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Your go-to drum kit libraries

I don't do any electronica, but for acoustical drumkit, Superior Drummer 3 really is a game changer. So much better than the previous versions! I even build kits using only the cymbals, to use on non-pop/rock compositions... The MIDI Packs are also wonderful.
 
kavinsky said:
Thats really odd. I always found that the rooms in AD2 were its weakest point. too overprocessed and small
I guess its just a taste thing
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I think the Fairfax room sounds pretty good
I also consider getting NI studio drummer since they are recorded in teldex. It may suit the sound from Berlin orchestra which i use more
 
And what about a nice clean brushes jazzy kit? As many mentioned SD3 supremacy, does it has anything like that or Addictive jazz kit is still the best one? The worst thing with SD3 is that you have to buy a 130G thing and you might like just one setup of all this, or am I wrong?

Anyway, The most clean and naturally recorded drums for me had always been the Larry Seyer's Acoustic Drums Library, a .gig format library that I think unfortunately is discontinued. For those who know "in person" the sound of a studio drum kit they must agree that Larry Seyers reached the hilltop!
 
AD2 is my go to, NI kits fill in the gaps.

I have BFD 1.5, loved it when I used it. Updated and re-did my set up adding the plugins above and never upgraded BFD. I'm happy enough with those that the extra work required with BFD didn't seem worth it.
kavinsky said:
Thats really odd. I always found that the rooms in AD2 were its weakest point. too overprocessed and small
I guess its just a taste thing
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I'm working on a tune now using only the room & OHs, going for flavor as much as size & depth. This extreme is rare for me but it's usually the room mics polishing off my sound.
 
Sunny Fable said:
Since Superior Drummer 3, there is this library, and the rest.
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seaofwine said:
As many mentioned SD3 supremacy
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They are just marketing victims, its just a library and it has many flaws just as anything else out there.
People mostly praise it just because its the most recent one and because it features a nice new shiny GUI, not because they compared it to others.

personally I find it to be barely usable for my needs.
the room is just too big and it impossible to get that mid-sized smack out of it. Its just my taste I guess, but I don't like the room.
the shells sound nice, but I cant use it for that big rock drum sound.

I like it when I need a completely dry sound though, its fine.
I find the hits lack some weight in the loudest dynamics layer. So its limited in this regard aswell.
 
Blah, I call bullshit on that. As a composer, producer and a mixing engineer I can say there is a TON what you can do with SD3 and way less you can't. You could already pretty much do all that in SD2 already, but SD3 is way more versatile and packs way more details than any of the competitors at the moment. And I've used plenty of "those others" as well.

You can use the in-the-box sound if you want to, but it has it's limits. The best results come when you treat it like you would treat a normal acoustic kit: 3rd party plugins, proper mixing and even sample replacing or layering. The cymbal/ HH- section is already what is worth the price alone IMO, and the raw sounds are very good for constructing the kit needed for your session. And naturally, nothing in the world forbids you to use another library for, say, that snare you just couldn't get out of the raw samples.

The technology is alreayd "there" and SD3 is currently the most versatile and realistic- sounding drum VST in the market if you ask me. The next question is, how much are we trying in order to take advantage on that technology?
 
I've been a session drummer for over 20 years. Over the last 6 years or so I've programmed more tracks for clients using Superior Drummer than I have playing them live. Jazz, funk, country, folk, hard rock, heavy metal, you name it, I've done it. Would I rather do all of them live? Of course, but when someone asks me to produce drum tracks without a studio budget I have to compromise somehow.

I've tried all of the major drumset libraries and no one comes close to SD in terms of sound quality, realism, ease of use and versatility. I use it every day; it's on thousands of tracks I've written.

EDIT: In terms of electronic drums, that's easy. Just use your favorite sampler/triggerer and start collecting samples. I prefer Battery but that's just because I've been using it for 10 years. It DOES come with a ton of stuff right out the box.
 
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+ 1 on Battery on electronics! (Ok, ok.... when I'm lazy I just go with Groove Agent one. :D )
 
Henu said:
Blah, I call bullshit on that.
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I'm sorry but all of your points sound like slogans, not like arguments.

Henu said:
As a composer, producer and a mixing engineer I can say.....
SD3 is way more versatile and packs way more details than any of the competitors at the moment. And I've used plenty of "those others" as well.
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No, its not any more detailed than competitors. It has around 40 samples per drum, which by today standards is not a lot. Roughly the same sample count as it was 10 years ago when SD2 was released.
Versatile? Nope, its recorded in a single huge-sized scoring stage. You can shorten the decay artificially but it won't sound like another room sadly.
If you really used "plenty of others" you should already know that. But yeah.

Room sound is half of the drum sound in some genres. If it doesn't work - you can't do crap about it. And please don't bother arguing - its a fact.

Henu said:
You can use the in-the-box sound if you want to, but it has it's limits. The best results come when you treat it like you would treat a normal acoustic kit: 3rd party plugins, proper mixing and even sample replacing or layering. The cymbal/ HH- section is already what is worth the price alone IMO, and the raw sounds are very good for constructing the kit needed for your session. And naturally, nothing in the world forbids you to use another library for, say, that snare you just couldn't get out of the raw samples.
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Again, processing/mixing is not the point here. We're talking about recorded material. You can tweak the sound all day, compressing the shit out of weak hits and gating the room, but in the end it would never sound like it was performed and recorded in another room with a more passionate player. It will never sound as expressive.
Same with sample replacement - its comletely irrelevant to our discussion

Henu said:
The technology is alreayd "there" and SD3 is currently the most versatile and realistic- sounding drum VST in the market if you ask me. The next question is, how much are we trying in order to take advantage on that technology?
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Again, some bold statements and no facts. Its all subjective

Its just another sample set, and not the most detailed - far from it.
It has its strong points and its applications, and it has its obvious cons.
The engine is nothing extraordinary aswell. It has a different approach to RR playback, but its nothing too crazy.

The UI is nice though. Almost makes it sound better haha

I'm not saying it can't do the job. Of course it can
But there are some older SD2 and competitors libs that are a lot more versatile in my opinion.
 
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I'm eager to hear what library is more versatile for "overall" acoustic drums than SD3.

Sure, you can go all nuts with Slate stuff if you're into that sort of sound. And they usually have a great rock room sound. (On which topic btw, I naturally agree. The room is extremely important in some genres.) However, even though you personally don't like SD3's room for rock drums, I don't think it deserves such bashing.

I would also appreciate if you wouldn't think people are only using "slogans" if you disagree with them, implicating that they have no idea what they are talking about. I have experience on playing drums since the early 90's, have participated on at least hundred more or less commercial drum recording sessions as a producer or an engineer and have been personally using drum VST's (and sampled my own private drum libraries) since the early 2000's. And as said, SD3 is the first one which actually meets my needs as an allaround library for realistic, acoustic drums.
 
I too would like to know what library is more versatile than SD3. I don't own SD3 but I do have EZD2 which was the first from toontrack to get an uplift with some pretty incredible composer focused tools. Once they added those same tools into SD3, and then some, it truly became a drum library that currently is way ahead of the pack right now. I've been waiting to see XLNAudio (I own AD2 and love it) and FXpansion come out with something to compete but I just haven't seen it yet. I hate to see just one developer have a monopoly (bad for all of us) but so far Toontrack seems to have the best feature, performance and price right now. This isn't to say that other drum libraries won't get you great results. I have, and use, AD2, Slate, EZD2 and some others and they all get some use but if I were to reccomend to someone new to the game it would definitely be EZD2 or SD3.
For electronic drums, that's another story. If you like finger drumming then there's Maschine or Arturia SparkLE. If you like to sequence then I'd say Battery 4, Nerve, Spark 2 or Breaktweaker but there are other worthy considerations as well that I haven't tried that get good praise.
 
Hey Kavinsky, I own SD2 and SD3, EZDrummer 1 and 2, SSD 4, AD2 (including almost all their add-ons), Battery 4, BFD 3, Spark 2, Maschine and many others. I'm not a marketing victim, I have a ton of comparisons, and overall, no other library yet is offering an all-in-one tool that is so versatile, either for composing, mixing with virtual drums. That's my opinion, not a slogan...
 
Had a listen to Piet's demos of the MAD Drums and they sound incredibly detailed. Definitely made my short list.

I'm curious to know if anyone's tried any of the Nashville Sampling Co. Libraries? They seem pitched at the Country music market, but the demos sound rock enough for my tastes (but demos can be deceptive, hence my asking).

Also curious if anyone's tried Rattly and Raw's Martin France Drums and Muletone Audio's Brazilian Series Drums?
 
kavinsky said:
Versatile? Nope, its recorded in a single huge-sized scoring stage. You can shorten the decay artificially but it won't sound like another room sadly.
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Are you just talking about the stock library that it comes with? The new Bob Rock one sounds pretty flexible and has tons of ambient Mics to mess with. Especially if you like the Black album type drum sound...

They have plenty of other expansions and some are really quite dry.

While the NI stuff is "okay", setting up mapping and programming patterns is kack.

I actually really like the software as an environment to program drums and wish they would do some orchestral/cinematic stuff as I find using a keyboard to program drums counter-intuitive and too many percussion libraries are set up like instruments.

To my ears though too many drum libraries go for that pingy snare sound, the only one that does not is the Music City/Nashville one.
 
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