The Sound Board

srkrishnan wrote: ↑Sep 25, 2024 7:50 am(...) how is the Jazz kit for one shot? (...)

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Sep 25, 2024 10:33 am Well, on paper, that should have been one of the kits included with Toontrack’s “Elliot Scheiner / State Of The Art” SDX. Scheiner was, after all in part responsible, as co-engineer and mixer, for why “Aja” sounds as fantastic as it does. One of the official “State Of The Art” demos — the first one in the product’s demo-list, also heard during the first 15 seconds of the video below — of the SDX clearly references that part of Scheiner’s many legendary achievements.

I say ‘on paper’ because, to my ears, “State Of The Art” is — inevitably, I suppose — as much a Toontrack product as it is an Elliot Scheiner product. I’m not even sure how much of an Elliot Scheiner product it actually is, because, apart from the fact that the recording techniques have obviously changed profoundly since the Aja-days, session circumstances being very different as well, and that it’s not Steve Gadd behind the drums on this SDX, the Mr. Scheiner of today is (and I say this with the greatest respect and admiration) also different — in a time-waits-for-no-one way — from the man he was in 1976-1977.



What started to bother me, sooner than I thought, when trying to do some work with this SDX, is how quickly I began to find the drums sounding a bit boring. I have no other word for it. I mean, the sonics are stellar, the rooms sound fantastic, but for some reason or other, the drums sound, well, just a bit boring to me. I’m probably overly fussy and unrealistically critical though. (I tend to be when it comes to drums.) The response to “State Of The Art” appears to be almost unanimously *very* enthusiastic.

But again: this is for SD3.

Other than this SDX though, I wouldn’t really know what to recommend for Aja-style drums, I fear. After all, the drum recordings on ‘Aja’ are considered — and rightly so, if you ask me — the ‘nec plus ultra’ of recorded drums (of the analog era). Rarely, if ever, bettered. I can name a couple of what I think are fine acoustic drums libraries, but none that immediately says “Aja”. And, need it be added, of course no sampled drumkit coming out of Kontakt or whatever sample-playback software it is formatted for, is ever going to come close to be a match for what’s captured on that album.

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If we're going to continue talking drums libraries — and I'm keen —, may I kindly suggest starting a new thread about in the Gear section, because this area, New Flash, is intended for news flashes only, not product discussions. Thanks!

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Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Sep 25, 2024 10:33 am I say ‘on paper’ because, to my ears, “State Of The Art” is — inevitably, I suppose — as much a Toontrack product as it is an Elliot Scheiner product. I’m not even sure how much of an Elliot Scheiner product it actually is, because, apart from the fact that the recording techniques have obviously changed profoundly since the Aja-days, session circumstances being very different as well, and that it’s not Steve Gadd behind the drums on this SDX, the Mr. Scheiner of today is (and I say this with the greatest respect and admiration) also different — in a time-waits-for-no-one way — from the man he was in 1976-1977.

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Sep 25, 2024 5:17 am I’m not a fan of sequenced shaker and tambourine tracks — no matter how many options you get for humanizing the performance, it always sounds wrong to me —, but if you don’t have such misgivings, Shaka is a good choice. Like all things Klevgrand, well thought-out, intelligently designed and solid software.

Here’s a good overview:



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