Thank for the precision. 
I have used BFD3 for a number of years now.
Following with interest.
I don’t Know if anyone is interested. I have done and example of my Parallel Compression and put the project in a Google Drive folder. I have only used frequency and one or two other plugins, so it is not as I would normally do it, but it gives you the idea and more importantly allows you to access it… It has been made with a BFD3 kit and using a BFD3 Funk Groove.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PFVk-3dbYyshGtc4OUtL0F-zmn2bvLqE?usp=sharing
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When I have a moment I will investigate this. Actually this is exactly the exchange of ideas and info I had in mind.
Many thanks for sharing! I had a look. 
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It’s a much more compact and tidier setup than mine. I spill the toms out piece by piece, but now I’m thinking there have been situations that it wasn’t really needed.
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I see you really use your faders. Many times, during kit piece selection, if a particular piece is waaay loud (usually hats), I trim it from within BFD, along with damping, spill, etc… So in the end, I don’t have to move my faders much.
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I see you have DRUM II where you apply your compression, and then another one, DRUM, where the overheads and snare are sent to, but there’s no processing there. What’s that for? Is it just for an extra boost? Summing to the master?
Many thanks again for sharing your setup! Great groove too! 
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Hi. One of the groups is compressed the other isn’t all the kit pieces go to both groups… Hence the parallel compression. (DrumII) The advantage of this is that you can balance one against the other. I have UAD plugins and use the Empirical Labs Distressor as my usual compressor plus a whole heap of other stuff.
If you look at the sends you can see that I am routing the kit pieces from the bottom send to the Parallel Comp Group. You can also experiment with sending the Kit Piece channels prefader by clicking on the semicircle with a dot to turn it from Orange to Blue, when it is pre fader. The difference here is that the send level controls how much signal goes to the Parallel Group rather that the fader. The advantage of this is that a fixed amount of signal goes to the group. If you have the send set post fader you have to adjust the compressor to avoid pushing it too hard.
For some reason the use of both Compressed and uncompressed groups seems to give an increased sense of loudness and detail. Experiment with the sends. I usually send less Bass Drum to the comp group.
Sometimes I do split the Toms But mostly I use a hi pass filter to control the bottom end, Again you need to experiment with all of this to find out what you like.
You can alter the level of the individual kit pieces and the whole kit with the groups as well as the level of compressed and uncompressed.
Here is an animation of how it works. You can’t see it, but I’m right+clicking to change the secondary articulation which is indicated by the paint brush.
There is a trick I sometimes use that works well with Rudiment Painting. Load two instances of the same snare (or whatever). Detune one of them by just a tiny amount. Maybe a bit of EQ. But everything should be very subtle. The idea is that the two drum slots are really acting like a single drum, but if you hit the same articulation on each drum they will sound like the same drum being struck at a different spot on the head. Remember, only super small changes.
Of course this can be done with any drum VSTi in a variety of situations. But notice in the example above the primary articulation is the regular Hit and the secondary Half Edge. Good chance that combo will sound weird. BFD3 does let you use the same drum & articulation for primary & secondary - and that works fine. But having 2 of the almost-but-not-quite-same articulations gives better results.
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Brilliant. I will have to spend a bit of time next week looking into this. Thank you raino. It does actually look very straightforward.
Hey . . . nice little BFD3 thread you got going here, and thanks so much for sharing the drum set up !
I gave it a whirl, and looked under the hood, a real learning experience for me . . . thanks for that.
I’ve been using BFD3 for many years, mostly in other DAWs . . . so it’s great to see what’s possible in Cubase, which I am still fairly new to.
For many years I just used the BFD3 mixer set up, but with all the great plugins I have now, it makes much more sense to use them in a DAW mixer, as they are far more powerful compared to what comes inside BFD3.
Anyways, thanks again . . . I’ll stay tuned to this thread for sure.
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Glad it was useful. I think that it would be really useful to share these kind of techniques and to improve our understanding of what is possible in Cubase.
Hi Bro, I have BFD 3 (started with BFD 2 but it isn’t supported in Cubase any more I believe) but I’ve had issues with it crashing quite frequently. Have you had issues or is it stable for you? It’s a great program.
I also have a full version of Groove Agent 5 but I definitely prefer BFD 3 for workflow but the drum map is a bit frustrating as it’s not compatible with anything else. Have you managed to get a workable drum map so it is compatible with Groove Agent or even General MIDI? IS it possible to re-map BFD?
How can you use BFD 2? I thought it was VST 2 which is not supported since Cubase 9 or 10
It is only VST2 32 bit that is not supported by Cubase 11.
Yes BFD3 is very stable in Cubase 11 for me. Have you installed the very latest update?
3.3.1.33
Earlier versions do not work so well with Cubase. In fact I had quite a number of crashes before I updated.
There are issues with content, which can be difficult to sort out. It might be an idea to reinstall. I found the new install manager to be quite easy to use. However, owing to the size of some of the content it was a tedious process.
Drum maps are a tedious bit of work. It is possible to do as long as you have a print out of the BFD3 mappings as well as the GM mapping. A bit of trial and error is needed for the cymbals and articulations as BFD3 has more than GM Midi. How do I know this? I made a BFD3 to general midi map when I bought Modo Drum, which is GM. I couldn’t get on with Modo Drum.
silhouette gave the right answer just after your post. So, I confirm : I have a 64 bits version of BFD2 installed, the 2.3.1. Don’t know if there has been another BFD2 update since this one, I admit, as it works as expected…
Yes, I’ve been using a custom map for ages. It doesn’t map to GM or anything - just rearranges the drums in an order that makes sense to me. But you can set it up however you prefer.
I’m not at Cubase or BFD3 right now so might have some naming off. In BFD3 you can setup your own custom Drum Maps. I haven’t used (or even looked at) this feature for years. But as I recall setting it up was very repetitive and took about an hour. But you only need to do it once. BFD3 already has a bunch of presets that match various hardware including GM. If you do decide to roll your own map make sure to read the documentation carefully for instructions and potential gottchas.
TIP:
One thing a lot of folks don’t know about BFD3 is that (as far as I can tell) it is the only non-Steinberg drum package where Cubase will auto-generate a Drum Map. In the menu where you normally select a map there is an option to do this.
I am sooooooooo far behind the current version. I’m on v3.1.4.5 and it is working fine.
By the way if you’ve never looked at the BFD3 “About” screen, check it out. Initially it scrolls through the names of developers as you’d expect. Then it briefly pauses before listing other stats like number of arguments about fonts, meeting held, and other arcane items.
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As @raino said, you’ll have to sit down one day with a piece of paper and map down Groove Agent. Then, you’ll have to sit down for an hour or so in BFD, and build a map for BFD. Depending on the kit piece articulations, you might get away with less assignments. Then you save the drum-map from BFD, and you can recall it at any time. I think there is a GM available by default, so that you just need to load it, but I’m not 100% sure.
Another thing I’ve found useful in BFD is variable hats/snares. CC4 determines how open the hat will be, and CC16 (I think) determines how far from the center you hit the snare. This allows you to have just two hits for the hat. Tip and Shank. And then you adjust CC4 for how much open or closed.
When I’m recording with a keyboard, I have two drum-maps I switch between. One is a map with all hi-hat articulations spread over two octaves, with duplicate assignments. (So that I can play fast notes easier, instead of repeating with two fingers on one key). Another map is for the variable articulations (see above) with more room (keys) for toms.
A little detail. When making your drum map, you can assign the same sound to a different key, as I just said. And then, the great thing is, you can assign different velocity curves and limits to each of those keys. This way, you can have a key (or several) for gentle riding on the crashes, just for the wash of the cymbal, and another key for a full-velocity crash, adjusted just so that it won’t matter if your input velocities where a bit off when you were recording.
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Excellent thread. Has anyone experience with BFD and SSD? How do they compare? I am an SSD 5 user.
Didn’t know that, great tip. Does this work on all hats or only specific ones? If it’s only some, what do you look for to tell?