FXpansion BFD Supplemental - Manual (Page 19)


Method 2
1. If the hihat note(s) which are sent out by your drum brain are already mapped to any
Kit-Piece Hit type, move these assignments to other, unused notes.
2. Map the drum brain’s transmitted hihat note(s) to the variable hihat notes. If you
have a 2-zone hihat, you will be able to specify a tip and shank variable note. If your
hihat only features 1 zone, you will have to specify either a tip or shank variable note.
With a brain such as the Roland TD20, which sends out different notes for open and
closed tip and shank, you will need to set up multiple variable notes. On the TD20,
the open tip and closed tip notes should be mapped to variable tip notes, while the
open shank and closed shank should be mapped to variable shank notes.
3. Set the correct MIDI CC for the hihat pedal position. On the vast majority of drum
brains, this MIDI CC is #4.
4. If your drum brain sends out a note for the pedal (as the Roland TD20 does), make If your drum brain sends out a note for the pedal (as the Roland TD20 does), make
sure the note is correctly routed to the pedal Hit type and disable the Auto pedal
event option.
5. Adjust the Hihat pedal position define slider to taste.
6. Enable the ‘Auto pedal splash’ option if you would like BFD to simulate the foot-open
splash sound when the hihat is depressed and released quickly.
• This method can take a bit more effort to set up, but it means that you can trigger each
‘normal’ hihat position Hit type with a dedicated note, as well as using the variable note/
pedal MIDI CC technique.
Specific information for e-drum systems
D-Drums
Before using your D-Drums with BFD, you will need to make some adjustments to the
drum brain. By default, the D-Drum brain sends out multiple notes for each pad, for the
positional information. You need to reduce this number using the NoteP parameter.
Kick, snare, rim, toms: set to 1 note position.
Hihats, cymbals: set to 2 note positions, unless you specifically want to use only 1 zone.
The D-Drums cymbals send out choke information as aftertouch signals.
V-Drums
When using certain V-Drums brains, you should be aware that the hihat pedal position
MIDI CC is not sent until the hihat surface is triggered. This seems to be in order to
reduce the amount of data transmitted over MIDI.
When testing a TD20 setup with VH-12 hihat, it came to our attention that the nature of
the VH-12 can lead to problems. This hihat trigger consists of 2 surfaces that move in a
similar way to a real hihat. However, with positions other than closed, there can be extra
notes sent out if the two surfaces hit each other at any time after the hihat is struck. This
is on top of cross-talk issues between bow (tip) and edge (shank) zones. Unfortunately
this is a result of the nature of the VH-12’s physical design. You may be able to minimise
these symptoms with careful setup of the Offset setting for the hihat in the TD20.
BFD supplemental manual Chapter 4: Using BFD with electronic drums