well I got SD3 the day it came out and made a lot of mistakes setting it up with my edrum. I set the midi in notes not in the edrum tab and also found a few bugs. Since then I didn’t change much except for getting three zones working on the snare and fiddling with hi hat control. I also stayed away from sorting out my mapping as I had it working although it could cause problems with me messing with the incoming note assignment.
so I had an operation last week so had a bit of time on my hands to just sit and sort out SD3 and am so glad I did. I erased all my settings and went for default and loaded the TD30 edrum template. Now this is great as it sorts out about 90% of your problems. Next I turned to mapping, this time using the edrum settings. I found it much easier to select note numbers rather than note names. I recorded all my toms as I filled up all my aux triggers with extra cymbals and toms. I then wrote down every single note number for each one. The problem with the standard td30 mapping is it gives what is my Tom 2 the Tom 1 settings so I then went through manually putting the two note numbers for drum and rim and crash and tip into the edrum settings. I didn’t have to do them all as a lot were correct. I also did positional sensing for three zones on the snare.After I was happy with this I then saved my own version of my mappings. Very important to be able to play the other kits.
I then built nearly every kit I wanted and saved as a kit and project. So I have now got every kit as I want them with 5 toms 5 cymbals and Roland BT1 for side stick.
I must admit this exercise and setting up again has been a great exercise in learning SD3 again and rekindled my love for it. Since I did this I just can’t stop playing the kits. The sound is truly brilliant and the triggering fantastic even with what some would say is the troublesome VH12.
Now I love to practice and play with just the raw sounds as it sounds more like a real drum kit. What getting my mappings and settings right has done though is that it has allowed me to try out some of the presets. I originally hated these and some are still not to my taste but that’s to be expected. Now I can record a song using the raw settings to play my part in using the TD30 and then select a processed sound, tweak it a bit and it slots right into the track without me making any more adjustments or change mappings.
The combination of a td30 and SD3 really is a marriage made in heaven. Also listening to the presets has shown me how to get some fabulous sounds in the final mix and copy other people’s sounds.
brilliant job Toontrack. It can be a little difficult though to work out how some of the settings work but well worth the effort.
SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors
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Thanked by: Henrik and John
