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[Mark Williams]

Also, depending on which DAW you’re using, you may be able to set a default for the plugin that includes your changes. In Logic, for instance, you can setup any plugin with whatever settings you want, and then save that as “#default” and it will become the new default for whenever you instantiate it.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: Whitten
Yeah, I agree on all of your factors, however I feel the player is an equal major factor.
In my humble opinion, all of the virtual drum products have improved markedly since drummers with a sound and vision have been employed.

Yeah, +1 on Chris’s comments.

I really do believe that different drummers get different sounds when hitting the same drum. I’ve heard it happen a lot. Whether it’s the particular stick angle, or the way a particular strike leaves the head, or whatever, different drummers just sound different. Even on the same instruments.

But yes, in terms of the MIDI performances, the drummer in question is obviously paramount. And I’d love to anything and everything from any of the drummers mentioned above. MIDI performances? Definitely. Sample packs with them playing the hits? Sure. Sounds great. Sounds like a dream, in fact.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: Dave Modisette
Maybe you should tell him how much fun it is to do a sampling session.

Yeah, in other words, lie through your teeth.

I know it can’t possibly be fun.

But lordy, a Keltner pack or a Chamberlain pack would be an incredible addition. Or a Shawn Pelton pack. I love Shawn Pelton.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Yeah, today is the last day for that sale, I believe.
Run, don’t walk, folks. This is a great expansion pack.

EDIT: See Rail’s post below. The sale runs through March 15. My bad. (thanks, Rail!)

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

I think we’ll be hearing something official about it very soon.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

I’m very sympathetic to your opinion on this, tombuur.
While I very, very much appreciate the “one kit in one room” philosophy, I also think the X-Drum thing is pretty annoying, and I think there must be a simpler way to do it. I like being able to add the microphone channels to the mixer, though, and I do a fair amount of snare (and sometimes kick) layering to get the sounds I want, so I wouldn’t want to give up that kind of ability. It’s just that I find the X-Drum method to be a bit convoluted, and it often gets confusing. I’d appreciate a simpler method.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Hi Tony,
Welcome to the community! Sorry no one has responded until now.

You’ve probably already discovered that there is a Latin Percussion EZX available that works with both EZD and Superior Drummer. As of right now, that’s the only Toontrack option for you. I have that EZX, and personally, I find it to be pretty underwhelming, to be honest. But it may suit some of your needs just fine. Who knows?

There has been a bit of talk in the past about doing a more extensive percussion set, and I believe it was around a year ago that TT said there was something in the works. But that was a year ago, so who knows what the current plan is.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

I think we need to remember that Toontrack may not set all these sales up. They may offer a discount to retailers for a certain month or whatever, but it’s up to individual retailers how they participate. I’m not sure of the details as to how Toontrack does this.

But you will never see Toontrack matching those monthly sales on their own website, for instance. They will never undercut a retailer like that. It would be really bad business practice on their part.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: JacekH

Hi,

This is my first post here. Please excuse my me English…

My wishes? More brush (for Jazz EZX) grooves 😉

Hi, Jacek, and welcome to the forums. I think you’ll find folks around here are quite helpful, so never hesitate to ask any questions you may have. It’s a friendly atmosphere.

In regards to your request for more brush grooves for the Jazz EZX (or any other sample set including brushes), you should check out the http://www.platinumsamples.com/ps/RealJazz.php MIDI Groove Pack from http://www.platinumsamples.com/index.php I haven’t personally used that particular pack, but I use their Steve Ferrone MIDI Groove Pack, and it’s excellent. They’re a great company, and I highly recommend them. They hang around on this board quite a bit, as well.

Anyway, welcome again to the community!

Cheers.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

I know some people really love Groove Monkee, but I agree with jgro002: their grooves are really way too loose as far as I’m concerned. I do use them on occasion, but when I do, I invariably have to quantize them by 75-80%. That goes a long way to getting things sorted out. It gets the hits closer to the bars and beats without being machine-like. I haven’t picked up the new Rock Songs MIDI yet, either, and I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to (aww, who am I foolin’? I know I’ll end up getting it).

I found the Songwriter’s I Pack to be interesting, and I quite like the setup of verse/chorus/bridge structure, since it’s very musical, but I personally find some of the Songwriter’s I Pack to be too busy for my tastes. Especially the fills. My favorite MIDI for SD2 has been Chris Whitten’s MIDI from the C&V pack. Especially his fills. His performances are just much more real-world to me. I also like the Steve Ferrone MIDI pack from Platinum Samples. That’s one’s quite good, and worth checking out.

Obviously, this stuff is so highly subjective it’s almost ridiculous, but I do think so many of the MIDI packs out there are just far too busy.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

I agree with Scott for sure:
you might be able to do this, but you’d be in for a long couple days.

What you *could* do, and probably fairly effectively, depending on the style of music and how the drums were played (i.e., how busy the drums parts are) is use Drumtracker to supplement your already recorded sound. You could use the one OH mic to grab your snare hits and use the one low mic to grab your kicks. Then trigger Superior with the resulting MIDI for each, and you might be able to get a pretty realistic and believable drum track. You could certainly get some room sound happening. If the parts aren’t too busy, you could draw in crashes (maybe even toms) in your DAW, but that depending on your original micing, that might not work. The biggest problem, though, is going to be the hats. Dealing with hats in this manner would steal the life out of you, my friend.

But I’ve done the above method several times when the only drums tracks were two OH mics and a kick drum mic. So it can be done. In the cases I ran into, I had enough hat from the original OH mics to get by. It was a compromise, but it worked. The client was very, very happy. The snare and the kick were cool, and made the kit sound much bigger.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Not to be a smartass, but I’m not sure there are any plugins I couldn’t live without, as long as I had some other options.

Having said that, I’ll stop being pedantic and just answer the question!

I’d say:
1. Slate Digital VCC
2. Waves API (yes, I know–technically 4 plugins)
3. Cytomic’s The Glue

If I could only have three, I’d feel pretty confident with those three.
If I couldn’t have the API Collection, I’d trade it for the Waves V-Series in heartbeat.

If I could only have ONE plugin for the coming year, it would probably be the Metric Halo Channelstrip. I could do a whole album with that plug alone, if need be.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Author]

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