Request Superior 3 SDX Vintage & Dry Drums

[wagzisnotadrummer]

Toontrack! Congrats on the new Superior Drummer 3. Now that...

Toontrack! Congrats on the new Superior Drummer 3.

Now that we have new software, please, please, release a new SDX for SD3 with high-quality, very dry drums. For years, I have been requesting more dry, low-tuned, punchy drums. Many of us are chasing that classic SUPER-DRY drum sound. Can you help us out?

Examples of what I’d like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOW2vU55es

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwUJuCeESAs

Also, I already have C&V. It’s not quite dry enough (can’t get what I want with gates, envelope controls, and transient designers), and it needs more low tuned snares. Plus, many of the C&V snares aren’t quite ‘crisp’ enough on the top end.

Toontrack! Congrats on the new Superior Drummer 3.

Now that we have new software, please, please, release a new SDX for SD3 with high-quality, very dry drums. For years, I have been requesting more dry, low-tuned, punchy drums. Many of us are chasing that classic SUPER-DRY drum sound. Can you help us out?

Examples of what I’d like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOW2vU55es

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwUJuCeESAs

Also, I already have C&V. It’s not quite dry enough (can’t get what I want with gates, envelope controls, and transient designers), and it needs more low tuned snares. Plus, many of the C&V snares aren’t quite ‘crisp’ enough on the top end.

1

Thanked by: David Metoyer

Topic

[ron fountenberry]

Know this thread is a few years old, but Past to Future drums has many of these sounds. I know it’s NOT remotely close to SD but simply for those sounds it works well.

[Thomas.Combe]

Has anyone tried the Rooms of Hansa SDX? It looks like it has some organically dampened kits recorded in small spaces. The drum sound on Beck’s ‘Lonesome Tears’ is what I’m going for. I have had some good success taking out room mics and playing with envelopes etc in the regular SD3 library, but it seems to me that this kind of defeats the purpose of having a beautifully recorded sample library. I want the raw recordings to reflect the sound I’m after! But yes, has anyone tried the Rooms of Hansa SDX to see if this gets close?

[WJamesM]

I don’t personally believe that this can be achieved with processing after the fact (envelopes, transient shapers, compression, eq, whatever). To be authentic it has to be baked into the samples with:

. . . a very, VERY, dead room

. . . deadened skins on the drums (tape, towels,    wallets, blankets, foam, bricks, etc.)

. . . no bottom (resonant) skins on the toms or kick

. . . mic placement often inside the toms (and    kick), very close to the top skin

. . . a playing technique that is very dynamic, and snappy from the wrist

Trying to get there with samples recorded without these techniques is swimming against a very strong current. Can you make an electric guitar sound like an acoustic guitar? Sorta. But an acoustic guitar is the better way to go for that sound.

1

Thanked by: Jeff Anderson

[Jeff Anderson]

Well said, and I agree for the most part. I would want a few options where the drummer “plays quietly” a la Joey Waronker. If that means fewer loud/high velocity samples, it’s worth it.

(Style discussion starts around 17:48.)

1

Thanked by: David Metoyer

[WJamesM]

What a great interview. Thanks for posting that. Joey’s tales of having to tell studio engineers that they’ve set up the mic’s incorrectly, or live engineers that their gates are too “deep”, for how he plays, really shows how naturally biased the industry is these days against this playing style.

I was thinking more about this today and it took me to revisiting Alan White’s playing/sound on Lennon’s Imagine album, specifically How?. The little fill around 3:07-3:10 is it for me.

I mean, I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but with hundreds (or thousands) of drum sample packs out there you’d think someone would have cover it somewhere. Maybe they have but I’m struggling to find it.

• This post was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by WJamesM.

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Thanked by: Jeff Anderson

[John]

Hi,

there are damped drums sampled in some libraries. I just made a short groove in SD3 with Chris Whitten MIDI from the C+V SDX and ran it thru a couple of libraries:

C+V

Decades

UK Pop EZX

Maybe it’s in the line of what you are looking for?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[David Metoyer]

After all this time I just now saw your post and realized you posted the claustrophobic kit. I was told years ago that’s what justice league used to get that sound so I bought it but didn’t know which kit or snare was used because it sounded real “plasticky” when I tried to use a couple of them..do you know which kits or snare can in the kit can achieve that sound? I have ez drummer and claustrophobic now just for that sound

[WJamesM]

WJamesM wrote:

What a great interview. Thanks for posting that. Joey’s tales of having to tell studio engineers that they’ve set up the mic’s incorrectly, or live engineers that their gates are too “deep”, for how he plays, really shows how naturally biased the industry is these days against this playing style.

I was thinking more about this today and it took me to revisiting Alan White’s playing/sound on Lennon’s Imagine album, specifically How?. The little fill around 3:07-3:10 is it for me.

I mean, I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but with hundreds (or thousands) of drum sample packs out there you’d think someone would have cover it somewhere. Maybe they have but I’m struggling to find it.

• This post was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by WJamesM.

It occurred to me while making my morning coffee that I should probably clarify that posting this old Lennon link was more about an extremely dry drum recording that I find fascinating, but not so much about the dead, damped, or muffled drums that are also being discussed here. I think sometimes those two things get conflated in these conversations – I know that I have a habit of veering from one to the other when really they’re two different things (that often coexist, but don’t have to).

Along those lines I was thinking about the drum recording in Fleetwood Mac‘s Dreams – an oft quoted example of very dry, very immediate, somewhat damped, drums. Came across this magazine interview from 1978 where they discuss in great detail the recording of that whole album (including the fabled issue of worn out tapes and having to resync every overdub to the backup master tapes by ear with no other way of keeping the timing on other than manually riding the speed while listening to the phasing of the high hats). Quite fascinating stuff, and illuminating. It’s fun to mythologize about recording to tape, but what a nightmare it could be!

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Recording-Engineer/70s/Recording-1978-04.pdf

[blaze]

That Jake Reed video was great! That’s the sound! …or one version of it.

Thanks John Rammell for posting clips of the dry drums from existing libraries, and yes it’s in line, but doesn’t nail it…especially considering that Toontrack is about doing things thoroughly and excellently.

Thanks to WJames for stating what seems obvious: “I don’t personally believe that this can be achieved with processing after the fact (envelopes, transient shapers, compression, eq, whatever). To be authentic it has to be baked into the samples…” And also for pointing out the distinction between dry and damped drums.

I want both dry and damped drums. I want a drum sound that ends quickly. I don’t want over-ring from the drum, or the room.

You can add me to the list of people who have been waiting for years, decades, for good dry drum sampling.

Toontrack, the dry drum thing is not just not just nostalgia. Dry damped drums open up a huge amount of musical space for other instruments to fit into. They work great in a lot of styles.

I ended up here because I’ve just spent an hour going through all the audio demos wondering if there’s a kit I can use to do this.

[Steen Waldorf]

Maybe this example would fit your needs.

• This post was modified 2 years ago by Steen Waldorf.

[Brian Coulson Coulson]

Jake Reed just released his second Super Dead Drums  sample pack Vol 2. It sounds AWESOME!!! Jake has mastered exactly what everyone on this thread wants so bad.

Toontracks!!! You would do well to do an expansion pack and hire Jake Reed to do the drums. He has mastered this quintessential tone. He is the guy who you should showcase with this new EZX. I know it would be super popular. I would buy it in a heartbeat. I own Jake’s original sample pack of Super Dead Drums and I have to laboriously import them into Superior Drummer 3 but it would be soooo nice to just have them automatically in Superior Drummer. Please Please Please Toon Tracks… please listen to what your loyal customers have been craving for. A bonus to this dream expansion pack would also focus on more 60’s-70’s rock style drum fills. Drum fills are always the weak link in Superior Drummer 3 for me. I always struggle finding fills that I hear in my head. Anyhow… this is my request to Tune tracks. Please!!!

• This post was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Brian Coulson Coulson.

[Jeff Anderson]

Addictive Drums recently released “Vintage Dead Drums” plus an upgrade to their UI: https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/addictive_drums_2/adpak/vintage_dead

Lots of positive reviews and the samples sound awesome. And it’s on sale now for $39! At least they get it. Think I’ll be ditching Toontrack at this point. Seven years after this thread started and still no SDX library dedicated solely to the 70’s/dry/dampened/dead sound. What a shame!

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Thanked by: Craig Rogers

[Craig Rogers]

@jeff Anderson Thank you!!! Thank you!!! The Vintage Dead Drums is exactly what I needed. I’m so happy with them, I also got their Vintage Dry expansion. I sent the Roland midi drums into the Vintage Dead kit and it sounded so good during our weekly jam. Big smiles all around!

[Author]

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