Many ways it can be done and it really depends on what you are doing. I am happy to share what I do but this works best for me based on following:

1. I am an E-drummer and record in MIDI in Cubase using SD3 as a plugin. I write and record drums for other musicians and supply audio drum tracks.
2. I Mix and supply stereo drum tracks or up to 15 stem audio drum tracks. I always use parallel reverb and parallel compression as part of this
3. I am always aiming for “real” acoustic drum sounds
4. I use the philosophy of getting the drums sounding as good as possible in SD3 (create all my own user kits) prior to exporting to a DAW for further processing.

So my workflow is:

a. Use Sd3 to set up my own user kits and route via buses to 15 outputs (plus a stereo output as well). I have about 89 user kits across different SDX libraries

b. I use all parameters in drums tab and parameters/effects/sends in mixer tab to tailor drum sounds and also create my own individual channels for each cymbal (and any additional user instruments) that also bleed to OH. (see attached “sd3 drums tab” and “sd3 mixer and outputs”)

c.  Once I finish this in SD3 it is ready to use in DAW (mine is Cubase Pro 12).

d. I have a preset project in Cubase where use SD3 as a plugin and route each of the 16 Sd3 outputs to a channel in Cubase and these route to 16 group channels which then route to a drum group Bus. (see attached “cubase outputs 1”, “cubase outputs 2” and “cubase output routing” – in next post)

e. I record MIDI drums in Cubase with SD3 as plugin – I use 16-bit kits to minimise CPU load and latency. Once MIDI is recorded I can make minor alterations if required and the BIG advantage is at this stage I can pick any of my 89 user kits or mix and match. I also use 24-bit kits for all mixing and exporting audio. I also import any other audio tracks (for all other instruments) into Cubase so I can mix drums to suit. (see attached “recorded MIDI Cubase” – in next post)

f. I use SD3 plugin FIRST to make any adjustments to drum sounds and use the same combination as per b. above. I normally use drums tab to get correct mix of instrument levels but can also change mixer channel levs or Bus levels or individual output levels. It is SO FLEXIBLE.

g. THEN I use Cubase group channels to further alter overall drum bus volume (and any individual group channels) to suit the song I am drumming for. I also use Cubase effects and other plugins in Cubase at this stage to finalise the sounds and the drum mix.

h. Once I am happy with it all, I then export audio mixdown in Cubase (Mp3 or Wav) and either route to a single stereo track (drums only and also full mix with drums) or to 15 drums only audio stems.

i. Quite complex and took a while to set it all up but now I can record drums very quickly and also get a final result very quickly with lots of different drum kit sounds.

Hope this helps but remember it is specific to what I am doing as an E-drummer recording drum tracks which may not suit others.

I am doing this detail as I know I would have loved this type of help in my early days of SD3 and Cubase. cheers, Andrew