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A redesigned interface is just one of the new features in BFD2.

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Groove Engine and FX

If you’re not a drummer and don’t fancy bluffing your way through, BFD2’s new Groove Engine should be of major interest. Now sporting a drum grid editor with features including velocity, quantise, snap, swing and audition, operation will be instantly familiar to many users.

You can load multiple key-mapped grooves in the form of ‘Palettes’, or load individual grooves direct from the library of over 5000. These can be edited, mixed and matched to the point where you can even build new patterns by cherry-picking elements such as kick and snare parts from different grooves (full auditioning within the browser really helps with this).

Full drum tracks can be built from grooves either using BFD2’s dedicated drum track or by dragging parts into your host arrangement. You can also import and export as MIDI.

If you’re after realism, BFD2’s Groove FX feature can help. This includes a non-destructive set of tools, including Quantise, Q swing, Simplify, Compress, Weight, Humanise velocity and Humanise timing. Each lets you apply a percentage value to the existing groove parameters, affecting the tightness, complexity, variation and delivery of rhythms.

Still on a realism tip, there’s also a similar set of features for kit sounds. These range from simple ‘detail’ preferences that affect how many sample velocity layers get loaded, to variation preferences, such as the anti-‘machine gun effect’ mode. Plus, on the main kit page are Master Dynamics and Humanise parameters.

Summary

BFD2 is bigger, better and more professional than v1.5. But even so, there are a few things to consider.

If you opt for the full 55GB install (you’re given three size options), the number of available velocity layers means that kit patches can be very large, which means you need lots of RAM and a bit of patience when loading. If you don’t like this, consider curtailing the velocity layers in the preferences.

Furthermore, although FXpansion has done some good work with the mixer and effects, we found the interface to be a little fiddly

At well over £200, BFD2 certainly isn’t cheap, but if you’re upgrading from v1.5, just over £100 effectively gets you a completely new library as well as the updated plug-in, which is a very good deal indeed.