Removing BFD3 always crashes.

[JimmyTheSaint]

On one of my MacBook Pro 16 Catalina laptops, once I add FXpansion's BFD3 AU to an FX chain on a track, removing it or deleting the track always crashes REAPER. This has been going on for some time, and I've just worked around it until now by creating and configuring new projects, which is easy enough given the basic ways I use the DAW. I've tried removing everything else in the FX chain first, and when BFD3 is last, removing it crashes REAPER, as does deleting the track. I get the same behavior after a reboot and with REAPER as the only app running. I'm not really sure what else to try, so maybe this question belonged in newbieland. Meanwhile, I have another identical laptop that has all the same software installed as the first one, and it does *not* crash when removing BFD3 from the same projects. At this point, it's weird enough that it would be worth trying to get to the bottom of it before worse things happen.

The crash report includes:

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000060
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process: exc handler [3043]

VM Regions Near 0x60:
-->
__TEXT 0000000102e6b000-00000001039e7000 [ 11.5M] r-x/rwx SM=COW /Applications/REAPER64.app/Contents/MacOS/REAPER

Thread 0 Crashed:: reaper Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 com.FXpansion.BFD3 0x000000010f4b94a6 0x10c955000 + 45499558
1 com.FXpansion.BFD3 0x000000010cc11a05 0x10c955000 + 2869765

which, as far as I can tell, means BFD3 crashed, without any further troubleshooting info. I've attached the full crash report to this post. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Using the "in dedicated process per-plugin" setting eliminated the crashing when removing BFD and also spontaneous crashing, which was always due to BFD. Now, though, REAPER always crashes when I quit the app. This seems to have no side effects, but how can BFD cause REAPER to crash on quit when its firewalled? I've attached the crash report, and here is the beginning, which shows thread 0 crashing due to BFD:

Thread 0 Crashed:: reaper/br_s Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 com.FXpansion.BFD3 0x000000010b9c04a6 0x108e5c000 + 45499558
1 com.FXpansion.BFD3 0x0000000109118a05 0x108e5c000 + 2869765
2 com.FXpansion.BFD3 0x0000000108fb5375 0x108e5c000 + 1414005
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3115b7f9 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_TIMER_CALLBACK_FUN CTION__ + 20
4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3115b35f __CFRunLoopDoTimer + 859
5 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3115ae47 __CFRunLoopDoTimers + 322
6 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3113fbea __CFRunLoopRun + 1871
7 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3113ee3e CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 462
8 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff2fd6babd RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 292
9 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff2fd6b6f4 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 359
10 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff2fd6b579 _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 64
11 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff2e3b1039 _DPSNextEvent + 883
12 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff2e3af880 -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:deque ue:] + 1352
13 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff2e3a158e -[NSApplication run] + 658
14 com.cockos.reaperhostx8664 0x000000010508a797 runCocoaApp() + 136
15 com.cockos.reaperhostx8664 0x000000010508413b main + 568
16 com.cockos.reaperhostx8664 0x00000001050835a4 start + 52

[Steviebone]

This a BFD problem. You will have to contact them. I stopped using BFD a couple of years ago, it was just too buggy, always crashed... Reaper, Nuendo and others. They have a newer version since I bailed, can't speak to that. I moved to Addictive drums II. Been totally rock solid for me.

[toddbooster]

I was recently working on a project using the current version of BFD3 in 6.13. I added a second instance of BFD, and that cause a massive crash every time playback started, Reaper went "poof". Working with just one was fine though.


Not very helpful I know, but that's my story.

[JimmyTheSaint]

This was just a sanity check, so getting these reports of crashing from other people does help a lot, thanks. I've pretty much worked around the problem with REAPER's firewalling, but this crashing upon quit just seemed weird. Thanks for verifying that BFD can be relied on to cause weirdness.

It's just that BFD's 64 stereo velocity layers has always sounded so much better than everything else when using my percussion controllers. It's been a long time since I A/B'ed, but nothing released in the past few years even promises to come close when it comes to live drumming. Also, my smallest config requires two instances of BFD. Since I've gone to firewalling, the CPU usage has become, if not an issue for my computer, then annoying for the heat generation. I can live with it all, but crashing on quit, I mean, wtf

[endorka]

Just another confirmation for your sanity Jimmy. I've had very similar problems here with BFD3, all is well then "game over man" crashes. I freeze the BFD track to multichannel as soon as possible to avoid it. In future I'll do the "in dedicated process per-plugin" you mention as well, thanks!

Cheers,
Jennifer

[White Tie]

Ditto here. BFD3 sounds great but has always been a crashy temperamental irritant in Reaper in my experience. I live in hope that the makers of the plugin, whoever it is now, will reach out to cockos and get this resolved.

[Steviebone]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheSaint

This was just a sanity check, so getting these reports of crashing from other people does help a lot, thanks. I've pretty much worked around the problem with REAPER's firewalling, but this crashing upon quit just seemed weird. Thanks for verifying that BFD can be relied on to cause weirdness.

It's just that BFD's 64 stereo velocity layers has always sounded so much better than everything else when using my percussion controllers. It's been a long time since I A/B'ed, but nothing released in the past few years even promises to come close when it comes to live drumming. Also, my smallest config requires two instances of BFD. Since I've gone to firewalling, the CPU usage has become, if not an issue for my computer, then annoying for the heat generation. I can live with it all, but crashing on quit, I mean, wtf

Getting VST MIDI drums to work with a MIDI drum kit can be challenging. For one thing, latency is always an issue. For another, CPU resources can begin to accumulate especially if you have lots of triggers where more than one instance of a VST is required. Also, I was always irritated by not being able to route the entire drum set, especially cymbals, to individual tracks. Someone told me recently that BFD had solved some of those issues in recent releases.

After a couple of years working with my drummers I came to conclusion that the best set up was hybrid. I got multiple drum heads so that I could get all of my triggers plugged-in and monitored from the drum heads themselves during tracking while recording the MIDI output. This eliminates all of the latency issues that drummers complain about.

You can then run the MIDI out back to the heads if you like or direct them to your favorite VST drum program for mixing.

I actually went a step further, and got enough drum heads running in parallel so that when I want to, I can get an individual audio out for every trigger. This gives me the best of both worlds. And it solved all my issues with regards to CPU consumption and latency.

As a bonus, it makes for some very interesting stacking possibilities.

PS: I could never get two instances of BFD to work either. I had to use two different drum program VSTs to get enough inputs and outputs which caused other issues. Not an elegant solution, but worked better than trying to have two instances of the same drum program.

[JimmyTheSaint]

My setup on this laptop is dedicated to being a percussion module with BFD for live fingerdrumming. I use one instance of BFD with a Zendrum controller (30 triggers) and two instances with a split LinnStrument (using 76 out of 100 possible triggers per channel) with no detectable latency, which means under 12ms. I'm not concerned with CPU efficiency: as I only drum live with my own hands, CPU usage is always well under 10% on my late model MacBook Pro. My only requirement is that it not crash in the middle of a performance, and it's never done that. The rare spontaneous crash has only ever been when I was also using the computer to do other stuff.

At this point, my only remaining problem is when I quit REAPER, which is hardly a dealbreaker--however unsettling it may be--and then the occasional crash of the firewalled instances when the computer has also been bogged down with other processing. It's the best I can do, and is quite tolerable, though if I can improve it, I will. I'm going to A/B with NI's drums again, but I've done that before years ago, and BFD won.

[Steviebone]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheSaint

My setup on this laptop is dedicated to being a percussion module with BFD for live fingerdrumming. I use one instance of BFD with a Zendrum controller (30 triggers) and two instances with a split LinnStrument (using 76 out of 100 possible triggers per channel) with no detectable latency, which means under 12ms. I'm not concerned with CPU efficiency: as I only drum live with my own hands, CPU usage is always well under 10% on my late model MacBook Pro. My only requirement is that it not crash in the middle of a performance, and it's never done that. The rare spontaneous crash has only ever been when I was also using the computer to do other stuff.

At this point, my only remaining problem is when I quit REAPER, which is hardly a dealbreaker--however unsettling it may be--and then the occasional crash of the firewalled instances when the computer has also been bogged down with other processing. It's the best I can do, and is quite tolerable, though if I can improve it, I will. I'm going to A/B with NI's drums again, but I've done that before years ago, and BFD won.

Aha! live setup... totally different story. If you are getting latency under 10 thats probably as good as you are going to get in that scenario using a laptop/computer. The operating system will always have some inherently latency. A Thunderbolt interface might improve on that a little. My drummers balk at 10. Using hardware to monitor during tracking is 100x (literally) faster though. It's basically imperceptible.

In my opinion, (and this is just my opinion), the quality of drum sounds themselves has not changed much over the years. Anything that's 18 or 20 bit or better sounds fine. The difference in the newer drum sets has to do more with how well the triggers "play". Most of that doesn't transfer to VST's anyway.

You can pick up used drum brains dirt cheap all day long on eBay and reverb. Even 15 or 20-year-old heads have perfectly good samples. You might consider stacking a bunch of drum heads together, using all their individual outputs and routing them to an external mixer.

Are you using the laptop for anything besides sound generation?

For example, you can pick up Alesis DM pros that have more than 1000 sounds most of them very usable for around 200 bucks. You can pick up D4's and D5's for under 100. We ended up using a single roland brain, an older one, to get the playing features we wanted out of the snare and hihat. Between the combination of brains we can plug-in 40 triggers and route them to 30 individual outputs.

You can still use your laptop to automatically set up kits and provide additional processing (via midi) if you need to.

Whenever I record in the studio like this we monitor the actual drum head outputs for zero latency while recording the MIDI data. This MIDI data can be replayed back into the drum heads as well as sent to third-party VST drum programs for playback/mixing.

You probably can't use both at the same time live though because the additional latency of the VST will result in slap back. This is what will enlighten you to just how much latency 10 ms actually is. If you have a drum brain available to you, try it out. I even used a midi splitter to eliminate any latency from using the MIDI through on the brain. When you set this up and try this out you will see that all of your drum hits have an echo. This is the difference between true zero latency monitoring and going through an external computer-based sound generator.

If you never stacked drums before, (you probably have), you can get some pretty fat sounds that way.

But if that's too much of an expense for you buying a thunderbolt interface might be the way to go. However, I would think the laptop will never be as reliable in a live setting as actual hardware.

I think I spent around $500 on two D4's, a D5 and the DM Pro. A good thunderbolt interface might cost you almost that.

Perhaps the latency is not an issue for live play on stage. But in the studio, once you play with zero latency even 10 ms seems like an eternity. It's a difference you might likely not recognize until you A/B the two directly.

Out of curiosity, are you using triggers on a real drum set or are you using a large MIDI drum set? And what type of trigger are you using for the high hat? This is the trigger that always gave me the most trouble trying to use VST's. It can be difficult to get the mapping right. But even the DM Pro supports open, closed, both top and edge, as well as half open, down and splash.

Sorry for the long-winded response, I haven't run across too many people using MIDI kits on that kind of scale.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Originally Posted by Steviebone

the quality of drum sounds themselves has not changed much over the years.

Yup. I just finished A/B'ing BFD3 with NI's Studio Drummer, and BFD is just so much better. I don't own Addictive Drums, but years ago, when I got Komplete to compare with BFD, I recall that I had concluded that Addictive wasn't considered generally superior to NI. One new development since then is FXpansion's noir kit, which I find better than all their others (more detailed, more complex response, etc.) so that even going back to my trusty old FXpansion standbys doesn't seem good enough any more. I'd had a long layoff from BFD due to its longtime incompatibility with Catalina, and coming back to it with fresh ears (and the new noir kit), it still wins hands down for live jamming.

Originally Posted by Steviebone

You can pick up used drum brains dirt cheap all day long.

I have a Roland TD-50 right next to me as we speak. That had been tiding me over for quite a long time. When I got BFD back a few months ago, it blew the TD-50 out of the water. The TD-50 sounds so good, it just boils down to a matter of taste, but the vastly larger number of kit pieces and articulations available from a software sound module made it no contest now that I've gone to the LinnStrument--with its 200 keys--as my primary percussion controller. The TD-50 makes for a good backup, but that's a lot of money to have sunk in something I don't use.


Oh yeah, I have a boutique Zendrum accessory (zendrumstudio.com/stompblock/) whose 16 stereo velocity layers sounds significantly better than any NI kit. I don't know why exactly, because NI promises "up to 25 layers," but my ears don't lie. I guess because it's available sound sets have been so carefully curated by two Zendrum fanatics. Still, I've only ever been able to put together two desirable kits from its sounds, so it's lacking in flexibility, and is still definitely no BFD. Generally speaking, I can't say the TD-50 is better than the Stompblock.

And yeah, I've stacked of course, but I seem to always go back to single kits (that have a large number of added percussion pieces) for the way I play. It's a taste thing, really, though I always considered a good synthesized percussion module my holy grail, and I've tried them all. I mean truly responsive to full-range dynamics, not just a good set of 303 sounds. I finally hit the jackpot with a Soma Labs Pulsar-23. Its MIDI interfacing capabilities make it wonky with a LinnStrument, requiring extra configuration to compensate (don't ask), so it's a bit of a pain to keep it online in the spaces where I play. Sounds great stacked, though.

Originally Posted by Steviebone

Out of curiosity, are you using triggers on a real drum set or are you using a large MIDI drum set? And what type of trigger are you using for the high hat?

No real drum set, just my Zendrums and LinnStrument sending MIDI note and velocity. I do have to use JS plugins to get velocity maps that feel good, filter the LinnStruments barrage of data, etc., so I'm married to the laptop--even with the TD-50, though not the Stompblock--I forgot about that. The TD-50 is almost definitely getting liquidated.

Right: hats. I map 8 different hat articulations over my LinnStrument. Just 4 on my Zendrum (in my inefficient jam-mapping), so that sucks, but I have multiple Zendrums. Zendrum's are bulky and heavy though. The LinnStrument could replace them all, but it does require a different technique to play as a percussion controller that I still don't trust myself enough to play out. In either case, no foot controller. On my Zendrums--which I set up as hot as possible-- I have 16 "sticks"--5 fingers and 3 points on the palm per hand. On LinnStrument, four fingers per hand are useable (a bit of pinky), but it's still better because of the huge number of triggers that lie simultaneously under one hand positiion and its easier playability for multiple simultaneous strikes. It can't be set up as hot as a Zendrum, though--an issue for my technique requiring a lot of new practice routines. I've discussed the LinnStrument's playing response specs extensively with Roger Linn.

Originally Posted by Steviebone

I haven't run across too many people using MIDI kits on that kind of scale.

Roger told me the same thing just a few weeks ago! I'm a freakin pioneer...

[Steviebone]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheSaint

Oh yeah, I have a boutique Zendrum accessory (zendrumstudio.com/stompblock/) whose 16 stereo velocity layers sounds significantly better than any NI kit.

And yeah, I've stacked of course, but I seem to always go back to single kits (that have a large number of added percussion pieces) for the way I play. ... Sounds great stacked, though.

No real drum set, just my Zendrums and LinnStrument sending MIDI note and velocity. ...

Roger told me the same thing just a few weeks ago! I'm a freakin pioneer...

@JimmytheSaint: Shows you what I know. I wasn't familiar with either of those instruments at all. People look at my MIDI kit and think I'm crazy. I generally get comments about Carl Palmer and Neil Peart envy, lol. but for me it's not about that style of play it's about having all of the options available. And since I'm using mostly session drummers (I'm not really much of a drummer myself - more of a keyboard guitar guy) they all kind of expect a kit they can just sit down and play on. I've spent years tinkering with various drum triggers, heads and VST's trying to get the right combination where a decent drummer that is used to an acoustic set can come in and lay tracks for me where I can capture MIDI information.

The MIDI information is a must for me. Most of the time I'm using drummers during the creative phase where the song is not finished or even known. Capturing MIDI information initially rather than just audio allows me to edit and fly things around easily. I generally never print any drums until very late in the process.

None of this is being used in a live setting at this point.

I'm going to have to do some more learning about the Zendrums and LinnStrument. Looks interesting.

[JimmyTheSaint]

This guy sets the bar for Zendrum playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDUmSWx09AQ

[JimmyTheSaint]

To follow up, using BFD3 even with plugin firewalling just continues to suck because I still get occasional crashes even when the instance of BFD isn't record armed. That requires me to manually edit each track that has an instance (whether armed or not) just to get back to normal. Plus, REAPER always on quit--a small annoyance, but still. I'm getting forced to go back to my bulky, expensive Roland drum brain, which sounds great, but is less flexible. I can't even use BFD in standalone mode because I require JS plugins for a velocity map to fix playability issues.

[LugNut]

Hi,

That sounds like a killer rig TheSaint!

Just was curious about two things:

1) have you tried superior drummer?

I use v 2, aint gonna shell out $ 400 for v3. It works real good with an ekit..using a td20 ATM. 2 is rock solid w win7/64.

2) You mentioned possibly liquidating the td50. What you be considering as to price? Is it just module or kit?

2 zendrums huh? And I though programming my drumkat,TD,Superior, and my iPad rig was a big job:-) Wooten look out!

Edit..in rereading your post...
There is a way to run bfd standalone and have jsfx by using virtual midi cables. Just a thought.

[JimmyTheSaint]

I have four Zendrums! One cool setup is putting one Zendrum ZAP2 (the 5x5, compact square array of triggers) under each hand. After years, I have configurations down to a science, but the Zendrum's ancient firmware is too inflexible to adapt its velocity response to what I need with BFD and then a different velocity response with the TD-50, so I've become dependent on JSFX.

I can't remember if I've tried Superior Drummer or not. About 5 years ago, I stopped trying out new drum software because BFD was always just so much better. I mean sonically, in its level of detail and dynamic response. I compared endlessly, and it's just plain better. This year, I tried out a bunch of iOS drum software, and it also doesn't compare.

Yes, I've thought of going to BFD's standalone and suffering with the non-optimized dynamic response. I guess I'll have to do searches on "virtual MIDI cables," because that's new to me. But I'm also concerned that I need at least two instances of BFD on different channels to handle my LinnStrument config. And without that JSFX MIDI filter, the LinnStrument is going to constantly bombard BFD with tons of MIDI information, and I don't know how that will turn out.

I only have the TD-50 drum brain--no room for a kit, and the acoustic noise (consider the cymbals and floor vibration from the kick pedal) would cause the standard problems with neighbors. Right now, though, I don't see how I can sell it. And it's always worked well, so it looks like I'll always need to keep it around as a backup, which is aggravating considering how much I spent and could get for it second hand before Roland comes out with a new flagship.

I do have a Sensel Morph on the way, and its hard surface more flexible programming options might work better than the LinnStrument for percussion--and at a much lower price.

[LugNut]

Hi,
Thx for the info.
Look for midi yoke...its like midi cables in the computer so you can route ins/outs between multiple applications. It still should be free.

And, if I may, suggest looking for a used copy of superior 2 with some expansions. Its at the same level of expressivness as bfd. I used to use bfd 2 with a bunch of exp packs but it was too flakey for live. But I loved the overheads! The hats play a little better in superior also.

Man your rig sounds like a whole new deal. Would love to see you play it sometime!

Guido

[JimmyTheSaint]

I think, at least for my setup, that possibly BFD always comes out on top for me only because it has more velocity layers than the others. It's 64 stereo velocity layers, right? I've never seen anything else that claims to be more than 25. What about superior drummer?

Yeah, I've got tons of BFD expansions. Jazz Noir alone was worth the price of upgrading to BFD3:

https://www.fxpansion.com/products/b...bfd-jazz-noir/

[daverich]

it happens with sampletank3 too - just run it as dedicated process and forget about it.

'tis annoying but there's a workaround.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Originally Posted by daverich

it happens with sampletank3 too - just run it as dedicated process and forget about it.

'tis annoying but there's a workaround.

Eh? That's exactly what I've been saying crashes frequently and can only be recovered by reloading every running instance of BFD. As the best possible workaround, it's basically also a dealbreaker.

[daverich]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheSaint

Eh? That's exactly what I've been saying crashes frequently and can only be recovered by reloading every running instance of BFD. As the best possible workaround, it's basically also a dealbreaker.

ah sorry,- sounds like you have a different issue - with sampletank it's all good if they're all running in dedicated processes.

I 'think' this is usually caused by older plugins freaking out at all the multithreading reaper is doing.

[LugNut]

Hi The Saint,

Well, as to how many layers, it depends on the library. For ex. Evil Drums expansion(which has been available for years for both bfd and superior) has more than 200 on certain instruments. They're not just for "loudness" but also to eliminate machine gunning. That would be for both bfd and superior.
I'm not trying to sell ya on it, just putting the info out for ya.
I love the sound of bfd and the sounds of superior. As as far as playback engines go, I prefer superior when playing from an ekit and for reliability.

Good luck the saint!

[JimmyTheSaint]

That sounds like a great lead, LugNut, thanks. Of course I'll try Superior with Evil and post how it goes. As I understand it, BFD also has the anti-machine gunning so that 64 stereo layers just means the MIDI velocity response, but I think somewhere in their documentation they talk about 4 round robin samples per sample. Or whatever--I just know I like the sound better than everything else I'd tried up till a few years ago when I stopped trying new things. Anything that sounds good, though, I expect I can adapt to a user interface that offers the basic functionality; I just need the UI to not crash is all.

[Steviebone]

Originally Posted by JimmyTheSaint

That sounds like a great lead, LugNut, thanks. Of course I'll try Superior with Evil and post how it goes. As I understand it, BFD also has the anti-machine gunning so that 64 stereo layers just means the MIDI velocity response, but I think somewhere in their documentation they talk about 4 round robin samples per sample. Or whatever--I just know I like the sound better than everything else I'd tried up till a few years ago when I stopped trying new things. Anything that sounds good, though, I expect I can adapt to a user interface that offers the basic functionality; I just need the UI to not crash is all.

Never had AD2 crash on me even once... Just FYI. I used BFD2 for years but I did have reliability issues. That was pre-reaper for me. Nuendo/Cubase. Same goes for Superior. As I recall I had one or two crashes with that. That may well have all been Steinberg bugs tho. Nuendo was always giving me trouble.

[LugNut]

Hi,
The saint,
I just used evil drums library as an example. Its pretty old...but still sounds good.
There are many sdx expansions, tho there are no demo versions of superior.
Some of the best exp IMHO are Roots...created by Future man himself....and Progressive. There are demo videos out there for all the exps.
The new version of Superiors core content is supposed to be good, but like I said b4 $400 is a bit much for me.
Sometimes there are sales on these and there is sometimes ppl selling superior 2 with various exp packs.
I've NEVER had a superior crash ever. I've been using it for years under xp and now for a year or so with 64 bit win 7.
My experience with bfd is vers 1 and 2 and my band mate and recording partner bfd 3.... His is with Mac. He ended up going with Steven slate ssd5, which sounds good, but I like more unprocessed drums. They do have a demo and one big kit that is unproccesed...forgot the name:-)
BTW...I use my iPad live for perc and musical loops that I can change to any tempo live with a foot pedal. DrumJam is one of the apps and it was done by Pete lockett ..percussionist to the stars:-)

[BrentHarmon]

Yeah I am looking get Superior Drummer 3 when there is a sale on it.