The Sound Board

In excess of 230 GB of raw, unprocessed sounds in 44.1 kHz/24 bit
Recorded with an additional eleven separate room microphones set up in a surround configuration for a complete immersive experience
Playback in stereo or up to 11 channel surround systems
Engineered by George Massenburg
Integrated offline audio to MIDI conversion
Approx. 350 vintage and classic drum machine sounds
35 mixer effects
New and improved scalable interface with detachable windows
Edit Play Style, Tap2Find, Song Creator and Song Track features as well as improved workflow and search functionality
Built-in MIDI grid editor
DAW automation for built-in macro controls
Drag & drop and import for individual and third party samples
Support for keyboard shortcuts

The Superior Drummer 3 software and the full core sound library are delivered as downloads, available directly from the Toontrack Product Manager upon registration. At an additional cost, there is also an option of getting the full sound library pre-installed on a 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD).

The sound library is configured in six (6) convenient download packages.
1. “Software” (approx. 230 MB)
2. “Basic Sound Library” (approx. 40 GB)
3. “Room” (approx. 46 GB)
4. “Surround 1” (approx. 43 GB)
5. “Surround 2” (approx. 52 GB)
6. “Bleed” (approx. 54 GB)

It's out on September 12. Versions, prices and details here - https://www.toontrack.com/superior-drum ... ouncement/

Massive and a bit expensive upgrade, even for owners like me of SD 2 and EZD. My question to myself is, as always: do I need this? Certainly not doing very much pop music these days, and even if I was, I am currently content with what I have. Is SD3 overkill?? Certainly many new and exciting features to consider. Anyway, I am certain many people will want this, but at this time, I will have to think about it for awhile.

PS: Many questions one may have are answered here:
http://blog.timespace.com/2017/08/toont ... -answered/

There are a couple of workflow things that look attractive, and GM is one of my heroes, but I just don't see enough - that would be useful to me - to make the investment worthwhile. No complaint about the price mind you - that's a pretty good deal for that many drum sounds, but I'm really happy with the sounds I have now. I may change my mind as more information becomes available, but at the moment it is an uphill climb.

Hi,

i've found this video with sounds.

I hate to say it because i'm a fan of their products, but it's almost like their previous offerings are too good. I'm still very satisfied with what i already have from them and don't really feel like shelling out another couple hundred bucks will make my life much better. I'd rather just buy more midi packs/drum kits at this point.

As they say: MY BODY IS READY!

I've been waiting for this for so long. Love the new GUI (SD2 was really painful to work with at times), love the included EZD functionality like Tap2Find, love the multi-tiered download so you can pick what you want to use. Full points to Toontrack.

I was waiting for something like this, Improved workflow, improved gui (a bit sceptical about the font size), EZD functionality now in SD3, great.

And fantastic marketing, without emptiness.

I'm with you Mario and J. Feeling pretty positive about this, but in part this is due to me hating SD2 so much. It's been one of my few regretful purchases, while the sounds are good I hated everything else pretty much, incredibly unfriendly to work with. EZD2 has been quite the joy, and they've taken all that functionality and added tons more. Finally I'll get some use out of my SD2 expansions, and the original core library. It's not cheap even as an upgrade, but based on my EZD2 experiences it'll be worth it, the one ring to bind them all.

I also always hated working in SD2, but what I did was map and set up multiple outputs for each SDX and EZX and piped them into aux tracks in Logic, set up all of my effects in Logic and saved those setups in Logic projects, then when I want a specific kit, I just import that pre made set of Instrument/aux tracks into my project. Pesto, I rarely even have to open the Superior plugin. It's been great.

SD3 does look great. A much improved UI for sure. A mixer that I can look at without getting dizzy. The audio to midi looks great. I currently do that in Logic and while it works well enough, this looks like a much better solution. From the sounds I've heard so far I have to say that I'm not all that impressed. Doesn't sound bad, but I'm not hearing anything that I don't already have covered. Maybe once I hear more in depth examples of the different room mics and FX, I might change my mind.

I'm so comfortable with my workflow now that I'm not sure I want to go back to processing with internal Toontrack FX. If they are way way better than SD2's, that might sway me, but my current setup is so dialed in. I'm also curious if I'll be able to import my SD2 midi maps I made for the SDX's that I own. I'll have to email them and find out. I just want to hear something and be blown away... then I'm in of coarse!

jt - I think the Superior Drummer paradigm has always been for the defaults to be less flashy than EZD, but with more depth and detail. In the past I've tended to say "screw that" - give me that flash. But what is so promising about SD3 is that the increased number of mics plus the greatly enhanced mixer and fx means there really should be a great chance of some more fun presets right out of the box, plus that added depth. I'm looking forward to hearing more especially on the mixer section, to see if this bears out.

I really liked some of the kit sounds in my New York Studios vol 2 expansion, but using it was such a PITA I never bothered. Going to be nice to make some proper use of that, finally.

Guy - I agree that the default for SD2 was less flashy. It is also my least favorite and most generic of all the SDX's I own. I never use it. The Hit Factory and Allaire from NYS vol2 are great and I use them all the time. I guess with all the excitement around the fact that Massenburg engineered it and the huge room they used, the many mic positions they recorded, I was underwhelmed with what I've heard so far.

I'd look forward to seeing a walkthrough with someone triggering the samples in a dynamic way (not running a static loop) and going through the different mic positions.

jt - this video might be worth a glance, demoing SD3 with an electronic kit:



It's certainly not a forensic walkthrough and doesn't touch on the mixer, but at least it's not static loops.

EDIT - meant to say hello and thank you to Lorenz0 for the other Sweetwater link above.

Guy Rowland wrote:jt - this video might be worth a glance, demoing SD3 with an electronic kit:
It's certainly not a forensic walkthrough and doesn't touch on the mixer, but at least it's not static loops.

Thanks Guy - Yeah, sounds good. Again tho, not really knocking me out. I'll most likely end up upgrading just for the improved UI and audio to midi functionality, although Steven Slate 5 has supposedly been right around the corner for a couple of years. I'd like to get a look at that before upgrading...

Thank you Guy.

Slowly caving in to this now after watching a number of videos. I'm still not sure I truly "need" all of the new features, or will utilize a new drum library as much as I used this type of thing in the past, but then again resisting new toys has never been a strong point of mine.

playz123 wrote:Slowly caving in to this now after watching a number of videos. I'm still not sure I truly "need" all of the new features, or will utilize a new drum library as much as I used this type of thing in the past, but then again resisting new toys has never been a strong point of mine.

Resisting toys is always hard...... A strong sense of G.A.S.

Couple of nice new short videos to pass 10 minutes or so. This first shows the grid editor, drum stacking and drum replacement parts, and also showcases swapping out a few snares etc



The second is from Pro Tools expert and goes through the new mixer.

It's out now. I'm downloading - verrry slowly (launch day surprise!) - as I type. My first kit buy in many months, I think. As much as anything, I wanted to get some value out of what I already own - I hated the SD2 software so much, I never even installed it on this rig, despite having the core library and an expansion. I'm 99% certain I won't have an aversion to SD3 as I did with SD2, as it's EZD2 on steroids, and I love that. And it should be my new home for all my EZD kits too, so everything in one easy to use place. Sorry, that sounds like a sales pitch... but having bought into the Toontrack ecosystem, it's what makes sense to me.

I took the plunge as well.
I couldn't pass up the $253.01 crossgrade from EZD2 at Best Service.

Upgrade from SD2 : 164€ in Thomann Store.

my power is still out and my equipment still packet away.

im just glad irma fizzled out(and my trees stayed standing).

might still be a week or two before we get electricity again, let me know how sd3 is.

I couldn't find a video showing how to add pieces to a kit... I have a big kit and sd2 was a pita so I gave up

Glad you're ok Kyle, and hope juice is restored soon.

There's a big Add Instrument button I see on the top LHS of the interface when on the main Drum tab, I guess that would do the trick. I'm not sure how long it'll take to get the thing downloaded - could be a coupla days judging by the crawling download speed - but once I've had a little play I'll report back with some more details.

Note to popular devs when releasing major new products - whatever your projections are for the first week of required bandwidth, multiply them by 10.

Well now I've just had a first road test of the software - still waiting for the core library to download, and will be for some time. It turned out to be a pretty painless experience to get it working with my SD2 and EZX libraries - there's a tab in settings to point the plugin to the right path for the SD2 samples, and I needed to run tiny update files to those libraries, and then voila. EZX stuff it picked up automatically.

So far exactly what I expected, and that's a good thing. It's very easy to use (especially if you're familiar with EZD2), and almost all the new stuff I found intuitive. Only 2 trip ups so far:

1) there doesn't seem to be a menu tree option for each instrument to navigate to alternates from other libraries. The way you do it is to press Search, and then a whole browser pops up where you can find anything. In my case, I appear to have 480 snares to choose from now, which is ridiculous obviously, and that's before I load up the core library. Fortunately there are tags to restrict your search - manufacturer of kit, brushes / rods etc, snare on/off and so on. Which leads me on to:

2) Not all the tagging is correct for EZX libraries (oh look, I'm on about tagging already). Of my 480 snares, it claims I only have 2 that use brushes, which is nonsense. My Nashville EZX for example has brushes, but these are tagged as sticks.

Overall it is about 100,000% easier to use than SD2. I've always liked the sounds. The new mixer is a joy.

Hey Guy. Thanks for the comments. I wonder if you have addictive drums and if so, how you think it compares? Another drum library is low on my list, but you never know.

Cheers

Kayle - I don't have any of the other main competitors, all my other drum stuff is loops and one-shot such as Battery or Stylus. I'm willing to bet Addictive and BFD are both also really good, and doubtless more besides. I think the main advantages of SD3 would be the way it handles grooves (tap 2 find is a wonder, where you bash out a rhythm and the software finds closest matches played by real drummers, and there's algorithms to create variations too) and the drum replacement software (which I don't think I'll be using much / at all). How much either of both of these are draws for you would probably depend on whether or not it has any appeal, and also if you have any irritations or lack features or sounds with your current setup.