Disappointed on Superior Drummer 3 GUI

[Corrado Magalotti]

Hi All.
I’ve got Superior Drummer 3 and it’s working.
I’m trying the standalone version because in ProTools 2018.4 wasn’t able to stay synced in timeline with tracker. (probably it’s my fault or protools timeline, I don’t know)

The point is that, why the application doesn’t respect at all any of the normal shortcuts?
As example why “undo” command is alt+z
Or if I press cmd+S, the project wasn’t save and I have to select it on the menu?
anybody here it feels same doubt?

I like this app and I really appreciate the work done from 2.0 version, but I’m not very satisfied and I fear I’ll have to relegate to secondary editing roles.

all the best,
Corrado
Tam Tam Studio
Italy

Topic

[Henrik]

The reason for not using the standard keyboard shortcuts is because they can’t be used when Superior Drummer 3 is run in a DAW. Ctrl + x will, for example, always be hijacked by the operative system, so we had to find other keyboard shortcuts. We wanted to have Superior Drummer 3 consistent in its behaviour, so we didn’t change these shortcuts in the standalone version, versus the plugin version. We tried it and figured out that it would lead to more problems and confusions.

One example of this: one of the worst drawbacks of having ctrl + z (or cmd + z on Mac) to undo in the standalone was that users got used to undo things in Superior, using those keys. When the users later ran the Superior in a DAW, they still used those shortcuts, and what ctrl + z did was to undo the last thing done in the DAW, which was to add Superior as a plugin. All this meant that the Superior plugin was removed, and couldn’t be recalled to its previous state – leading to all the work done in Superior was lost…

We can’t unfortunately make a perfekt system here, where we would use the standard keyboard shortcuts that everyone knows about – that’s a drawback when we make plugins that operates in other hosts than our own.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share some insights in how complex all the decisions we make are! Sometimes we have to go with what’s least potentially damaging for the user. However – getting feedback from you, our users, is crucial, so we can make better products – because we know that they still can get better 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Juicy]

It makes perfekt Sense to me Well said Henrik.

[gatshredder]

I know this is an old post but I am a recent purchaser of SD3 and I am having the same frustrations. I can see the logic with your explanation as to why you have a lack of shortcuts but honestly for the price you pay for this VST and how hi tech everything is that is an awful excuse. I  feel I’ve wasted my money, as great as the sounds are my work flow has been ruined. Simple things like being able to drag the midi I inputted from my DAW into the VST seem like such frustrating tasks.

TJ

[John]

gatshredder wrote:

Simple things like being able to drag the midi I inputted from my DAW into the VST seem like such frustrating tasks.

Hi, this is not by design but a limitation of the majority of hosts/DAWs out there. The host does not allow for dragging files from the host to the plugin.

The easiest way to get MIDI from your host track into SD3 is to enable Rec on the SD3 Song Track with ‘Follow Host’ enabled and then play through the MIDI in your host.

 

BR,

John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

1

Thanked by: Henrik

[Henrik]

gatshredder wrote:

I can see the logic with your explanation as to why you have a lack of shortcuts but honestly for the price you pay for this VST and how hi tech everything is that is an awful excuse

We are currently developing a system where the keyboard shortcuts will be enhanced, and this will be included in the next update.

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[gatshredder]

Firstly thanks for the reply and secondly I am glad there are efforts being made to enhance the GUI and improve the workflow. At the moment the lack of workflow is seriously killing creativity and I know I am not alone in that. Fortunately the sound of superior drummer 3 is…well it’s superior to everything else haha but yes looking forward to those updates.

[admbmb]

Hi, question almost 3 years later.

I’m finding that in addition to keyboard shortcut not working when I have the window open in Logic, but my keyboard simply doesn’t work. If I want to change the label on a mixer channel, I can’t. All my keystrokes go to Logic. I’ve tried the “Enable Keyboard Shortcuts in DAWs” toggle both ways, still no avail. It never did this before on my MacBook Air, I’ve upgraded to a Mac Pro and now all of a sudden I’m having these issues. What gives?

Thanks.

Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

[Author]

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