BFD Drums How to?

How to import and edit BFD drums

I’m admittedly a newbie at this but here goes.
I have BFD Drums running inside n-Track as a “Rewire” device.
I can launch BFD, and preview the drum parts OK, not a problem with that, but here’s what I need to do.

I want to import the MIDI grooves from BFD (just the one bar long MIDI data) and then I want to double, and redouble the MIDI groove so it’s 8 bars long. Then I want the MIDI info in n-Track to trigger the actual samples in BFD drums so I can take advantage of their "real’ sampled drums, fills, etc., AND record them into n-Track.

As if that wasn’t enough to ask, I’d like to be able to use BFD in “All Outs” or “Group Outs” mode so each drum, or pair, was on it’s own track. (maybe I’m dreaming on this one, I don’t know).

I’m lost as to how to do this.

Here’s my Win XP machine.
Pentium IV, 1 GB RAM, M-Audio 1010LT sound card, with 8 analog I/Os, S/PDIF I/O, Word clock and MIDI I/O.
Software: Reason Adapted running in Rewire, BFD running in Rewire and n-Track.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Marty (YFoiler).

Anyone?

Hi Marty,

Judging from the response it doesn’t look as though there’s too many of us using re-wire. To be honest, I don’t even know what it is, but I would like to know.

I did a quick search on the board and there are quite a few references to rewire so I guess someone will respond shortly; C’MON guys!

I use Linplug’s RMlll sample player for drums; playing a midi file through it. You can assign each drum to a seperate output and n-track then detects how many outputs it’s using and assigns a seperate “instrument channel” to eack output which you can then control independently as seperate channels in the usual ways (eq, verb, aux, effects etc)

Hopefully you’ll get a re-wire type response soon

Mike F

Sheesh, I’m on vacation here folks… As for BFD, if I am remembering correctly, it is a similar product to Groove Agent. If I had to guess, the functionality to trigger loops etc probably depends on what MIDI info you are sending. Also, it works as a VSTi if I remember too. I woul duse it as a VSTi rather than ReWire becuase I simply have never gotten ReWire to work for me and I am a total MIDI nerd. Check the BFD manual and look to see if there are mappings for the MIDI to loop and how to create multiple out puts withthe VSTi. Not a great answer, but hopefully a pointing in the right direction.

Hmmm… wasn’t there some strangeness about who was set as master and slave when running Reason & Reweire & n-Track ?

I’ve never used BFD, but if it works the same way as Fruity Loops and has a VSTi adator or Rewire slave device, then you create the full drum track within BFD, then sync it as follows:

1. Rewire - From n-track select Track/Rewire and hopefully you’ll see the Rewire device. Select this and it should launch BFD. From within BFD open the drum track that you want. Hit play from ntrack and you should hear the drum samples through your soundcard.

2. VSTi adaptor - From n-track select Track/MIDI/NewInstrumentChannel/VSTi/BFD and hopefully you’ll see the VSTi adaptor. Select this and it should launch BFD. From within BFD open the drum track that you want. Hit play from ntrack and you should hear the drum samples through your soundcard.

There are a few pre-requisites/features:
1. Before you save your song, make sure that there is a least one wav or midi track created (even a blank one is fine) or you cannot re-open the .sng file.
2. In Preferences/Options de-select “Stop playback at end of Song” and select “Compensate plugins latency”.
3. I’ve had a few Rewire issues when changing time signatures from n-track in the middle of songs, so if you’re doing anything complex then VSTi may be the way to go.

In terms of the output for each drum sample thing, this is supposed to be possible but I’ve never got it working with FL - it always defaults to 2 outputs and won’t let me change it.

Hope this helps
John