The Sound Board

Will be very interested to hear what my jazzy bretheren make of this.

Recorded at Power Station in New York City by legendary engineer/mixer James Farber
Seven complete kits, each representing its own jazz era, style or sound
Features kits sampled with sticks, brushes, rods, mallets and hands
Four different ambiences (Studio A and C main rooms with respective adjacent booths)
Selected kits recorded with a 5.0 surround mic setup
Drum and tuning technician: Artie Smith
Comes with an extensive library of MIDI featuring material tailored for different jazz styles, the different tools recorded and more
Includes a broad collection of mix-ready presets for each kit and configuration

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS.
For the full installation of this product you will need approximately 161 GB of free hard drive space, plus an additional 161 GB is required for the installation process.

8 GB RAM (16 GB RAM or more recommended).

A working Superior Drummer 3.3.6 (or above) installation

There's a huge amount of detail on every aspect on the product website - https://www.toontrack.com/product/the-jazz-sessions-sdx

€179.

Beautiful. First SDX in a very long time I really like the sound of.
The cymbals alone make this irresistible for me. But the snares and toms get pretty close to how I like these drums to sounds as well: honest, natural, un-hyped, nice acoustic drumsound.

I didn't think I would ever buy an SDX again.

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Very much looking forward to hearing how you find it in practice Piet.

Apparently this one was 8 years in development and production. That's almost Spectrasonics timescales.

I haven't written or produced anything that would benefit, but dang those kits sound great. If I have some spare change - or they put it on sale - I'll definitely grab it. And I will find uses for it!!!

Near perfect drum library. For me, that is. Actually, this one sounds and plays as if it was made to order. My order, I mean. Which I can’t say of any other library — drums or other — I’ve ever bought. The sound is right, the detail and variety of articulations is quite amazing (with the minor disadvantage that the mapping is even more all over the place than usual), the dynamic range translates incredibly convincingly to timbral differentiation (not a given in many drum libraries) and the spatial options with these four kits are … well … ‘phenomenal’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Brushes, of course, have all the usual limitations that sampled brushes inevitably suffer from. But what falls within their capabilities sounds very good. Hi-hats are still not entirely to my liking but I’m a bit anal about this part of a (recorded) drumkit so ignore this comment if you like.

To me, the cymbals are the stand-outs of this collection. I never liked Toontrack cymbals (rides especially) before, no matter who recorded/produced them, but the way the ones included here are played, sampled and programmed is as good as it can get, in my opinion. Nice full, round sound (none of that feeble, thin cymbal sound), just the right balance between hit and sustain, a wealth of variation and — again — sheer endless sonic and spatial possibilities through adjusting the various mic’s with which these cymbals were recorded. Also, these are the first sampled ride cymbals I’ve encountered that can actually swing. I mean: they have just the right amount of energy in just the right place that gives them the power to swing.

Combine all of the above with the well-known quality, reliability and convenience of Toontrack’s software and you have package I can’t fault in any way.

This SDX may be called ‘The Jazz Sessions’ but these four honest kits — while obviously not a wise choice for many styles and genres — are great for much else besides jazz: in fact, for just about anything in which the presence of a well-recorded, natural-sounding, un-hyped acoustic kit is desired, these drums will outperform, outsound and outplease most everything else that’s currently available.

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High praise indeed, thanks for posting that Piet. I'm no jazzer as you know, but its even tempting me. A little bit. This feels like a genuine labour of love, and that goes a long way.

Thanks for your impressions, Piet.

Listening through the kits I am really liking the tight, upfront sound. I can see this being very useful in various styles. I'm not likely to pick it up any time soon though, just because I have no need for it on the stuff I'm working at the moment, but certainly on my (very short) list of expansions to buy.

I was eager to hear this library, didn't think they could top Al Schmidt's Decades in terms of natural sound drums recorded sensibly, but they may have. One of these days I'll break down and buy it.

BTW, just because for my own work I prefer minimal microphones doesn't mean I don't enjoy a multi-mic's kit with a dozen toms and two dozen cymbals... there is a place for everything, and Toontrack does a fantastic job with rock/progressive/metal kits. Actually as I type this they do a really good job, end of story. I've become so accustomed to using their kits that I don't really think about it much