I am now torn between BFD and
Toontrack EZdrummer dfh.
I've tried them all now.
Here is my opinion, please tell me if I'm off the mark on any of this.
BFD -->
Sounds great, but very resources intensive. Not instantly friendly with my Roland TD-6 V-Drums. Luckily, it has Midi learn, so I can re-tweak the midi triggers quickly as needed. With some tweaking, I might be able to get this to work for me. There is a rumor floating around that BFD 2.0 will be fully compatible with Roland V-drums. Which means I could use my double triggering, triggers. If that is true, I will buy BFD 2 instantly.
Toontrack / dfh Ezdrummer / DFH -->
This thing works as soon as I turn it on. It instantly sync's up with
my Roland TD-6 V-Drums. Also - it sounds incredible. However - if I want to get advanced with it, like use one of the Chinese cymbals or splash's instead of my crash, I cannot find away to re-map the midi triggers. Oh well, I can still play the Chinese cymbals or splash's with the mouse, or with my midi keyboard. Unless
BFD 2 is released right away, the this will be what I buy.
East West Drumkit from Hell 2 -->
Okay, this package really confused me. Toontrack's web site makes NO MENTION of
a Drumkit from Hell 2, but there is a package out there called East West Drumkit from Hell 2 that seems to be toontrack affliated. Anyhow, for what I am doing, this thing SUCKED. It looks nothing like "Toontrack / dfh Ezdrummer / DFH ". Does anybody know the story on this piece of garbage? It seems to be little more than a hacked up Native Instruments Midi sampler, with some drum sounds behind it. Anyhow, it worked horribly with my V-Drums, and I uninstalled this thing, and deleted all files associated - as I never want to see this crap again.
Seriously though - does anybody know why this thing is called Drumkit from Hell 2 ? Can it really be the sequel to "Toontrack / dfh Ezdrummer" ??
M-Audio: Strike -->
I was not able to get a demo or a Try-before-buy on this. Too bad, as it sounds great from the sample on the web site, and I think the interface looks really easy to use. Sorry M-Audio, but I am not going to risk $300+ US Dollars to take a gamble on your software. M-Audio should post a demo, or someone should leak a Try-before-buy, or else, why would anyone buy this over Toontrack / Ezdrummer. If I can't try it first, I'm not shelling out the bucks. This software does look promisng though.... has anyone here used it?
Reason with Reason Drumkits 2 refill -->
I know reason is great for 1 million things, but for what I am doing, it's too clunky and cumbersome. The kits sound okay, but not as good as Toontrack or BFD. (To my ears). Reason just doesn't seem drummer-oriented, and kind of sort of work instantly with V-Drums, but looks like it would require much tweaking. There is also the learning curve - I am not very good with reason, and after 1/2 hour of messing around, was not able to find a way to re-map triggers. Could just be my lack of knowledge, but this one ain't going to work for what I am doing.
and the last Drum / Midi software I installed was.......
Native Instruments Battery 3 -->
After installing 12GB+ of library files, I was excited that this was going to be the one. But, it did not sync up with the V-drums at all. I think maybe the Kick and Snare worked, but nothing else, and the latency was so bad, it was unusable. The control surface on this was far too complicated - I'm trying record midi drums, not pilot a jet-aircraft. I can't remeber what else bothered me about this one, but It must have been fairly severe, as I instantly deleted it, and the many many gigabytes of installation files.
So...... now only 2 are left standing.........
BFD or Toontrack dfh ezDrummer
Any thoughts ?