Favorite Superior Drummer SDX?
- Thread starter dyross
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dyross
Senior Member
My impression is that overall enthusiasm for SDXs has diminished a lot after Hitmaker. I think Area 33 was pretty universally panned, and I've felt that it's been a bit over-saturated (in a "flooding the market" sense, not in the audio engineering sense) as well.
Mike Stone
Active Member
The recent Stockholm SDX is very good for pop/rock stuff. However, is it just me, or have the samples here been processed and manipulated quite a bit? There seem to be a lot of "fake" bass frequencies added to the drums (default preset, no mixer effects added).
Not just the toms, but the snares have lots of bottom end. OK, I can use an EQ, but don't get the point of adding "fake" low end to the drum samples. It's not the first time I've heard this (typically with toms before), but here the snares also are quite boomy IMO.
For more typical pop-rock, Stockholm is a fine collection of drum kits, recommended.
The last few SDXs didn't blow me away. They sound fine, but nothing truly special IMO.
Now, if Toontrack does something similar to an expanded version of the Main Marble Room kit from Rooms of Hansa (which has an amazing room tone and very musical and dynamic toms, and a less mushy hi-hat than most other Toontrack kits), or say a Gavin Harrison SDX (vs. 70s and 80s stuff, which has already been covered a lot), that would probably get more enthusiasm and traction, in my opinion.
Not just the toms, but the snares have lots of bottom end. OK, I can use an EQ, but don't get the point of adding "fake" low end to the drum samples. It's not the first time I've heard this (typically with toms before), but here the snares also are quite boomy IMO.
For more typical pop-rock, Stockholm is a fine collection of drum kits, recommended.
The last few SDXs didn't blow me away. They sound fine, but nothing truly special IMO.
Now, if Toontrack does something similar to an expanded version of the Main Marble Room kit from Rooms of Hansa (which has an amazing room tone and very musical and dynamic toms, and a less mushy hi-hat than most other Toontrack kits), or say a Gavin Harrison SDX (vs. 70s and 80s stuff, which has already been covered a lot), that would probably get more enthusiasm and traction, in my opinion.
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newbreednet
Active Member
A "NY Studios vol. 1 REDUX" (Avatar Studios) DW kit played by Mr. Harrison would be *chefs kiss*
For reference, I’m a hobbyist and dabble in metal and Japanese-influenced math/jazz rock.
Stock Library: not the biggest of a fan of the stock kits.
Death & Darkness: not a fan of Darkness, but Death is my default template because of the versatility, room, and sound. Heavy stick hits and kicks at higher velocities add to the versatility.
Rooms of Hansa: incredible sound but not what I’m trying to accomplish.
Area 33: I was excited about the Varus kit but there’s a strange ringing in some of the tom hits that I couldn’t get over. I thought the room sounds good, but not spectacular on the kits. The cymbals, on the other hand, are in a tier of their own. Heavy hits and kicks; highly versatile. I can’t wait to pick up Area 33 Origin for a little extra variety (the Zildjian New Beat hats have a sound I’ve been looking for).
Stockholm: I was happy that Toontrack focused on a single room with a good range of modern kits. I’m familiar with the sound of tracking on the same Tama, Sonor, and Yamaha kits so having them in the same room with a nice set of Meinl’s was a big selling point for me. While the kits sound great, the drummer didn’t have enough power behind her hits to really make this great for punk/rock sounds I was hoping for. For pop it’s a no-brainer.
Stories: I grew up listening to a lot of Japanese rock/metal and the standard kit immediately clicked for me. The drummer put some weight into their hits, making this the perfect library that can seamlessly transition from jazzy beats to a hard-hitting jrock sound. Versatile; highly recommend it.
A big bonus for Stories is they finally gave us a good sounding stack without having to resort to EZX’s.
Stock Library: not the biggest of a fan of the stock kits.
Death & Darkness: not a fan of Darkness, but Death is my default template because of the versatility, room, and sound. Heavy stick hits and kicks at higher velocities add to the versatility.
Rooms of Hansa: incredible sound but not what I’m trying to accomplish.
Area 33: I was excited about the Varus kit but there’s a strange ringing in some of the tom hits that I couldn’t get over. I thought the room sounds good, but not spectacular on the kits. The cymbals, on the other hand, are in a tier of their own. Heavy hits and kicks; highly versatile. I can’t wait to pick up Area 33 Origin for a little extra variety (the Zildjian New Beat hats have a sound I’ve been looking for).
Stockholm: I was happy that Toontrack focused on a single room with a good range of modern kits. I’m familiar with the sound of tracking on the same Tama, Sonor, and Yamaha kits so having them in the same room with a nice set of Meinl’s was a big selling point for me. While the kits sound great, the drummer didn’t have enough power behind her hits to really make this great for punk/rock sounds I was hoping for. For pop it’s a no-brainer.
Stories: I grew up listening to a lot of Japanese rock/metal and the standard kit immediately clicked for me. The drummer put some weight into their hits, making this the perfect library that can seamlessly transition from jazzy beats to a hard-hitting jrock sound. Versatile; highly recommend it.
A big bonus for Stories is they finally gave us a good sounding stack without having to resort to EZX’s.
madfloyd
Senior Member
Can you explain what you referring to here when you say 'stack'?
So can anyone here chime in on just how much better the top libraries for Superior 3 are than something like Rock Warehouse is for Superior 2? Once processed and mixed, I'm having a difficult time imagining any real improvement, but can definitely imagine "different". But then I've not actually used the newer libs in Superior 3, so need candid opinions from someone who's used both. Anyone?
danstein
dismember
Stack is SD3's term for what is usually called "layering", i.e. triggering for instance several kick samples with one MIDI note.
The only objective difference that I’ve noticed is that the newer ones are more deeply sampled, in that they have more articulations. For example, the newer ones have open hi-hat hits with both the tip and with the edge of the stick, whereas the older ones only have one or the other. Similarly, the new ones have two different types of kick hits, so you can choose whether you want the sound of the beater rebounding off or pressed against the head. These are subtleties that may or may not be of use to you.
Guy Rowland
Senior Member
Just as a guide. the older Foundry libs have 13 different articulations for the hats, while the SD3 Core libary and Decades have 23. I don't have anything after then to compare.
People with SD tend to overlook the EZ kits but these have gotten massively bigger over the years. The core EZD3 kit has 18 different hat articulations, for example. Some of the oldest EZXs are around half a gig, while the newer ones can be about 10x the size on disk.
Are all the EZX still using baked in processing? I tend to like to do my own, but I suppose if it sounds good its a heck of a lot faster, though all flexibility is gone.
Guy Rowland
Senior Member
I think there's a little more shaping in general with the EZXs vs the SDXs to be more oven ready, but there are plenty which have an un-hyped sound. So "all flexibility is gone" feels a little hyperbolic - I'm no more aware of it in the Decades SDX than, say, The Classic EZX. Of course there's additional FX in their mixer which can be bypassed. I usually run the EZXs through SD3, with all of those benefits too.
I find the naked demos on the Toontrack website very reliable for what you get.
Perhaps, I've only listened to a few and the ones I zeroed in on were really baked, so figured they all were. Good to know its not necessarily that way. So do the EZX allow for full control over bleed and unfettered mic mixing like SDX or have they dumbed them down in this regard?
Guy Rowland
Senior Member
It's much more limited with bleed, but you usually have a few bleed controls. Again, the demos, webpages and walthroughs on the Toontrack site are very helpful.
I get the impression EZXs wouldn't be for you. The very name of the range does say their primary purpose - EZ = easy to use. "Dumbed down" is the prejoritive version of that.
Not necessarily, just want to learn what they have to offer from people who use them. So not prejoritive in this case, just slang.
There aren't any bleed signals except into the bottom snare mic. If you are using an EZX in Superior Drummer 3, then you can control those individually and the individual levels into the overhead and ambient mics. Normally, you wouldn't call that bleed because overheads and ambient mics are meant to pick up the whole kit, but it uses the same system as bleed levels in the UI. Not having bleed for close mics makes the kit sound less natural, but many modern recordings of acoustic drums don't sound very natural anyway. For some genres of music, it's not uncommon to use "strip silence" in Pro Tools to remove bleed. Personally, I prefer having the close mic bleed because of the added realism and natural balance, but it's a matter of taste. Probably many people don't enable it even when they have the option to do so in an SDX.
Other than the lack of bleed signals, the newest EZXs are about as deeply sampled as the very oldest SDXs, if not more. They are however more pre-processed and you have less control if you're not using them in SD3. The 16 bit vs 24 bit samples don't make much (if any) difference, since 16 bit is enough to capture 96 dB of dynamic range.
Guavadude
Member
S3 is light years beyond where S2 was. Sounds, processing, features. It's been a long time but I actually laughed out loud after I had been using S3 for awhile and went back to S2 in an old session. EZX libs just never sound as good to me tone wise. Maybe it is the 16bit vs 24 I'm hearing. I prefer to use the EZX libs once they come out as full SDXs instead.
Hard to recommend just a few because all of the latest SDXs are recorded so well. Decades, Stockholm, Stories and even Hit Maker get a lot of use from me. Area 33 Origin has some punchy sounds and some drier vibes too.
As far as stacking, I almost always stack a Slate drum snare with S3. Sometimes I'll feature the Slate Kick and Snare and use S3 as support snare, cymbals, hat and toms. I use Logic's drummer as my mapping in SSD and S3. This way I can use Drummer for ideas and easily move parts between all three VIs or play my own parts on a Drumkat rig and swap what I want.
Hard to recommend just a few because all of the latest SDXs are recorded so well. Decades, Stockholm, Stories and even Hit Maker get a lot of use from me. Area 33 Origin has some punchy sounds and some drier vibes too.
As far as stacking, I almost always stack a Slate drum snare with S3. Sometimes I'll feature the Slate Kick and Snare and use S3 as support snare, cymbals, hat and toms. I use Logic's drummer as my mapping in SSD and S3. This way I can use Drummer for ideas and easily move parts between all three VIs or play my own parts on a Drumkat rig and swap what I want.
Guy Rowland
Senior Member
Indeed. While bleed from instruments into the overheads and ambience mics are vital and part of a realistic drum sound, bleed going into other close mics is far, far less noticeable. The reason EZD makes an exception for the snare / snare bottom is that this is the main audio exception - the classic phenomenon of hitting a tom and it making the snares rattle, which has plagued drummers and engineers for decades. So that one is a choice - you like that realism you can have it and control it, or you can clean it up completely by leaving it off.
Personally I think all the other bleed controls into close mics make such a tiny audible difference it's often hard to notice it even with just the drum kit in isolation, let alone in a mix. I've never installed anything but the basic bleeds (inc all the important ones) in the SD3 kit or Decades, where you have the option. So on that basis, I am perfectly happy with the EZXs vs the SDXs. Where the latter scores is in more ambience mics usually which is useful, and usually an even greater range of kits.
Just on other gneral thread points - I almost never stack. It's strange to read that the same people who are utterly purist about every nuance of engineering slap a totally different VI over the snare in the end. It's fine I guess, it's a technique used since the 80s where it was common to add a sampled snare to a real one to beef it up, but it's not "realistic", and you lose the nuance in the meticulously recorded and played kit.
As for 16 vs 24 bit - I've been moaning for 15 years here that, if the samples are properly normalised, the audio differences are zero. The only difference is quantising noise, which is only audible in the absolute quietest sounds. If the original sample is recorded at something like -60db then there might be a problem, but otherwise it's all moot imo.
I have 9 SDXs and 34 EZXs. I've just counted over 500 acoustic snare drums. This is the reason why I find it almost impossible to buy any new SDXs. I have every conceivable tone for every conceivable genre. The thought of paying nearly 200 bucks for even more is almost obscene. I am so happy with what I have, Toontrack's policy of giving only modest discounts on post-Decades SDXs means I'm never tempted to buy even more absurd numbers of drums.
Guavadude
Member
EZXs definitely sound different than SDXs. I'm not sure why but I much prefer the fuller tone of the SDXs and use those almost exclusively.
To me the snare stacking is like using an SM57 and a Royer 121 on a guitar amp. They fill in what the other lacks. If you choose wisely, you can get more detail not less because one VI might have a better low velocity response with ghost notes than the other. SSD has a lot of punch and sometimes the track needs that. We're definitely spoiled in choices!
To me the snare stacking is like using an SM57 and a Royer 121 on a guitar amp. They fill in what the other lacks. If you choose wisely, you can get more detail not less because one VI might have a better low velocity response with ghost notes than the other. SSD has a lot of punch and sometimes the track needs that. We're definitely spoiled in choices!
Guy Rowland
Senior Member
Your stacking example makes no sense to me. You're comparing this with two mics on the same guitar amp, pointed at different parts of the same speaker. The accurate comparison is two (or more) differnet mics on the same snare, which of course Toontrack has. This is two totally different drums likely recorded on different contients in totally different ways.
If that works for you then wonderful, I've no problem with making things as big or as hyped or as artificial as you like. Have one snare for high velocity and another for low - terrific! Toontrack even do several expansions with layers built in. But it remains very odd to me to be talking about the purity of an SDX vs an EZX then slap something totally different all over it.
And in all my many many years with Toontrack, I've never once determined a difference in tone between all EZXs and all SDXs. Everything is unique to each expansion imo. YMMV of course, but your first sentance is subjective opinion not a fact.
