New sounds

[andrushkiwt]

I write hard rock songs, and I have to say I’m disappointed with the new kits, particularly the snares. To make it simple, it seems that the drummer did not hit the pieces nearly as hard as they did on, say, The Rock Warehouse expansion. I can’t convincingly place a new snare into a song of mine, and it’s for reasons other than that particular snare not being a right fit – it’s purely because the maxed hits are very tame. Therefore, I’ll have to stick to the Rock Warehouse expansion for snares and hats. The new snares have a great tone, but they were not hit with hard rock tunes in mind, apparently. There’s no hard crack/whip at even the maxed out velocities.

https://soundcloud.com/andrushkiwt

Topic

[Scott]

The intention we had when creating the core library for Superior Drummer 3 was to give the users something that can be used in basically any genre. Having that mindset, and also keeping in mind how we where designing the software, with all the new effects and stacking possibilities, the sampling process had its natural course.
Having said that, there are some things worth mentioning.

– Most other SDX’s and EZX’s are recorded with some kind of compression and/or EQ. The Superior Drummer 3 core library is not!
– Contrary to many of our other libraries, we do not play the rimshot on velocity level 127. Instead we play the hardest center hit.
– The size/weight of the tools for each drum, like 5A, 5B, 2B, 7A standard and 7A round tip, was selected, based upon what we thought sounded best for that particular drum in the Galaxy Main Hall. This of course affect the overall sound of the drum.
– We did break a number of drum heads during the recordings.

If you want the drums to have more attack, you do what any engineer would do (which is the way we intended), add whatever effects you need into the signal chain. The samples lend themself very well to heavy processing due to the fact that we kept the signal chains as clean as we possibly could. If you need the Snare specifically to “whack” more, then you can stack the rimshot on the center hit and set the Velocity Gate so that it only plays the Rimshot at 127.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[olliepudge]

@Scott said:
The intention we had when creating the core library for Superior Drummer 3 was to give the users something that can be used in basically any genre. Having that mindset, and also keeping in mind how we where designing the software, with all the new effects and stacking possibilities, the sampling process had its natural course.
Having said that, there are some things worth mentioning.

– Most other SDX’s and EZX’s are recorded with some kind of compression and/or EQ. The Superior Drummer 3 core library is not!
– Contrary to many of our other libraries, we do not play the rimshot on velocity level 127. Instead we play the hardest center hit.
– The size/weight of the tools for each drum, like 5A, 5B, 2B, 7A standard and 7A round tip, was selected, based upon what we thought sounded best for that particular drum in the Galaxy Main Hall. This of course affect the overall sound of the drum.
– We did break a number of drum heads during the recordings.

If you want the drums to have more attack, you do what any engineer would do (which is the way we intended), add whatever effects you need into the signal chain. The samples lend themself very well to heavy processing due to the fact that we kept the signal chains as clean as we possibly could. If you need the Snare specifically to “whack” more, then you can stack the rimshot on the center hit and set the Velocity Gate so that it only plays the Rimshot at 127.  

Nice tip on stacking the rim shot Scott! I’ve never thought of trying that but I’m going to now. Thanks!

[andrushkiwt]

Thanks for the long response. Much appreciated. I’ll look into that tip, but I don’t believe there’s a need for engineering a hard snare hit…it should come very close to that from the outset without tricks.

While you’re addressing midi velocities…

I’m unsure if its been addressed, but the DAW “Studio One 2 Pro” by Presonus has MIDI piano roll velocities ranging from 0-100. I’m not saying this is the issue, because the 100 is equivalent to 127 on standard piano rolls… But I will contact PreSonus or search their forums about this.

https://soundcloud.com/andrushkiwt

[Mario Krušelj]

They’re likely showing percentage rather than actual velocity value. There’s probably/hopefully an option to change that, but I dunno. It’s a bad design, for sure.

[olliepudge]

@andrushkiwt said:
I write hard rock songs, and I have to say I’m disappointed with the new kits, particularly the snares. To make it simple, it seems that the drummer did not hit the pieces nearly as hard as they did on, say, The Rock Warehouse expansion. I can’t convincingly place a new snare into a song of mine, and it’s for reasons other than that particular snare not being a right fit – it’s purely because the maxed hits are very tame. Therefore, I’ll have to stick to the Rock Warehouse expansion for snares and hats. The new snares have a great tone, but they were not hit with hard rock tunes in mind, apparently. There’s no hard crack/whip at even the maxed out velocities.  

I’m pretty picky about snares myself. One thing I’ve been experimenting with is starting with a snare with the wires off and then stacking other snares with the wires on under it at lower volumes until I get the sound I want. Then I add EQ, compression, etc. afterwards. I’ve been getting some interesting results doing this. It seems to give the snare a little more “umph” to it if that makes sense. Or more balls? Nothing drives me more crazy than a snare that sounds too bright where the sound of the snare wires stand out more than the hit of the head. I know you can adjust the volume of the snare bottom too, but I’m getting better results doing it this way. Just an idea to try out. Hope this helps.

[diefenbaker]

@Scott said:
If you need the Snare specifically to “whack” more, then you can stack the rimshot on the center hit and set the Velocity Gate so that it only plays the Rimshot at 127.  

How do I do this? I dont know how to stack the rimshot on the center hit.

Thanks

[Author]

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