Steven Slate Drums 3.5

[schust]

anybody have an opinion on the hi-hats?

i'm in love with everything else but those... for lack of a better word - they sound 'toyish'. i've tried tweaking and twisting knobs for everything i can find on them and just can't get a realistic sounding hat. it seems like i should be able to get a better sound with all that's going into them, but not as of yet.

btw - i have LE - so bon, hat1, hat2 and hat3 are my options.

[edit]

btw, btw - for Reaper users, to get the tracks all i do is add a 'virtual instrument track' - choose Kontakt from the list (32out) and Reaper will automatically build the tracks for you. unlike ver2, however, you have to manually route inside Kontakt to the tracks once you have loaded a kit - OR - do it once and push the 'default' and that saves it for future loads. on future loads, you just load up the kit and press 'reset'. a little whacky - but works.

 

[MindsinK]

+1 on the hats... I just always assumed that I had 'beer' taste in hi-hats and slates were sort of 'champagne' hi-hats... hehe...

 

[Slate]

hat 2 and 3 do it for me... bonhat is for more slow and vintagey stuff, and hat 1 is a bit dirtier and more rock, not really a metal hat. We have new cymbal updates in the works, with one hat (I forget which one but its a Sabian that is made for metal players) that you guys will really love...

 

[schust]

We have new cymbal updates in the works, with one hat (I forget which one but its a Sabian that is made for metal players) that you guys will really love...

Steven, will this be another free update like 3.5? any idea when it might be coming out?

 

[Slate]

Its gonna be some cymbals from DELUXE offered for Plat and EX and LE customers.. its not free but its gonna be cheap... But so will the full deluxe expansion for current customers.

 

[cococo]

Instructions for anyone with Reaper wondering how to setup the outputs:

First, you have to set up the actual tracks in your DAW by opening up the fx chain/insert list window of your track that you have Kontakt 3 running on, right click on Kontakt 3 and click "Build multichannel routing for output of selected FX..." It will also make a few blank tracks that SSD isn't using. So, just delete those. Now, your tracks are made. You just have to fix the outputs in Kontakt. For some reason all of the kits are routed to a stereo track by default. To fix this, open the outputs tab in Kontakt, and then click Reset Out Map. and then Make Default to save it that way and then close, and everything should now be routed correctly... all pieces outputting on their individual tracks you just previously made.

Everything seems to be running pretty smoothly... a lot less bugs and overall smoother operation than before... I checked a few of the hybrid kits and they sound good. The Thick Metal kit also sounds good.

Thanks Joshua !

Please mr Slate, dont forget the Reaper SSD users!
Thanks in advance!

 

[Tom-D]

Just bought the EX 3.5 couple of days ago.I installed it yesterday and I have a lot of problems with it.Its way harder to use than EZ, at least for me.
I dont know if I am using it properly.I insert a single midi file with drum lines(imported from guitar pro)and then I put the Kontakt 3 plugin on top of that.I load a drumset and thats it.It sounds pretty bad, I cant make it loud enough using the faders in Kontakt because its starts to "pump".I have pretty loud guitars in my track and when I put those drums, the guitars sound like they have a rotary effect or sth, it basically kills everything.Dont know what Im doing wrong.
Ive also tried to route channels accordingly to JoshuaLogan's instructions(I have Reaper), but still sth doesnt work here.I get those 10 or sth tracks, but all the elements of the drums play in one of them at the same time :/.
A lot of problems here, could use help.

 

[Slate]

I'd PM Joshua who is the resident SSD/Reaper expert... once you get the routing properly done, we'll talk about any mix problems you have. SSD by nature should be very loud into the DAW, in fact if its not discretely routed, in PT8 it'll clip the stereo channel unless you turn it down.

Also, is the guitar pro midi file SSD compatible? If its not made for SSD, it'll probably need tweaking. Perhaps the velocities on the midi file aren't strong enough to trigger the top SSD velocities which would explain your volume issues.

 

[Tom-D]

Thanks for the reply.Ive managed to route it, now I have a group of about 20 tracks.Half with the overheads and a half with the SSD room.
Ive used the tutorial about compression, which you posted on this forum http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/530243-compression-tutorial-ssd.html . I dont know if I used it properly, but now everything sounds a lot better, especially kicks and toms.But still the snare drum doesnt sound punchy, it has that metalic ring, which I want to dispose of.Any tips ? Thanks !

 

[Slate]

use a different snare? There's quite a few of em. Some are ringy, some are totally damp. Which snare are you using?

 

[ADRSean]

I don't know, is there any way to get the cymbals in gog or wav format? I have a hard time using the Kontakt player because of my DAW being horrible and my no cashness, and I usually have to use drumagog.

 

[Tom-D]

use a different snare? There's quite a few of em. Some are ringy, some are totally damp. Which snare are you using?

Thanks for the reply.Ive managed to solve this problem.After compression all is good now .I have another question(last one ) : I have a mix with loud guitars and bass and such.I want to make a loud mix, so I use a limiter on the master bus.The drums are compressed(plugins on kick, snare, toms)and sound good.But after I apply the limiter, it basically destroys the sound of the snare and kick(the "punch" is not cutting thru).I use Reaper.Is it possible to use the limiter on all the instruments except the drums ? (I think that the drums wont cause a lot of distortion, but guitars and bass will distort a lot without the limiter, so I need it).I think that this is connected to making a seperate master bus or sth like that.But Im not certain.