Superior Drummer 3 for classic rock?

[ChristopherDuncan]

Hey, guys.

I’ve had EZ Drummer 2 for quite some time and very much enjoyed it. A few months ago I bought Superior and find it an equally well done product. The updated UI makes it as easy as, well, EZ to navigate.

That said, after spending time with the wealth of kits available, signature and otherwise, it seems to be very heavily weighted toward metal. The kicks and toms have that signature “clicky” sound and other attributes that work great in modern metal. However, classic rock wants fatter sounds since it’s a different style of music, so the metal kits don’t fit.

EZ has a lot of kits that work very well for classic rock. And while it’s true that they all show up in Superior for me to use, because they weren’t created for SD3 they don’t have all the outputs and mix flexibility (which is why I bought SD). I know I can bring up basic kits, start tweaking the mics, comps, eq, etc. and get there, but ease of use is one of the reasons I reach for EZ when songwriting. I’m hoping I’m just missing something in SD so that I don’t have to start from scratch and reinvent a number of wheels.

Does anyone have any suggestions on kits for old school 80s classic rock (think Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Green Day, etc.)? Love the software, but keep going back to EZ because I just can’t find those sounds in SD.

Would be grateful for any insights.

Thanks,

Chris

Topic

[Antinet]

So SD isn’t making it possible to bring in the EZ kits in? That’s surprising. They really should rework the EZ kits, throw some together and make them work. Especially for the flagship product. You didn’t like what’s in the Bob Rock collection? That sounds pretty attractive to me. Too bad it never goes on sale. I also am not into the hollow metal sound. (Bob Rock produced Metallica, and that sounded more hard rock than current metal).

[Scott]

Antinet wrote:

So SD isn’t making it possible to bring in the EZ kits in? That’s surprising. They really should rework the EZ kits, throw some together and make them work. Especially for the flagship product. You didn’t like what’s in the Bob Rock collection? That sounds pretty attractive to me. Too bad it never goes on sale. I also am not into the hollow metal sound. (Bob Rock produced Metallica, and that sounded more hard rock than current metal).

All EZXs load in S3 just fine and sound and work the same in S3 as they do in EZD2.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ChristopherDuncan]

Scott wrote:

All EZXs load in S3 just fine and sound and work the same in S3 as they do in EZD2.

My EZ2 stuff loads fine in SD and sounds the same in SD as it does EZ, but they don’t have the same options, e.g. number of busses, etc. that the native SD kits do. And the additional busses and other mix features are why I bought SD in the first place.

That being the case, there’s no advantage to running them in SD, so I simply load EZ. Currently, SD sits unused.

• This post was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by ChristopherDuncan.

[ChristopherDuncan]

Antinet wrote:

You didn’t like what’s in the Bob Rock collection?

Is that one of the stock kits that ships with SD? If it’s an add on I’m not familiar with it.

I auditioned the stock kits in SD and as I mentioned, stylistically they seem to heavily favor the metal vibe. Nothing wrong with metal, of course. It’s just not what I play.

[redlogic]

Custom & Vintage SDX?

Macmini 2019 3.2 GHz 6-Core i7, 32GB RAM, MacOS 10.15.2, LogicProX 10.4.8, FF400, UAD2 Satellite Octo

[ChristopherDuncan]

redlogic wrote:

Custom & Vintage SDX?

I appreciate the suggestion.

I have no doubt that there are lots of packs you can buy. My observation was that Superior Drummer seems to focus on metal with what’s included, which is great if you’re a metal guy. Dinosaurs like me who play classic rock, not so much. With EZ Drummer, there were lots of kits included that fit my genre nicely but that doesn’t seem to be the case with SD unless I’m missing something.

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 5 years, 10 months ago by ChristopherDuncan.

[Scott]

ChristopherDuncan wrote:

redlogic wrote:

Custom & Vintage SDX?

I appreciate the suggestion.

I have no doubt that there are lots of packs you can buy. My observation was that Superior Drummer seems to focus on metal with what’s included, which is great if you’re a metal guy. Dinosaurs like me who play classic rock, not so much. With EZ Drummer, there were lots of kits included that fit my genre nicely but that doesn’t seem to be the case with SD unless I’m missing something.

SDXs are, by design, raw. They can be mixed to sound many different ways given the type of MIDI that is sent to the sounds (velocity plays a big role). Mixing techniques (compression, eq, gating, et al) will, of course, make the drums for in various styles.

The kits that ship with S3 that were recorded by George Massenberg are very versatile. Also the Roots SDX, C&V SDX, Independent SDX, Music City SDX, are decidedly not metal (although, like i said above, can be mixed that way).

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ChristopherDuncan]

Scott wrote:

ChristopherDuncan wrote:

redlogic wrote:

Custom & Vintage SDX?

I appreciate the suggestion.

I have no doubt that there are lots of packs you can buy. My observation was that Superior Drummer seems to focus on metal with what’s included, which is great if you’re a metal guy. Dinosaurs like me who play classic rock, not so much. With EZ Drummer, there were lots of kits included that fit my genre nicely but that doesn’t seem to be the case with SD unless I’m missing something.

SDXs are, by design, raw. They can be mixed to sound many different ways given the type of MIDI that is sent to the sounds (velocity plays a big role). Mixing techniques (compression, eq, gating, et al) will, of course, make the drums for in various styles.

The kits that ship with S3 that were recorded by George Massenberg are very versatile. Also the Roots SDX, C&V SDX, Independent SDX, Music City SDX, are decidedly not metal (although, like i said above, can be mixed that way).

Hey, Scott.

Thanks for the feedback.

I do understand that the raw, basic SDXs are just very good recordings of how the drum kits actually sound. Certainly half the battle. However, in addition to that, when you buy SD there are a lot of mix ready, processed kits that you can just grab and go with. Like EZ before it, these processed kits give you a great sound right out of the box. Point your MIDI at it, rock and roll.

What I was asking about (and probably not phrasing it well enough) was my perception that of these processed offerings, they pretty much all seem to be geared to metal. If I want big classic rock style drums, the tools are certainly there for me to create them. However, I was looking for some good classic rock mix ready offerings side by side with all the metal stuff – without having to spend the time rolling my own. That’s what I meant when I said, “I’m hoping I’m just missing something in SD so that I don’t have to start from scratch and reinvent a number of wheels.”

[Scott]

I’m not in front of my studio computer at the moment but, not being a metal guy either, I use many of the ‘not metal’ presets in S3 all the time. I’ll try to put a list together.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ChristopherDuncan]

Scott wrote:

I’m not in front of my studio computer at the moment but, not being a metal guy either, I use many of the ‘not metal’ presets in S3 all the time. I’ll try to put a list together.

Thanks, man. I appreciate the help.

[Scott]

Ok, so some my faves are in the Blues/Funk/Jazz preset folder in S3. Big Funk. Charlies Sheltzer. Dry Funk.

Then I like a lot of the Tight/Dry presets for rock. Dry Seventies. Indie Dry (I turn down/off the reverb channel in the Mixer). Warm Ayotte Tape is great too. Actually, so so many not metal presets in S3.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ChristopherDuncan]

Thanks, Scott.

I’m looking more for big 80s rock drums like Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, etc. than dry and tight / funky, but I’ll dig a little deeper.

I appreciate the effort.

[Phenix 2]

you are not 100% happy  with SDD3 and i would like to have SDD3 not thinking i would be happy for all the sounds too lol

so, if you want to stay with EZD 2 +EZX

https://youtu.be/hgGrhw5I7Ig  listen to these sounds and the other videos can help you to find your sound with EZX

and EZD2 too

With EZD2 +EZX (i have a lot of EZX), i would say

for the  80’s> rock ! and EZD2

for Bon jovi the 80’s >  try solid rock ezx or Hard rock EZX (Bob Rock) or with a good settings with EZD2 too

for green day, wait for the  pop punk EZX  (but you know Green day is band of  the 90’s not 80’s)

alt rock EZX has great natural snares : it’s a versatile pack

but for the kinds of snares (80’s)

>Metal ! ezx has a snare to play like in the 80’s

> Hard rock ezx too (think about Scorpions in 1984)

You like drums, iconic sounds and drum plugins ?
> Go and see my Youtube channel, instagram, Soundcloud and TikTok : like and and subscribe !

• The post has been modified 3 times, last modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Phenix 2.

[ChristopherDuncan]

Hi, x_name.

Thanks for the help.

I don’t have any trouble getting heavy 80s classic rock drums, e.g. Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, etc. from EZ. It ships with lots of good kits for that straight out of the box. The reason I upgraded to SD was to get the additional mix / mic breakout capabilities. If I use the EZX files from EZ (which you can do in SD), I get the sounds but am limited to EZ’s mix capabilities, so there would be no point staying in SD for that scenario.

Scott seemed mostly interested in demonstrating that SD was “more than metal,” but I still haven’t seen any recommendations for stock SD kits that have the same kind of heavy 80s classic rock drums that EZ had (blues / funk / jazz / dry aren’t really appropriate for Whitesnake). Building them from scratch appears to be the only option.

While I may one day go to the trouble of building a kit in SD from the ground up, part of the appeal of Toontrack products is ease of use. Both EZ and SD are excellent products and very, very easy to get good sounds without having to reinvent the wheel. Which types of sounds is another story.

EZ’s stock rock kits come prepared for heavy 80s rock right out of the box. SD’s stock rock kits come prepared for metal right out of the box. Unless I’m missing something, it completely neglects the 80s rock style I’m looking for, and that EZ has. So, in terms of the pre-built kits, it feels like paying for the flagship product and losing something that the entry level product included.

Admittedly, classic rock is an ancient art form these days. If 90% of your market wants metal, then it makes sense to heavily weight your product to metal. However, since EZ wasn’t so heavily weighted to metal, it was a surprise to me that SD is (something I didn’t discover until I’d spent the money and installed the product).

So far, the only options I see are to use the EZ kits and lose the additional capabilities that I bought SD for, or build a custom kit from scratch instead of using a pre-built stock kit, something I bought Toontrack products in general for.

That said, I do appreciate everyone’s feedback.

• This post was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by ChristopherDuncan.

[Phenix 2]

ah yes sorry

you wanted something for SDD3 only

try some sdx ? rock foundry

i think you should show us some songs in video -youtube link here of what you really want (about the drum sounds)

 

You like drums, iconic sounds and drum plugins ?
> Go and see my Youtube channel, instagram, Soundcloud and TikTok : like and and subscribe !

• This post was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Phenix 2.

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