BFD Percussion Expansion vs. Ethno's percussion
Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:01 pm
Has anyone used BFD's Percussion expansion? From the data lists, it seems deeper than Ethno's percussion coverage, with more layers, etc. But the on-line demos did not impress me as much as I expected compared to other BFD material.
I use Ethno mostly for its broad coverage of melodic instruments, which I feel it does a very good job of. I am less happy with the non-melodic percussion, for reasons stated in a previous posting. But not just because it's not really set up to create easy-to-use drum kits (which is OK, as that's not why I bought it, and it can't be everything to all people); I also feel it doesn't provide as much nuance as I would like for detailed percussion tracking (particularly latin percussion). Though I am fairly happy with it overall.
So I ask about BFD's Percussion expansion, because it is a bit pricey, but might be deeper in its coverage of more nuanced styles and its ease of setting up ready-to-use kits for live tracking, vs. more time-consuming MIDI note and drum kit re-mapping to render already-recorded material. Yes, I know anything is possible with Ethno, but I prefer to use the most efficient tool at hand for each task.
It would be an added bonus if the sample quality for BFD Percussion is (subjectively, of course) superior to those in Ethno. After all, Ethno must devote a big chunk of its library to the melodic stuff. And I presume the BFD stuff will have more realistic and detailed tails for stuff like congas that have complex decays once you start dealing with nuanced playing styles.
I am going to buy the main BFD program regardless, but looking at their expansions gets a bit confusing in terms of possible overlap and maximising for one's primary needs. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem that any of the other expansions have enough percussion coverage to make the dedicated Percussion expansion at all redundant or unnecessary. I also could not find package deals last night, but thought there were discounts for buying multiple BFD products at once.
I use Ethno mostly for its broad coverage of melodic instruments, which I feel it does a very good job of. I am less happy with the non-melodic percussion, for reasons stated in a previous posting. But not just because it's not really set up to create easy-to-use drum kits (which is OK, as that's not why I bought it, and it can't be everything to all people); I also feel it doesn't provide as much nuance as I would like for detailed percussion tracking (particularly latin percussion). Though I am fairly happy with it overall.
So I ask about BFD's Percussion expansion, because it is a bit pricey, but might be deeper in its coverage of more nuanced styles and its ease of setting up ready-to-use kits for live tracking, vs. more time-consuming MIDI note and drum kit re-mapping to render already-recorded material. Yes, I know anything is possible with Ethno, but I prefer to use the most efficient tool at hand for each task.
It would be an added bonus if the sample quality for BFD Percussion is (subjectively, of course) superior to those in Ethno. After all, Ethno must devote a big chunk of its library to the melodic stuff. And I presume the BFD stuff will have more realistic and detailed tails for stuff like congas that have complex decays once you start dealing with nuanced playing styles.
I am going to buy the main BFD program regardless, but looking at their expansions gets a bit confusing in terms of possible overlap and maximising for one's primary needs. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem that any of the other expansions have enough percussion coverage to make the dedicated Percussion expansion at all redundant or unnecessary. I also could not find package deals last night, but thought there were discounts for buying multiple BFD products at once.