11
11:3 Using articulations effectively
The various articulations are a very important aspect of BFD2, and making intelligent use of them can contribute to the realism of
your drum tracks. Articulations such as snare drags offer quick access to elements of a drum performance which are not always
straightforward to program or play. Other articulations represent different ways of playing a Kit-Piece.
Kicks
Kicks are typically recorded with a snare present, meaning that it also contains the sound of the snare wire resonating when the
kick is hit. However, some kicks also offer a ‘no snare’ hit, which does not contain the snare rattle, due to the snare drum being
removed.
Snares
BFD2’s snares generally contain a hit at the centre of the drum head, another hit halfway towards the edge, a rim and a sidestick
as well as drag rolls. Some expansion packs contain different other articulations such as flams.
When using the drags, remember that BFD2’s choking mechanism lets you cut the sound of a Kit-Piece with another hit. A choke
event is ideal for cutting short a drag if it’s too long and you don’t want to choke it with another snare hit.
Hihats
Hihats have the most possible articulations of any Kit-Piece type in the BFD2 library. Tip and shank sounds are provided at a va-
riety of degrees between open and closed, as well as pedal (foot-chick) sounds. ‘Tip’ is used to describe the tip of the stick hitting
the top of the hihat, while ‘shank’ refers to the body of the stick hitting the edge of the hat.
For most applications where you need a classic ‘open’ hat sound, you should aim to use the 1/2-open articulations. The open tip
sound is more like a ‘hihat bell’ - the top cymbal in a hihat actually sounds more like a ride than a hihat when it is not vibrating
against the bottom cymbal.
It’s also good to remember that a drummer generally chokes an open hihat by moving the pedal down, which results in a foot-
chick while stopping the two hihat surfaces from vibrating against each other by bringing them to a closed position. Therefore, you
should use low velocity pedal hits in the appropriate place after an open position for choking.
11:3 Damping, tuning and tightening
Damping kicks, snares and toms
The damping controls in the Kit-Piece Inspector act as an envelope to control the length of a sound’s decay. Increasing the damp-
ing amount shortens the decay time. Snares and kicks can become more powerful and cutting, while you can dramatically reduce
the duration of toms to stop them dominating the mix.
The damping function in BFD emulates real-world damping methods, such as using a damping ring on snares and toms, or filling
kick drums with duvets, blankets or pillows.
Damping is especially useful in groove-oriented music or when using fast tempos: shortening the decay of the drums can make
them punchier and creates more space in the mix for other elements.
Using the damping controls to a large degree (over 50%) is a much easier alternative to using gates to achieve similar effects.
Tightening closed hihats
Damping on hihats is not usually appropriate, although the facility is provided if you would like to experiment.
A more useful tool for hihats is the ‘tighten’ feature. This allows you to shorten closed hihats without affecting open hat positions.
Even if you don’t use a hihat pedal controller, set the tighten amount for the closed tip and closed shank articulations using the
‘default hihat tighten’ parameter in the BFD2 Session preferences.
When using a hihat pedal controller, the amount of tightening is variable within the closed position range of MIDI CC values.
Tuning the kit
It can be a good idea to adjust the tuning of the various parts of the kit slightly to match the key of the rest of your project. This
can be a very quick way of getting the drums to sit better in the context of a song.
As well as the individual tuning controls for each kit-piece slot, BFD2 provides a Master tune control, which adjusts the tuning of
the whole kit. It is possible to quickly achieve wild variations of drum sounds in this way.
Please note that excessive use of the tuning controls can degrade the quality of the sounds – even though a high quality resam-
pling algorithm is used in BFD2, it is advisable to use as little tuning as possible to optimally preserve the fidelity of the record-
ings.
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