Hi,

I don’t have any experience with the EZXs so I can’t shed any light there.

As to a must have SDX, what sort of music do you make stylistically? I find all the SDXs to have different ‘flavors’ – certainly you could use any of them in multiple genres but arguably certain SDXs lend themselves more to particular styles than others. Here’s my take (bear in mind this is partly objective and partly subjective):

New York Studios Vol 2 – in my opinion has the best room sounds of any of the SDXs (although I haven’t tried Music City). The Allaire room in particular is just stunning. The kit pieces are a bit more varied than what comes with the Avatar kit too. So you get these big rooms with different kit pieces but recorded by the same team that did Avatar so it still sounds like it ‘fits’ with Avatar. Great for anything ‘rock’.

If you want something that offers a very different sound to the New York stuff (for some variety) then C&V would be worth a look. It’s a much drier sound (not much room) but still has a nice ambience to it, really great if you want a more ‘intimate’ drum sound or more retro feel, compared to the more ‘big rock’ sound of the NY stuff. The drums themselves sound amazing to me – in my opinion this expansion is the one that makes me say “man, that is a beautiful sounding snare” or “wow, that’s an amazing sounding kit”. This SDX to me is about drums sounding great as an instrument rather than just as a production value, if you understand what I mean

The metal foundry – requires more work ‘massaging’ the drums than the other SDXs IMO (because the drums are unprocessed) but means you’ve got the ultimate control to make it your own sound. Also good for styles other than metal, but requires a lot of mixing. Great sounding cymbals in this one, and lots of kit-pieces to choose from.

Evil drums – sounds kinda like a rockier version of C&V. Really amazing sounding drums there and 6 kits to choose from!

Hope that helps you to some extent. Honestly, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them but it’s hard to say which is a ‘must have’ without knowing your musical tastes. For me I think my favorite is C&V, and it provides a very different sound/feel to Avatar which can’t be a bad thing (variety).

As for the midi, the Songwriter’s DrumPack is awesome IMO.

Cheers,
Jeremy.