8 Bit Drum Kit BFD Software Expansion

The 8 Bit Kit is an add-on pack for FXpansion's BFD software drum module system, offering exciting new flavors for your drum productions. The first BFD recording made at The Sound Factory in Los Angeles, 8 Bit Kit is the brainchild of S. Husky Hoskulds, recording engineer for such diverse artists as Tom Waits, Fantomas, Solomon Burke, Joe Henry, Sheryl Crow, The Wallflowers, and many more.

This new collection of drums, cymbals, hi-hats, percussion, and electronics features dozens of unique, vintage, handmade and exotic kit pieces, all captured by a strange and wonderful array of microphones in the Sound Factory acoustic space. What makes 8 Bit Kit sonically unique is the way the drums were prepared, tuned and hit. The kicks are recorded using various unorthodox techniques including chains attached to the front head, detuned, or even hit with a paint roller. Some of the snares have been modified by Husky himself, fitted with calfskin and Kevlar heads; hi-hats may be aged, cracked, mismatched, or warped. An esoteric percussion palette includes African hand drums and Moroccan tambourines miked from both above and below, as well as a range of claps, stomps, junk percussion and even a Fight Bell.

Vintage Analog Drum Machines

The 8 Bit Kit expansion also includes original recordings made directly from selected vintage analog drum machines of the '70s and '80s. 8 Bit Kit captures the original hardware both dry, and played out over a custom PA rig in the same acoustic space used for the rest of the recording session. To further extend BFD's versatility, these can be layered with acoustic sounds from the original BFD or XFL pack to create rich, hybrid kicks and snares”a popular production trick of today.

'Supersized' Sounds

Certain 8 Bit Kit sounds are also provided in processed, boosted versions; a few select pieces have been treated further to add grit and punch”more distortion, more compression, more texture, more 8 Bit! The microphones used are as unique as the drums themselves, including parabolic "Spy Mics", Calrec Soundfield stereo mics, and mics with gramophone horns attached. The Sound Factory studio space is smaller (but fatter) than the original Eldorado room used in BFD and BFD XFL, and integrates perfectly with the BFD system, at the same time adding its own unique character to the mix.