Steven Slate Drums version 4 - questions and suggestions

The next version of SSD will be called SSD DELUXE.

New Features:
- 10 new "Deluxe" kits with extremely detailed layers, multiple articulations on snare, completely variable overhead mics, two sets of ambience mics from NRG Recording, no post processing, two new 4 tom sets, enhanced edrum compatibility

- four new crash cymbals, two new chinas, two new hi hats, two new rides, one new splash recorded with extreme detail with Schoeps tube mics to Studer tape

- completely updated Kontakt interface for K Player 4.0 with enhanced graphics, easy to use mic mixers per drum instrument, and more

- new hybrid presets that model many requested sounds

As for comments in this thread:

- For now we are sticking with the Kontakt Player. Its extremely easy to use, very straightforward, with very little learning curve. Service Center is also straightforward if you register via internet.

- Joey, many of the GOGs with noise on them were fixed in 3.5, is that what you are using?

- Very Important: Starting very soon, Steven Slate Drums will be a dedicated virtual instrument and will not ship with wav/gogs. In order to use Slate samples for replacement, you'll have to use our new TRIGGER plugin. All SSD users get a discount on TRIGGER. More on TRIGGER at www.slatedigital.com

- Slate Samples will no longer come in GOG format

Let me know if you have a question.
 
- Very Important: Starting very soon, Steven Slate Drums will be a dedicated virtual instrument and will not ship with wav/gogs. In order to use Slate samples for replacement, you'll have to use our new TRIGGER plugin. All SSD users get a discount on TRIGGER. More on TRIGGER at www.slatedigital.com

Well thats crap. I like to have the choice to use whatever sample replacer I like instead of being forced to buy another product.

Some questions:
When is the new version coming out?
How much will it cost?
How much will Trigger cost?
 
- four new crash cymbals, two new chinas, two new hi hats, two new rides, one new splash recorded with extreme detail with Schoeps tube mics to Studer tape

This sounds like you are going to have a lot of people severely disappointed with the new cymbals again. All direct mic'd? Tube mics and tape? Why? Seems like total mistakes to me if you were trying to please everyone here who thought your cymbals sounded very bad for the kind of music we do... It's not the specific cymbals that were used that we have a problem with. It's the way all your cymbals sound in general!

Maybe they'll work better if you actually model the cymbal sounds for the signature artist kits you're doing too and not just the drum sounds... but it doesn't sound like that's what you're doing...

I seriously can't understand not doing things differently with the cymbals after so many complaints... I mean, come on. You've already got guys like Joey Sturgis here who use your samples for 100% of his drum sounds and thinks the cymbals suck, so he records real cymbals instead. Don't you think it'd be a good idea to listen and address those complaints?


- Very Important: Starting very soon, Steven Slate Drums will be a dedicated virtual instrument and will not ship with wav/gogs. In order to use Slate samples for replacement, you'll have to use our new TRIGGER plugin. All SSD users get a discount on TRIGGER. More on TRIGGER at www.slatedigital.com

- Slate Samples will no longer come in GOG format

Let me know if you have a question.

This sounds really shitty too. Looks like you will be forcing people to purchase another plug-in from you which they may not want or need. I can understand why you're doing that... to drive more sales, but I can see it pissing a lot of people off. The wav files atleast should be included... then you don't have gogs and don't have to compete with drumagog, but people can still do what they want with the wavs...
 
um i use the .wav files all the time

is your software going to let me make reverse snares without having to do a buntch of fooling around with bussing to a new audio track and blindly figuring out original sample length?
 
This sounds like you are going to have a lot of people severely disappointed with the new cymbals again. All direct mic'd? Tube mics and tape? Why? Seems like total mistakes to me if you were trying to please everyone here who thought your cymbals sounded very bad for the kind of music we do... It's not the specific cymbals that were used that we have a problem with. It's the way all your cymbals sound in general!

Maybe they'll work better if you actually model the cymbal sounds for the signature artist kits you're doing too and not just the drum sounds... but it doesn't sound like that's what you're doing...

I seriously can't understand not doing things differently with the cymbals after so many complaints...




This sounds really shitty too. Looks like you will be forcing people to purchase another plug-in from you which they may not want or need. I can understand why you're doing that... to drive more sales, but I can see it pissing a lot of people off. The wav files atleast should be included...
+1 to the wavs

shit we can make our own gogs if we have to
 
the lack of gog files is a little sily I think. I already got drumagog, I don't need another triggering program. If I have to go through and make my own gogs that'll be super lame.
 
i'd imagine the no more .wav's/.gog's is a sortof copy protection mechanism, as one or two .gogs is extremely easy to "share" with a pal, whereas an entire serialized installer package (like superior) is much more difficult for a n00b to pirate.

kindofa bummer, SSD users seem to be really loyal to ol' steve. but whatevs, i'll still be interested in deluxe. massey DTM pwnz and i love MIDI drums.
 
i'd imagine the no more .wav's/.gog's is a sortof copy protection mechanism, as one or two .gogs is extremely easy to "share" with a pal, whereas an entire serialized installer package (like superior) is much more difficult for a n00b to pirate.

No, not at all. All of toontrack's stuff has been pirated and is very easy to obtain... very simple cracks or keygens. Slate's stuff has not been pirated to nearly the same degree, atleast not to the point of it being publicly available, and that would be due to all the talk of their DAFS antipiracy system (whether it's actually real or not lol)...

The reason is simple. He's going to be selling his own drum replacement program, so he doesn't want to provide tools for people to use with a different drum replacement program. I can understand that, but I think not including the wav files themselves is a huge mistake.
 
If Trigger is going to be as good as it's been looking to be, then i will have no problem ditching Drumagog.

I'll save the .wav's from 3.0-3.5 and if i ABsolutely need them i'll work with them instead of whatever new samples may come along.

Can't wait for new SSD!
 
First of all Joshua, before you freak out about the cymbals any more... Schoeps are used in stereo overhead (not direct, don't know where you got that from) and are the absolute finest overhead mics on the planet. I stole the idea from Jay Baumgardner. These mics are not cheap but the sound they reproduce is outstanding. I tried out about two dozen overhead combos and those schoeps capture the cymbal sound in a way that will make you drool. The new Deluxe cymbals are the finest cymbals sampled, period. And fwiw, the current SSD cymbals are no slouches and many reviewers praise them for their richness and warmth. And as long as you can work an eq, they work great for metal, as you can hear:

SSD METAL DEMO

I'm not supporting Drumagog with my samples after putting two years into making a far superior replacement plugin called TRIGGER. Why anyone thinks I should continue making my samples in a format for my competitor beats me.

50% of the support emails we get concerning drumagog are how to get it to not flam with the original drum, how to make the samples line up properly, how to make it phase accurate with the original kicks, how to make it trigger a drum fill properly... I got tired of making excuses and started taking action, and TRIGGER was born. When you try out TRIGGER, you will quickly see that its quite a different beast then Drumagog and can do a lot more. Not to mention, you all will appreciate the 3rd party vendors who are going to be doing TRIGGER expansion packs. If you have SSD already, you have GOGS. If that program is doing well for you, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you want sample accurate, multi layer, easy to use, fully featured drum replacement, then you should try TRIGGER. SSD users will get discounts as well.


With SSD DELUXE and TRIGGER, you will have the ultimate in drum sounds for both virtual programming and live drum enhancement and replacement. Thats my promise.
 
First of all Joshua, before you freak out about the cymbals any more... Schoeps are used in stereo overhead (not direct, don't know where you got that from) and are the absolute finest overhead mics on the planet. I stole the idea from Jay Baumgardner. These mics are not cheap but the sound they reproduce is outstanding. I tried out about two dozen overhead combos and those schoeps capture the cymbal sound in a way that will make you drool. The new Deluxe cymbals are the finest cymbals sampled, period.

I hope so. If that ends up being true, I will be very happy and definitely give you my thanks (along with my money). I gotta remain skeptical until I hear otherwise though...

I'm not supporting Drumagog with my samples after putting two years into making a far superior replacement plugin called TRIGGER. Why anyone thinks I should continue making my samples in a format for my competitor beats me.

50% of the support emails we get concerning drumagog are how to get it to not flam with the original drum, how to make the samples line up properly, how to make it phase accurate with the original kicks, how to make it trigger a drum fill properly... I got tired of making excuses and started taking action, and TRIGGER was born. When you try out TRIGGER, you will quickly see that its quite a different beast then Drumagog and can do a lot more. Not to mention, you all will appreciate the 3rd party vendors who are going to be doing TRIGGER expansion packs. If you have SSD already, you have GOGS. If that program is doing well for you, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you want sample accurate, multi layer, easy to use, fully featured drum replacement, then you should try TRIGGER. SSD users will get discounts as well.


With SSD DELUXE and TRIGGER, you will have the ultimate in drum sounds for both virtual programming and live drum enhancement and replacement. Thats my promise.

I understand completely why you wouldn't want to include GOGs. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective, and if I worked hard on a product like TRIGGER, I'd do the same.

HOWEVER, a lot of people use the wav files and to get rid of those just to keep people from making their own GOGs with them is a little extreme, I think. The wavs can be very useful...

EDIT: P.S. Since you were talking about discounts, I think it'd be good to give some kind of option for current platinum owners to buy the mastering plug-in, trigger, and slate deluxe all together in some kind of package for a discounted price. Otherwise, someone buying both trigger and slate deluxe will be paying for the same samples twice... (although I realize deluxe will be aimed more at being a virtual instrument). I know I want the mastering plug-in, and I will definitely buy the deluxe kits if the cymbals are improved and the price isn't too high.... will wait to see about trigger...
 
I can totally understand not wanting to make gog files anymore. And it doesn't really effect me as I don't use drumagog anyway. But I'm a bit gutted at the WAV's being taken away as i just use sound replacer in pro tools. I'm not going for 100% sample replacement with loads of velocities or anything on my stuff anyway, I use samples to augment the natural drum sound so the 3 samples in sound replacer is enough for me.

I've actually ended up buying SSD EX with MAM and ERP2 tonight so that I could get in before the WAV's are gone. Will be spending the next couple of days downloading from various places as I think I'll go over my bandwidth limit just doing it all from my house.
 
will trigger open Gog files (and wavs)? (or have some kind of way to convert gogs to whatever kind of files trigger uses)
Because i have a shitload a Gogs and i want to use them


+1 to the petition of keeping the wav files

When i use SSD i use the wav files 99% of the time
 
No, not at all. All of toontrack's stuff has been pirated and is very easy to obtain... very simple cracks or keygens. Slate's stuff has not been pirated to nearly the same degree, atleast not to the point of it being publicly available, and that would be due to all the talk of their DAFS antipiracy system (whether it's actually real or not lol)...

The reason is simple. He's going to be selling his own drum replacement program, so he doesn't want to provide tools for people to use with a different drum replacement program. I can understand that, but I think not including the wav files themselves is a huge mistake.

Agree completely with this post.

I can understand the company's desire to try to monopolize the drum-replacement software sector, but this is the wrong way to go about it. People are paying for the sounds, not the clunky Kontakt pile of crap. I got SSD 3.5 the other day and all I'm using is the gogs and wavs, I haven't even bothered with anything else. Some people don't want the bloated instrument, nor do they want to be forced to change over their drum replacement plug-in if they are happy with it.

The lack of desire to provide gogs is completely understandable, as it ultimately supports the competition, but wavs should be mandatory just as a matter of courtesy towards the consumer base's varied workflows.

I doubt it will have anything to do with piracy. The larger and more popular the software package gets, as well as getting more 'integrated' into a complete software solution, the more likely it will be cracked and made available to the public. I see the reason that it hasn't been cracked so far as a courtesy paid by the user base to Steven and his crew, and with this upgrade potentially screwing a lot of people, you might lose that factor altogether.
 
- Very Important: Starting very soon, Steven Slate Drums will be a dedicated virtual instrument and will not ship with wav/gogs. In order to use Slate samples for replacement, you'll have to use our new TRIGGER plugin. All SSD users get a discount on TRIGGER. More on TRIGGER at www.slatedigital.com

Honestly if that's your reasoning Steven, then Trigger should be provided to SSD platinum customers for free. You're essentially asking them to make a forced financial outlay for potentially no benefit. What if your Trigger plug-in in the early stages runs into bugs across a number of system types (as most plug-ins inevitably do)? It could effectively cripple the work-flow of people that rely on your samples heavily. No doubt Drumagog sucks, and you should certainly scrap support as soon as you have that viable alternative out there, but wavs need to be provided for people who want to take an alternate route for whatever reason. I use the .wavs all the time like Joey, mostly lined up on a track as reverse FX into and out of sections.

This shakes up my loyalty as a customer a bit. I was going to embrace Trigger with open arms, but actively FORCING people to do it is just wrong. Particularly in light of some outstanding issues in your current software package, not the least of which are cymbal sounds that are almost universally disliked here (not of concern to me, but definitely to a seemingly significant portion of your user base).

In the spirit of the original intention behind the thread, here is my request:

- Please make SSD available as a Superior Drummer 2.0 expansion. If it's going to be integrated as a virtual instrument, at least we could have a decent host to bring it all together. Toontrack's products are used widely in these circles, and most people program their drum MIDI in direct correspondence to the DFHS, SD2.0 or EzDrummer map. Most of us also replace the Toontrack kicks outright with SSD ones, and frequently blend snares/toms and whatever else. To be able to do this standalone within one host would be invaluable for many.
 
Ok, we'll have to consider offering raw wav files with TRIGGER too, if there is a huge demand for it. I didn't realize anyone actually used them, I was under the impression that guys who wanted to replace used the GOGS with drumagog. I have no intention on forcing anyone to buy TRIGGER, but again, I'm not going to offer my samples in a file format of a competing plugin.

And we will probably offer some discounts on the other Slate Digital plugins to current SSD users as well, perhaps for a limited time.

As for Ermz's comment on the Kontakt Player, you'll have to be more specific of what problems you are having with it since I have none.. The Kontakt Player is simple to use, easy to tweak, straightforward, very powerful, has great routing capabilities, and works in both standalone and as a plugin in every daw. Its the same host as other major drum samplers such as Oceanway Drums. Thousands of SSD users produce drum sounds with the Kontakt Player every day with no complaints. I can understand complaining about the older 2.0 version which had issues with Pro Tools, but the newer 3.5 and 4.0 versions are solid. As for the current cymbals, two upcoming magazine reviews had high praise for them, and I've seen equal praise from non-metal mixers on the SSD forum. Do a search here and you can read some tips about tweaking them for a more metal sound.

The Deluxe cymbals will have some very metal specific sounds.

happy new years