Steven Slate 4 Ex

[prabblerabble]

Hey everyone,
I've been using Superior Drummer 2.0 for quite a while now and it's great and easy to use. That being said, I've been looking into trying Steven Slate drum samples 'cause some of the results I've heard are phenomenal and the kits seem to pack a lot of punch in my opinion. I'm on a tight budget and was thinking of purchasing the Steven Slate 4 Ex pack.(http://www.stevenslatedrums.com/products/ex/)

The sample clips on the website sound pretty great and it seems to have a good amount of kits for a relatively cheap price. I was looking for recommendations on whether to buy the SSD4 EX or to save up and buy the Platinum version. And if you have used the EX version, I'd love to hear what results you've gotten from it and what kits you recommend.

Thank you so much!

Cheers,
Prabhu

 

[Cephara]

I actually went through what you are considering doing. Slate drums sound pretty great with a little bit of mixing for their price. If you get EX, you can upgrade to platinum later at a discount that would equate to if you just bought Platinum edition in first place. Personally I use almost all samples from Platinum. Now the down side is that you lack a lot of control compared to Superior. To be honest, I only really like the kicks and snares from Slate, but in my newest demos I use nothing but slate (I don't have access to by library disc from ToonTrack). I think my mixes sound pretty decent, but I've seen a lot of people combine the strengths of both products to create some really great music.

I say get EX at least. Slate Drums are a lot easier to setup up and get a "mixed" sound from.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

I have EX and I don't like it. The cymbal chokes don't sound real and the routing for the right and left crashes is annoying. That was the deal breaker. The samples given in the starter pack are too processed and sound to far away and separated in a not pleasing way. I'd stay SDX EZX or get a different library.

 

[RiF]

I have SD2.0 and Slate 3 Ex. SD2.0 sounds more natural to me and Slate sounds more punchy.
So what I am doing is using SD2.0 for all the drums and then I have Slate 3 set up with just a Kick and a Snare and I feed the very same MIDI into both. This allows me to sneak in a little Kick and Snare from Slate to beef up the drums.

 

[Spectivum]

I bought EX first and then upgraded to Platinum. Still using EX samples though as I am working on my extreme metal project. Platinum adds stuff that might be useful in other genres. I think CLA pack would have been better for my needs than the upgrade.
short test with EX:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13814201/mickrichIR.mp3

 

[Flow Of Time]

I'm also using ex, too many samples to pick from are confusing me :/

 

[schismatic]

I think your purchase should be based on the sampler software itself, because both have decent enough drum sounds which in the context of a good mix are likely to do a fine job.

For me, the SSD4 sampler was a winner because I use an electronic kit to record my drums directly as MIDI. The SSD4 sampler makes it very, very easy to assign any sample to any MIDI note you choose - it's just a drag and drop thing. This is great on a limited kit (like my Roland HD-1) for changing quickly from a 1 crash, 1 ride, 1 hat setup, to say 2 crashes and a fully open hat, or to quickly switch to a double-kick setup.

You have of course the option of assigning more than one sample to a particular note, which I've used for crashes from time to time.

So for me, it's workflow and SSD4's sampler suited that perfectly - try them out and make your own mind up

 

[prabblerabble]

Thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate all the input. I haven't purchased it yet because I just got over with exams so now I can finally think about this stuff. There were a couple comments on the SSD4 EX samples being already mixed heavily, is it to the point where it's harder to do your own mixing? And for SD 2.0, I really liked the cymbals on the avatar kit, but I'm not a big fan of the kick or snares; I thought the kicks and snares sound better with Steven Slate. Does the upgrade to Platinum only include more stuff or are the samples themselves better quality? Cause if it's just even more kits I don't think I'd use all of them, since I don't really play around with lot of kits (which is probably bad). But once again, thanks for all the help guys!

 

[prabblerabble]

Thanks for everything guys, just thought I'd let you all know that I went with SSD 4 EX and have no complaints! Definitely worth the purchase!