FREE - BFD Player Drums! Best FREE Drums of 2023?

[@ryujinayato1623]

you actually forgot to mention the best part: the "Original Mix" preset, which gives you access to *ALL OF THE MICs* in the kit, I'm talking Kick In/Out, Snare In/Out, OHs, Room, Ambi, everything this gives you lots of flexibility when it comes to mixing down your mix, since you use one of the in/out mics for, say a trigger; possibility are fkin' endless

[@JoeOlle1952]

Hey Mike, Greetings from South America. Many thanks for your continued support.

[@eshortsax]

Just heard about this…definitely going to check it out!

[@pierrecarter3090]

Hi Mike. I loved this video, showing you outside of the studio. It's very pleasant to see you in your kitchen, in the day-to-day life. Thank you very much for this kind video.

[@mlwsf]

Were we supposed to hear the grooves?

[@davidhiggen3029]

I think Mike somehow forgot to route that audio into the video? Oops, done that sort of thing myself... I was sure I'd pressed that button.... ;-)

[@crazyade9556]

Nice to see you again Mike

[@CreativeSauce]

Thank you :)

[@ediazfiallos]

Hi, Mike, the groves sound very soft in the video min 5:36

[@InMyPurview]

Just downloaded the plugin. Will give it a go. Thanks Mike for the demo.

[@CreativeSauce]

Have fun!

[@danepaulstewart8464]

Soo-Hoo! BFD was always my favorite drum VST. I think they are making a big play to come back and hit the virtual drums world HARD! 😎👍👍

[@PAL-MUSIC-1]

Picked this up a few day’s ago great to see this video 🙏🏻 thanks Mike

[@mikescofield]

Yes, Mike, this is the best free drum plugin I've come across. Thanks for the review.

[@1loveMusic2003]

Your Gretch sounds amazing! I recently bought the made in Japan White Falcon second hand and it is like yours sound wise.

[@ediazfiallos]

thanks for the video it's amazing

[@joegrint6280]

Nice review Mike - great to see BFD back in the free options.

[@davidhiggen3029]

Thanks for the pointer Mike. Wow, there sure is a lot of stuff here... almost to the point where one hardly knows where to start. With the grooves, anyway: but probably a bit of study of the filtering will clarify things. The grooves play fine for me, to address a few of the comments below. As far as the sounds go, I'm planning to do an A/B comparison with MTPower drum kit and SSD; but that's for another day. (Anyone tried this so far, I wonder)? I'm mostly back on Reaper these days by the way. Wonder what your thoughts are about the discontinuation of free Cakewalk? I'm glad it was available for a while; enabled me to recover some old projects that I only had as bundles. Guess it was too much to expect that it would stay free for ever..... :-(

[@bassiclogic]

I have been using Fxpansion BFD since 1.5 version. Currently using BFD 3. Best drum plugin available.

[@nickbag88]

Its a pretty decent kit for a free one. Heads up though for anyone wanting to use it. This vst is VERY cpu demanding

[@roqueavellaneda]

Nice one Mike! I'll give it a try... But the SSD5 free version will be hard to beat 😅 cheers!

[@andrewhurst3053]

Won't unzip for me, says its corrupt!

[@trontastic]

Got it to work, but i cant get it to record in Bandlab. Any links on how to set the outputs. Cheers.

[@ericbreen4495]

Hi Mike. I've greatly enjoyed loads of your videos, mostly about Cakewalk. Always clear and informative. My query here is about the BFD Player. I've watched a few demo/review videos and decided to try downloading it. However, it seems one must have previously bought an Alesis Nitro Max (or maybe some other InMusic gear?) in order to get the BFD Player. None of the KZbin videos mentioned this and I struggled finding comments about it online. Can you advise if BFD Player CAN be downloaded without buying other InMusic gear first? (I've downloaded, installed and tested a few other drum plugins on my DAW. Like this one, some required an account to first be created, but none required I buy other tech/software first.) Cheers

[@StevenCorr]

I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I'm a beta tester. I've certainly not heard anyone mention the need to have previously owned any of their products. The whole point is to bring in new customers, so that would be pretty stupid.

[@StevenCorr]

I've just had this confirmed by Drew, and he is a company owner. 👌

[@ericbreen4495]

Thanks@@StevenCorr . I contacted BFD directly and they sent me a link that enabled me to download directly and install. Cheers

[@anhellehna6858]

Love your vids. Your way of demonstrating new plugins and virtual instruments is amazing. One thing I've seen on all free drum VSTs is the snares that sound like as you would hit a piece of paper. Do you know any drum VST (free or paid) that have deep and fat snare sound?

[@Eric-dd8bk]

SSD5, Modo Drums. That's pretty much it.

[@TheBinaryWolf]

What is the trick in downloading BFD Drum player? My download of the zip file stops at 5,232,636 KB.

[@music_creator_capable]

Nice !

[@ayeapprove]

I like free plugins like this because I can use it to blend it with other free VSTi and then it really sounds much better

[@im2cxe4u]

More features coming as they finish BFD 4 and they update the compatibility between it and older expansions.

[@MrProfGary]

Hi, Mike. Love your videos, but I have an issue with your sponsor. A few years ago, I took a full year to arrange, perform and record a 33-song dual CD of instrumental Christmas music. Everyone who has heard it, has immediately purchased the album. Since some of the songs are not in the public domain yet, DistroKid is demanding that I pay $288 PER YEAR, every year for the rest of my life just to have the privilege of making the music available to anyone who wishes to hear classic Holiday music from their childhood. Even though I own mechanical licenses for the songs that aren't in the public domain, and were purchased from another source, DistroKid says I HAVE TO purchase new ones from them at $12 each! I don't expect to make a penny from the albums, but as a working musician, I cannot afford to shell out that kind of money just to post my music online. I WILL NOT RECOMMEND DISTROKID TO ANYONE, and I will make sure that everyone I know understands just how DistroKid works.

[@Cronosounds]

That's scary. I make music for fun with friends and never plan to make money off it. What should I use to have my music on platforms like spotify ? I can never find a good solution, I hear horror stories like this all the time about distrokid and similar distributors.

[@koustavmukherjee8699]

is remapping possible in this ? ? actually i learnt the keyboard drumming reversing the mapping as i am lefty.. so..

[@cassgascoigne]

I downloaded it, & spent the next two days trying to register it. No matter what passwords I used, they were rejected. I finally got it after using a computer generated password. So, I bought up a track I was working on & thought I'd try the Snare sound. all good there, so I went to a track I had with midi Toms, loaded in the BFD on that track, wouldn't you know it, had to sign in again. Then it wouldn't accept the PC generated password I'd used to get it in the first place. I gave up in frustration & uninstalled the whole thing. I don't need that sort of time consumption in my life.

[@trontastic]

I had the same. Got it to work, but i cant get it to record in Bandlab !! Hour wasted. !!!

[@scarey2me]

I tried for 4 hours to install and register this thing. Finally got it installed and then it kept asking for my details I just put in 5 mins ago AND then it said username and password invalid. I gave up. Not worth the angst. I'll continue to use modo.

[@cassgascoigne]

@@scarey2me I don't feel so bad now that someone feels the way I do.

[@Darro2017]

Hi Mike. Are you still using Cakewalk ? :)

[@abc456f]

Can anyone point me to a video or site where it goes into detail on how to use an e drum kit to trigger a drum vst in cakewalk where each drum part, bass, snare, tom, etc., are assigned their own channel? Right now i only have si drums. Many thanks.

[@Capgpro1]

Nice song.

[@August_Hall]

Thanks for the video. I like it but ill stick to M2 Drums because interface is great and so is the sound. Although, I like the catalogue of grooves in this one

[@cassgascoigne]

Mike, did you send me a message? I have no idea on how to do what you asked if you did. Cheers.

[@CreativeSauce]

I didn't Cass. Please beware of scammers possible posing as me!

[@cassgascoigne]

Cheers mate@@CreativeSauce

[@artnoiseproductions3240]

Hi Mike: Something that am willing to know is: Can we import our own grooves on that ? Thank you in advance.

[@christianpweller]

Following... still didn't figured out this...

[@charleshuguley9323]

I wonder what fXpansion is hoping to achieve with this release. My impression is that their flagship product BFD3 is practically moribund. Is there an upgrade path?

[@StevenCorr]

Moribund? I know it's been out for a long time but in my opinion, it still sounds better then SD3 which is it's nearest equivalent. BFD4 is in development but hasn't gone into beta testing yet. It's going to be late 2024 or early 2025 before we see it.

[@joelpoitras6226]

Can it work as a standalone without a DAW? I record with a Tascam Model 12 sd recorder and i got nice piano stand alone VSTs. But i'm still looking for free standalone drum VST. I like to have VST shortcuts on my desktop. i click on it, press record on my tascam and the VST with a midi controler. Any suggestions on free drum VST that runs like this on Window without a DAW?

[@StevenCorr]

Yes, it runs in standalone. I'm not sure how you've set up to record in your tescam, but if you're just taking the audio output from your computer, then you can record anything your computer can play.

[@RPSchonherr]

Doesn't this one require you to create an account to use it? And then it's only good for 60 days or something?

[@RPSchonherr]

Yeah, This one takes over an hour to unzip, you have to create an account to use it thus getting spam. It's also a memory HOG if you don't have a dedicated computer in a professional music studio this plug-in is not for you. Skip it.

[@johnsamborsky989]

I don't get how the drum mapper works ... if I select Steven Slate drum map in Cakewalk..I get a horrible noise. Is there a BFD drums map available? I'm doing something wrong, right??

[@mrsnowman9227]

Yep - I get the same. I've even manually created my own map using the mapping details per the Appendix in the user manual, and named it 'BFD Player' ... all in the hope that I could then route the drum vst to this new map. But alas, still the same buzzing. It seems as though the 'note off' function is working (?!) but a newbie to this mapping malarkey I can only assume I'm going wrong somewhere 🙂

[@johnsamborsky989]

@@mrsnowman9227 kinda hard to use without the map... but yet another free (bloated?) Drum

[@StevenCorr]

There is a huge list of drum maps available all within BFD Player. Load that first and then if you want to see the note names in the piano roll (who doesn't?) load the cakewalk drum map.

[@Preordained]

You have to be online to use it! That sucks!!

[@braunhausmedia]

BFD is very nice, but I'd give the award to Modo Drum from IK Multimedia. Only one drum kit in the free version, but a lot more control.

[@GeorgeFalconer]

OUch. I've downloaded a few free kits, and found MODO to be really lame. Very tweakable, but the basic sounds really didn't work for me, no matter how I tweaked.

[@greccoox]

something is wrong with the groove/presets no?

[@jeremiahlyleseditor437]

Sounds great but its too large.

[@tortillaman2491]

49ers

[@StevenClements]

wannabe toontracks? BUT free