Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

[Guy Rowland]

Sure thing Guy - are those additional bleeds? Meaning are there bleed files elsewhere or are all of the bleed files in that package. I'm just curious, it seems odd that they call it additional bleed.

I had to ask, I was confused too. Here's what I know so far:

Main pack - bleeds into the overheads and one of the snare mics
Room pack - all the bleeds for the main room ambience mics
Additional bleeds - everything bleeding into everything else (I'm not sure if there is surround stuff here too)
Surround packs - ????

[jtnyc]

Huh, seems odd to me that all of the kit bleed (snare into toms, toms into snare, kick into toms, snare into hats etc...) would not be in the main pack

Thanks for the info -

Man, there are some amazing kick and snare drums in here!

[playz123]

Has anyone figured out how to switch the kits from drummer to audience perspective? I typed various words into their so called manual and didn't find anything.

[jtnyc]

Has anyone figured out how to switch the kits from drummer to audience perspective? I typed various words into their so called manual and didn't find anything.

Upper left corner - mixer drop down menu - stereo reverse mixer

[playz123]

Has anyone figured out how to switch the kits from drummer to audience perspective? I typed various words into their so called manual and didn't find anything.

Upper left corner - mixer drop down menu - stereo reverse mixer

Thank you! A little different approach than before.

[jtnyc]

Keen to hear how you get on jtnyc for a) if you find any gold in the surrounds for stereo use and b) if you find an uninstall button! I figured out which files were the bleeds - 114-150 - and just removed those files, so far to no apparent ill effects.

So what I'm liking from the surrounds the most are the center (mono). This sounds great. Thick, driven attitude. Throw some aggressive compression on it and it really kicks some ass. The other one is the rear height. It's quite far and has a bit more decay than the standard ambience mics. I like to have a mic like this for just the kick and snare (and maybe the toms), but no hats or cymbals in it. This way if you need more size on the kit in a big dense chorus you can ride it up without disturbing the cymbal tone or balance. I like to really compress some of those room mics and that can really play havoc on your cymbals and get too trashy. I love Superior for the ability to customize what gets fed and what doesn't into the different mics. It opens up so many creative options.

I'm working on a basic mixer setup right now including the center and the rear height mics from the surrounds. That with all of the standard ambience mics is adding up to a kit being around 3.5 gb's. It's big, but what he hell... I love room sounds!

About the uninstall. In the product manager, if you go to the first part (pack 1) of the install and click show details, then click on installation info, there are uninstall instructions. I'm not sure if once you start it it will let you customize the uninstall to only remove certain packs...

So many great sounding drums. The Ludwig Colosseum and Tama brass bell snares are really nice. There are many more, those just stood out to me today. The 28 inch Ludwig kick is a beautiful thing as well. It's a huge library. It and all of the New York Studio kits I have, combined with a few EZX's, it's a ridiculous amount of drums... although that Alt Rock EZX sounds really good. I wonder why they didn't do an SDX version of that, I mean, they got Steve Albini and recorded it in his studio... Maybe they will release it at some point...

Happy SD3ing...

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks jtnyc - funnily enough, I often use the far room ambience in exactly the way you describe, leaving off the messy cymbals etc. Just as you say, you can go to these extremes with no ill effects. I thiiink, for now I'll keep my install slim and trim.

I'm not sure what else I need, expansion-wise. I was wondering about the Indiependent one, but in truth a) I don't much go for the soft stripped down thing and if I did b) I think I have quite a lot like that already. You're right about the Alt Rock, shame that wasn't an SDX, but even there.... let's face it, I need nothing else. Ever.

Ha ha ha ha....

A couple of random things / tips - on the bleed from instruments tab, I didn't realise you can shift click to highlight multiple channels (just as in the main mixer). So actually it's really quick to switch them on, stupidly I was just doing one at a time.

One more - Toontrack have just discovered the thing I found about the EZX midi being incorrectly tagged for the tool parameter (hit / brushes / rods etc) - they will fix in due course.

[catsass]

Shy Guy? No link to your excellent SD3 overview?

[Guy Rowland]

Not that shy catsass - it's there on p2...

[catsass]

Not that shy catsass - it's there on p2...

What the hell. I'm not quite sure how I missed that.

[kpc]

Excellent video, Guy. Moved this up my list, though just a bit. Enjoying reading the experiences - never really got on with AD. So this may eventually replace it.

[vocalnick]

Dammit... I've been getting by just fine with the various drum libraries in Komplete, and you all are NOT HELPING!

[jtnyc]

Hi folks -
I'm copying and pasting this post I just left on VI-C. I'm curious what you all think as well. -

A few questions/observations/gripes and possible missing functions with SD3.

I've been digging in deep with SD3 and aside from a few frustrations, I love it! I'm having so much fun setting up kits and mixer layouts. I have run into a few obstacles and I'm wonder what you all think.

In SD2 you could switch out all of the toms to another matched set of toms at once. I don't see this function in SD3.

In SD2 you could save mixer presets. From what I can tell, you can't in SD3.

While you can save midi maps in the midi in edrums page, if you do your mapping in the midi properties box, you can't. This probably won't bother most, but if you want to actually reassign articulations to notes (as opposed to just redirecting the midi, which is what you do in the midi in edrums page), you can't save presets of those maps that you do in the midi properties box. The midi in edrum page works great for edrum mapping, because there are 10 to 15 pads and you can redirect the midi from to them and that's that, no other triggers like you have with a keyboard, 49 to 88 triggers (so you end up with the remapped notes plus the original assignments and the keyboard is a total mess). I realize that many don't want to change the actual assignment of the articulations in order for the midi grooves to still work properly, and that's an advantage of the midi in edrum page. I don't use midi grooves and I like to reassign the articulations in a very particular way across my 88 key controller, and the only way to do it in a clean and detailed way is to do it in the midi properties box... so no way to save and recall those maps... unfortunately. Maybe they will add it at some point.

Not such a big deal, but it would be nice if we could change the order of the channels in the mixer as well. Can we? I haven't figured it out.

I tried Tracker with some live drums today and it worked flawlessly. I actually started laughing. I dragged in the audio and boom, it immediately created the midi and assigned it to the correct drums. No need to tweak or fudge anything, it just worked. Phenomenal!!!

[Guy Rowland]

Hi jtnyc, I don't know of a way to do any of those things (assuming when you say mixer presets, you mean a preset not tied to specific drums?) Worth raising these issues on the support forum, they're pretty active there at the moment.

Glad to hear about Tracker, one day I'll have cause to use it and great to hear its as seamless as it is. That was using individual mics I guess, as opposed to a single mixed reference file?

[Chris Hurst]

Woah, this is great. I caved and bought it after telling myself I don't really need it with EZD, Slate etc but it really is easy to use and fast!

[Stixman]

Wow this is taken vi drums to another level!
looks like they have left the hardware guys like Roland etc behind

[catsass]

Toontrack has announced that Superior Drummer 3.0.2 is now available to download using the Product Manager or from the 'My Products' area in your Toontrack account.

New:

• - MIDI files can now be dragged to the result area in Grooves, provided that a single path is selected within the User MIDI folder.
  - Tooltips have been added in the grid editor.

Fixed:

• - Selecting certain sounds from certain libraries (in Search for Instrument, for example) would cause a crash.
  - The Tap2Find player would crash when you changed presets that remapped the drums.
  - It is no longer possible to MIDI learn the pitch wheel.
  - Loading or saving Velocity Curve presets on a stack could cause a crash.
  - Choosing "Select Parts" in the library preset menu could end up selecting the wrong preset.
  - If 'undo' changed number of instruments and Edit Play Style was open, it would crash.
  - A crash and a bug in text search has been fixed.
  - A bug with copying notes in the grid editor has been fixed.
  - Changing presets while having Song Creator open with a source loop would cause a graphical glitch.
  - Right click in the time signature editor no longer deselects all other regions.
  - A change of sample rate on the sound card should now get correctly handled by the standalone.
  - The favorite setting (star on/off) in Grooves was not loaded properly from projects.
  - Browser settings in Search for Instrument (visible columns, etc.) were not saved in projects.
  - Bounce would never use processed pitch.
  - Undoing stack manipulation with inactive stacks could cause a crash.-Adding new mics or opening Search for Instrument while sounds were being loaded could cause a crash.
  - It was not possible to add a groove from the song track to User MIDI if it was an altered version of something already found in the browser.
  - The graphics of Electronic and Southern Soul EZXs have been adjusted.
  - Dragging a custom song block (with no file path) to Song Creator made the "Source File" unplayable and undraggable and it also -incorrectly had "Show in Browser" enabled.
  - Dragging a User MIDI file from the browser could in some cases cause the file to be deleted from its source location.

Fixed in Tracker:

• - The playhead position in the scrollbar was not updated while playing.
  - Buffer and sample rate changes were not handled correctly.
  - Files with the extension ".midi" can now be imported as tempo maps.
  - The tempo map is now cleared when New Project is selected.
  - The sample position did not get synced when a track was added while playing.
  - Find Tempo did not always work with multiple time signature changes.
  - Some precision could be lost on found hits when loading a project.
  - When looping, the triggered MIDI and the original sound could become unsynced.
  - Selecting New Project while having the Tracker tab open could cause a crash.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Catsass - the only niggle I've found is sone of the older midi from EZX libraries isn't tagged up to date, still waiting for a fix there. Must have been lucky not to encounter any of these...

[Guy Rowland]

EDIT - pointless duplication by me of the 3.0.2 release.

[catsass]

Hey! They fixed all of the same issues again!

[Guy Rowland]

Yeeaaah.... it is, isn't it?!!

EDIT - I'm a distracted idiot of course - I thought the last update was 3.0.1 and didn't look.

[catsass]

I received Toontrack's notice of the update this morning via email. I also believed it to be a new update. The v3.0.2 threw me, as well. I came here to post the info, and lo and behold, you beat me to it. I spent a little more time reading through the fixes, and....well, you know. The sons of bitches.

[KyleJudkins]

sigh

finally hooked my kit up(its been torn down since IRMA)

but ATM I cant drum, I have a deep splinter(I think its a splinter... might be a piece of metal stuck in me?) right where my fulcrum usually sits(I use a german grip)

so I'm trying to warm up after months blasting on my weak hand with French grip and it feels incredibly akward

so far though, I'm having a lot of the same issues with properly assigning midi notes with superior drummer.

go into the midi in area and change things and it has no effect... go outside of it - and change it and sometimes it works, but somethings I cant get rid off.

the hi hat isn't assigned even remotely properly - even after selecting the roland preset... I just bought a soundiron library that randomly had a td30 mapping... addictive drums 2 it was a breeze mapping everything... they also have a td30 preset...

now superior drummer 3 comes out and its still a generic roland option, and manually entering the information doesn't seem to do anything, and when I close my hi hat I get a floor tom triggering for no reason, and its a midi note I'm unable to change in my drumbrain.(and the tom it's triggering is bound to something else)

[KyleJudkins]

here it is

I've been trying to get a foundation to build a kit off of - that can manage some more expressive genres while also being capable of extreme metal

that said, heres what I have so far

All processing is done externally, and I tried to stay minimalistic(except a little EQ'ing in the engine on the kick, to curb some of the build up from stacking two kicks) This is so that I can record with minimal latency added, and ofcourse since it's going into my template - to keep the footprint down. Main thing I'd do is add a reverb bus and lower the ambient mics a little(I left them higher to make up for the lack of reverb) And I still need to individually EQ each drum instead of slapping CLA drums on everything like a lazy guy.(although the channels are only like 20-35% wet, leaving mostly uneq'd sound)

*I'm trying to play at different speeds/dynamics/ect to see how it can handle - so don't expect to get to comfortable, its rusty drum noodling*

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jvdde1e9cgg6y ... 1.mp3?dl=0

That's how I routed/organized the outputs, and you can see what effects are on what(mostly placeholders)


And my Vdrums, to put it into perspective why it was pulling teeth to get me to hook it back up after Irma, and also why it took me so long to even bother with superior drummer

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lplehgsey60im ... 5.jpg?dl=0

[Guy Rowland]

That's a mighty big e-kit there Kyle. Do you know if Toontrack have fixed those mapping glitches?

Sounding mighty fine in the meantime. The quality of virtual drums now is so good, I genuinely don't think that well played / programmed ones are distinguishable from real for most material.

Hmm, I can feel a new thread coming on...