobic (with several new ones in development).

**Relayer** · 10-08-08, 08:25 PM

Thanks for the clarification Joe. You make a good point about the cymbals and the resources used. BFD2 has 24 cymbals - not including hats. Quite frankly, there are two or three that I don't care for, including a Boshphorus Masters Series ride that sounds like somebody hitting a cast-iron skillet.

Steve

**Sabre** · 10-10-08, 01:49 PM

Originally posted by Osmodiar

If you've got a midi map that will work for a TD9 that solves the hi-hat controller issue i'm having i'd really love to take a look at it !

This map should work with the TD-9 (right click and 'save as')

http://dynamicservices.ca/Untitled.xml

Here is what it looks like...

**EmoRottie** · 10-13-08, 01:01 AM

Hello.

I'm new here but already I'm finding a lot of answers to questions I have. Great forum.

Sabre: Sweet! I see we have a TD-9 midi map. Did you have the TD-3 midi map available as well? Your setup is just like mine and I'm a total hi-hat kind of guy.

**Sabre** · 10-13-08, 09:22 AM

Originally posted by EmoRottie

Sabre: Sweet! I see we have a TD-9 midi map. Did you have the TD-3 midi map available as well? Your setup is just like mine and I'm a total hi-hat kind of guy.

Hey Emo, thats the map I use with my TD-3. I posted it because it 'should' work with any Roland module, but it will definately work with the TD-3...

**EmoRottie** · 10-13-08, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by Sabre

Hey Emo, thats the map I use with my TD-3. I posted it because it 'should' work with any Roland module, but it will definately work with the TD-3...

Delicious. Thanks so much!

**Osmodiar** · 10-15-08, 06:01 PM

Thanks sabre for posting your midi map, much appreciated. I'll try it out tonight !

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TD9 and Battery 3 / Addictive Drums ...

TD9 and Battery 3 / Addictive Drums ...

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