Toontrack BETA testing something......

I don't understand the Toontrack hate. Most of their products sound good to me. The marketing and practical use for their product line is as songwriting tools. The products tend to do what they say on the box.

Recording real drums or setting up your own processing chain is obviously preferable but its not always practical or going to yield a better end result. Recording truly great sounding drums is not easy or remotely affordable to do often. I challenge everyone who bemoans the Metal Foundry expansion to show me a clip of a drum kit they recorded that sounds as good or better.

I guess I would agree that VSTI cymbals are kind of lackluster by the very nature of sampling something as dynamic as a cymbal. Viewing it in that way I'm hard pressed to think of another virtual solution that's better in a significant way. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is room for improvement and optimization in their product line but maybe consumers of these products should take a realistic look at what we expect from virtual instruments. Can they ever really replace an actual musician and would you want it to?
 
I guess I would agree that VSTI cymbals are kind of lackluster by the very nature of sampling something as dynamic as a cymbal. Viewing it in that way I'm hard pressed to think of another virtual solution that's better in a significant way. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is room for improvement and optimization in their product line but maybe consumers of these products should take a realistic look at what we expect from virtual instruments. Can they ever really replace an actual musician and would you want it to?

I don't think they're meant to replace the musician, they're meant to replace the instrument the musician plays.

I read that the previous The Crown album (Doomsday King) had sampled drums. The drummer played an E-Kit at his house and sent the MIDI data off to have the sounds added later. Sounded realistic enough to me.
 
Don't forget that in the end the listeners/fans do not know the difference or care until, maybe, they're told. Only music snobs/musicians/producers/ect care. ;)
 
My only complaint about Toontrack products is that they are so good and that so many people use them that I can instantly pick out a sample set by hearing the song, and that is more of a giveaway of the fact that drums are programmed than anything else when it's done well.
 
@JeffTD Couldn't agree more, especially the ride, everyone seems to use the same.

I'm still very happy with SD2.0, but i'd upgrade if they release a new version.
 
Was considering getting SD2, but I've already got EZD2 and several expansions, so I can't really justify it..

My thoughts... until last week. I bought SD2 in order to use Metal Machinery + the multiple possibilities that EZD2 does not offer (even if it's a great tool I also use) All the EZX can be used in SD2 so it's not lost in all cases.
 
I've actually been experiencing a very weird problem with SD2 and the Made of Metal EZX. Basically, I decided to send some of the kit pieces to their own respective audio-out channels for some minor additional processing and Sonar (Platinum, 2k15, X4 whatever you want to call it) started stuttering and dropping out the next time I started playback to make sure everything was sent out correctly. I hadn't applied any additional third-party plugins yet. Raising the buffer setting in ASIO solved the problem. It's very weird because I have sent all of my audio out like that for the past couple of years (since I've been using SD2) in various hosts (including Sonar) with other SDXs and never had an issue or a hickup. But the first time I try to send an EZX to multi-outs, it starts choking. (Made of Metal is the only EZX I own, btw, so I can't try this with other EZXs)