- Dec 14, 2013
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Superior Drummer 3
- Thread starter Delitzsch
- Start date
Habsburgs
Member
- May 13, 2006
- 1,763
- 9
- 38
>Over the past four decades, George Massenburg has been involved in over four hundred records. His work includes milestone albums by Earth, Wind & Fire, Linda Ronstadt, Natasha Bedingfield, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, the Dixie Chicks and many, many more. George’s work has gained him world wide recognition and four Grammy Awards, including the Grammy for Technical Achievement in 1998.
Yup they sound like dull 90s drums, alright. SD3 is unusable for anything other than R&B and jazz.
Yup they sound like dull 90s drums, alright. SD3 is unusable for anything other than R&B and jazz.
chesterfieldblues
Member
I don't think so, but this is my opinion...maybe I'm just glad soundbanks are great, metal or not...
Old Man Doom
Member
I agree. I'm getting some pretty killer sounds so far, especially with the surround mics cranked up on snare.
chesterfieldblues
Member
Didn't install surround mics, I'm good with 130 Gb of closed mics and bleeds in stereo 
By the way, for those into Bohnam, check out Massive Ludwig 76 preset in Metal/Heavy Rock section, this is really gorgeous
By the way, for those into Bohnam, check out Massive Ludwig 76 preset in Metal/Heavy Rock section, this is really gorgeous 
texisthebest
Member
I had been using superior drummer 1.0, 2.0, etc, and I was using now made of metal and some samples I bought here.
Superior drummer 3 is one step forward.
At the begining presets didn't impress me too much but then I play with the faders to made then sound like my presets in the amount of dry sound, oh, amb, and so on.. and I found they more usable (you have to put them into your liking to make the test work).
I played with the diferent sounds and made some A|B tests, and finally I found that I can get better sounds from superior 3.
You can make it sound in your way without sounding too much processed and that is a very good thing.
Presets show you a good starting point but if you like a kind of sound you have to make it sound the way you like.
Becouse belive me, if you cannot get this to sound amazing then the problem it´s you, not that awesome drums perfectly recorded.
If you only know how to open presets and you what them to sound as you like but you know nothing about mixing then do not blame the samples.
Cheers!
Superior drummer 3 is one step forward.
At the begining presets didn't impress me too much but then I play with the faders to made then sound like my presets in the amount of dry sound, oh, amb, and so on.. and I found they more usable (you have to put them into your liking to make the test work).
I played with the diferent sounds and made some A|B tests, and finally I found that I can get better sounds from superior 3.
You can make it sound in your way without sounding too much processed and that is a very good thing.
Presets show you a good starting point but if you like a kind of sound you have to make it sound the way you like.
Becouse belive me, if you cannot get this to sound amazing then the problem it´s you, not that awesome drums perfectly recorded.
If you only know how to open presets and you what them to sound as you like but you know nothing about mixing then do not blame the samples.
Cheers!
my main problem with SD3 is not the sounds in general but how SD3 sounds in terms of realism.
i've expected flawles and smooth dynamic transitions but this does not seem to be the case.
somebody one told me that SD2 already had like 50+ dynaic layers which i jsut can not believe judging from what it sounds like.
of course the samples are not the best for heavier stuff but there are one or two usable kicks, same with snares.
the crashes sound really nice, the chinas are pure fucking TRASH. hi hats and toms are OK.
i've set up a custom kit and put all layers to unlimited which should load the most available samples, however
it still sounds very fake to me, i do not know what it is but the dynamics are way to abrupt and fast kicks sound
machine gun like.
i have intentionally disabled any random aspects as drums are indeed not played randomly but
anybody involved with making virtual drus just does not want to get this into their head...
btw the presets, including the ones from AS sound like crap to be honest.
i've expected flawles and smooth dynamic transitions but this does not seem to be the case.
somebody one told me that SD2 already had like 50+ dynaic layers which i jsut can not believe judging from what it sounds like.
of course the samples are not the best for heavier stuff but there are one or two usable kicks, same with snares.
the crashes sound really nice, the chinas are pure fucking TRASH. hi hats and toms are OK.
i've set up a custom kit and put all layers to unlimited which should load the most available samples, however
it still sounds very fake to me, i do not know what it is but the dynamics are way to abrupt and fast kicks sound
machine gun like.
i have intentionally disabled any random aspects as drums are indeed not played randomly but
anybody involved with making virtual drus just does not want to get this into their head...
btw the presets, including the ones from AS sound like crap to be honest.
mickrich
Member
- Aug 2, 2007
- 1,753
- 70
- 48
I like it.
I have been doing a few heavy rock rather than metal sessions lately and have found the tracker function great.
Once converted to MIDI, the shell samples and lots of the room mixed with live recorded drums is fantastic.
I haven't had much time to test with metal but here is a quick test I did with one of the Sneap presets.
I have been doing a few heavy rock rather than metal sessions lately and have found the tracker function great.
Once converted to MIDI, the shell samples and lots of the room mixed with live recorded drums is fantastic.
I haven't had much time to test with metal but here is a quick test I did with one of the Sneap presets.
Megin
Member
Megin
Member
FIXXXER there are real drums recorded for commercial metal songs that sounds less good than SD3 does and still, when the song is mixed it sounds great. Ever thought of that?
nezvers
Beast
in terms of tonal quality you are absolutely right but in terms of realism, SD3 sounds worse to me than SD2 to be honest!
just play back a fast midi and solo the bassdrum, then you'll instantly hear it.
JoeMeek12397
Member
I love the new Tracker feature, but samples from SD3 drift pretty bad. I spit out some midi from Tracker and triggered a kick and snare from SD3 and a kick and snare from Kontakt. The Kontakt samples were tight to the original midi, but a handful of hits from SD3 were WAY off. It's a shame because I also really like the soft hit volume feature in SD3. So for now I'm converting to midi in SD3 and using that to trigger Kontakt, SSD4, SD2......
I am not digging samples either. I only like one of the snares.
I am not digging samples either. I only like one of the snares.
i think it's the way how TT cuts the samples, it's not accurate at all, some samples are spot on, others have a delay
which is clearly audible. maybe they are trying to simulate "groove" but it's definitively not working. with SD2
i always had problems placing the noted exactly on the grid but in the playback everything was off in a weird way,
especially on the cymbals...
Machinated
Member
Bought it this weekend, here are my thoughts:
New sampler is fantastic. Much improved on the old version and can be little to complain about.
Tracker is 50% genius, and 50% confusing/lacking. The fact it works is incredible and it seems pretty good at picking things up. Being unable to slide the detection point around means if it just isn't detecting something its hard to get it exact, and there's some confusing crossover between detection features that seem to have similar effects. Seemed stronger on kick and snare than hats/OH/toms where it struggled a bit.
The included samples...... I'd imagine they're pretty useless for 99% of people who visit this site. I hate the kind of "one size fits all" approach where they presume a few plugins can transform a blandly recorded kit into something for any genre. The room they tracked in is enormous and is pretty noticeable on the OH mic tracks. All the room mic options are enormous and frankly way too big for most drum tracking situations. Its more like a concert hall than some of the classic drum rooms previous SDX's have recorded in in the past (Henson/Avatar/Hit Factory/Warehouse/Blackbird/Grandmaster/Sound City). The tunings are generally too high/pingy/choked for my tastes too. Being able to mix & match sounds is nice, as is some of the processing options to control the envelope, but it almost feels with this library that you have to go in with the intention of getting your hands dirty to get something exciting out of it. Not the philosophy I'd go into a drum tracking session with at all.
I'll most likely delete the included library as I can't think of a single situation where it'll do a better job than an SDX I already own. The sampler itself is great, so I'm happy enough just paying the upgrade price for that. Hoping future SDX's change their philosophy completely though, I think honestly they've dropped the ball here.
New sampler is fantastic. Much improved on the old version and can be little to complain about.
Tracker is 50% genius, and 50% confusing/lacking. The fact it works is incredible and it seems pretty good at picking things up. Being unable to slide the detection point around means if it just isn't detecting something its hard to get it exact, and there's some confusing crossover between detection features that seem to have similar effects. Seemed stronger on kick and snare than hats/OH/toms where it struggled a bit.
The included samples...... I'd imagine they're pretty useless for 99% of people who visit this site. I hate the kind of "one size fits all" approach where they presume a few plugins can transform a blandly recorded kit into something for any genre. The room they tracked in is enormous and is pretty noticeable on the OH mic tracks. All the room mic options are enormous and frankly way too big for most drum tracking situations. Its more like a concert hall than some of the classic drum rooms previous SDX's have recorded in in the past (Henson/Avatar/Hit Factory/Warehouse/Blackbird/Grandmaster/Sound City). The tunings are generally too high/pingy/choked for my tastes too. Being able to mix & match sounds is nice, as is some of the processing options to control the envelope, but it almost feels with this library that you have to go in with the intention of getting your hands dirty to get something exciting out of it. Not the philosophy I'd go into a drum tracking session with at all.
I'll most likely delete the included library as I can't think of a single situation where it'll do a better job than an SDX I already own. The sampler itself is great, so I'm happy enough just paying the upgrade price for that. Hoping future SDX's change their philosophy completely though, I think honestly they've dropped the ball here.
TheIllusionist
Chris Clancy
Where did you hear this? I asked Toontrack about this ages ago and they said they had no plans to do this but I would love it if they did
TheIllusionist
Chris Clancy
I agree with this so far. Not played about with it much but it does sound like a whole library of amazingly recorded late 70's/80's drums which is unfortunately of little use to me right now. There really isn't much in the way off hard, punchy drums that I've found so far. Of course I can use a transient designer to try and add a bit but then we're getting into the "why am I needing to do this". Looking forward to some expansions for this new sampler which are more heavy rock/metal performed. Maybe November will bring that.
Megin
Member
Well how it sounds on its own isn't interesting. It's how it sounds in a mix that matters. Why not import samples and blend to taste? That's after all how metal drums are defined nowadays anyway. I'm quite fed up with that like most modern metal mixes. They sound more or less the same. There will never be a perfect metal SDX that will satisfy like 90% users here on Sneap forum. No matter what will be released we can count on one thing here though: whining, whining and some more whining.
Machinated
Member
How it sounds on its own isn't interesting? on its own, it largely sounds like thin drum heads tuned high in a gigantic room. How often is that going to be an optimal starting point for a lot of music?
This is such a ridiculous stance - I'm rarely working on metal these days, but I just commented on how these samples wouldn't be of much use to people who were working on it. Even for much of the music I work on, these simply aren't to my tastes, and that's got nothing to do with however long I spend mixing them - that goes for absolutely any drum recording ever. It's 2017, drum software libraries are EVERYWHERE and there's a hell of a lot of choice.
Why not import samples and blend to taste? why not just pick the right sounds from the start? Why settle for something that's lacking?
If I'm recording drums myself, I don't go in with the attitude of picking the wrong room/drums/tunings, then doing no processing at all and then rely on heavy processing and sample replacement to get my where I need. I own a ton of SDX and EZX's and there will never be one thats perfect for every situation. No one would ever argue that.
But my opinion is this is the worst sounding SDX library since DFHS 1.
