Sound Quality Comparison – Superior Drummer 3 & BFD 3

[pacificm]

I use Superior Drummer 3 and BFD 3 drum modules in my DAW.  I like them both.  I’ve found SD3 to be more user friendly with its interface.  I have read in some forums people think SD3 has higher quality sampled sounds than BFD3.

If I do sound comparisons with each on the same system without doing any EQ or mixing on either I am hearing a distinctive sound quality difference in samples.  To me, the BFD3 samples sound richer and higher quality.

I’m wondering if this is because BFD3 tweaks their default sounds more than SD3.  Or not.

I’m curious what others are finding with comparing the sounds of SD3 and BFD3 samples.

Please let me know what you think.  Thanks!

Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

• This post was modified 1 week, 2 days ago by pacificm.

Topic

[Mark King]

From a drummers perspective I tried bfd and the sounds are just nowhere near as realistic as sd3. Years ago before sd2 I tried bfd and a few others before I went with toontrack superior drummer. The sounds was just more realistic. These days I find bfd a bit like Steven slate. The sounds are big and bold but definitely not true to the real drum sound.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

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Thanked by: drumjack52

[Fred]

I like both BFD3 and SD3 alot. There is a ‘boldness’ BFD3 has that sounds  very natural. SD3 to me sounds  more produced with a better interface. BFD3 sounds raw,  louder out of the box but SD3 is mixed and more produced already. I’m using them both stand alone and inside Logic 11, Cubase 14 Pro, on Mac Sonoma M1 Mac Mini.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.1
Operating system: macOS Sonoma (14)

[drumjack52]

I go as far back as BFD2 and thence on to BFD3. I’d heard (sorry about that) good things about Superior Drummer and started giving it a serious look when fxpansion was mucking about with the copy protection scheme of BFD3. Rather than going with the ‘lite’ route and starting with EZ Drummer I went whole hog with SD3. I am thankful I did. Once I found my way around SD3 I became aware of how more realistic it sounds over anything else on the s/w market. Near as I know no other drum program has adjustable bleed (if it has bleed at all) between kit pieces.

Be aware that I don’t use presets or effects in either BFD3 or SD3 but roll my own using routing to individual tracks in my daw (PT). So it’s the ‘raw’ capture that I work with and SD3 has it all over BFD3. Especially the capture of the different rooms each SDX is recorded in. I find that there’s a dimension to certain SD3 SDX’s that I’m right there with the kit instead of listening to a recording that just isn’t there in BFD3.

Do still have BFD3 on my system? Yes because I never know if I would ever have to go back to old sessions. Would I use it again? Not if I could help it although I do miss the variety of Zildjian cymbals that are in the Zildjian add-on pack for BFD3.

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.1
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

[Bear-Faced Cow]

Like Jack, I was a BFD user for 12 years until Superior Drummer 3 came out. A lot of my disappointment with BFD stemmed from not only their drum capturing, but their business model involving expansions.

The “richness” you’re describing are frequencies not conducive to a drum mix. You could say that the concept of well recorded drums awakened something inside when I was using the expansions from Platinum Samples, notably the one from the late great Andy Johns. The BFD packs didn’t give the same kind of life. Those extra frequencies are nothing more than mud.

Enter Superior Drummer 3. Drums recorded by world class producers that I can simply drop into a mix. Much of the mud is taken care of.  Most of the work is done. That to me is a more quality recording. These among other points, are things BFD can’t touch.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

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Thanked by: drumjack52

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