Drum Machine Software Recommendations

I have both EZ Drummer and SSD Platinum 2.5. SSD gets you a mastered sound "out of the box" with minimal fuss.
EZ Drummer takes some work (at least for me) to get good drum sounds. I'd rather be jamming over SSD than tweaking my EZ drums.

Depends on what you want to do really. If you just want something to lay down some ideas without much fuss, some of the more polished-straight-outta-the-box stuff might be better for you (even EZD and the stock Avatar kit in S2.0 aren't exactly raw, but not like SSD). If you want more control over the sound for proper home recordings and stuff, the more flexible (and time consuming) stuff like S2.0 and its expansions might be better.

I prefer the latter. Mind you, once I got my head around S2.0 it was a lot less work. Basically saved some presets I set up for projects I was working on, and now I just load those up when I want to work on something. Change kit parts around where necessary, tweak the sound as I go along and discover where it needs something different. But the majority of the work is taken care of when I load the preset, unless I'm going for a wildly different sound to anything I've done before... which doesn't happen very often anyway.

There's also the producer pack thingoes you can buy for bugger all that'll let you just load up entire setups, processing and all. The only one I've got is the Sneap pack, but I'm not even really a big fan of his work. I got it more out of curiosity to see what kind of stuff he came up with using S2.0 (and for a few bucks, it was worth it I think). He does a lot of interesting stuff like having kick drum layers that all take care of different parts of the sound, including one that's so heavy butchered by the envelope section and processing that all it does is provide the tiny little "metal" click sound at the beginning of the strike. I don't actually like any of the presets at all, but there are some interesting ideas in there. :lol

From memory there's also some separate product they've got now that I think is just like a normal insert plugin you put on a track, and you can load up presets for guitars or vocals or whatever. No idea if it's any good or not.
 
I am going to go with Superior Drummer 2.

Use the room mics. If you're not used to hearing them it might sound odd at first, maybe even crap. Once you've got them tweaked and the kit is in a full mix, they add a lot to the drum sound. :)

Unless of course you're going for some ultra-tight and dry sound, in which case using the room mics would be just plain counterproductive.

Also, don't be afraid to "cheat". It's one of the great things about S2.0 (and I'm guessing other products let you do this at least to some extent). The last Avatar kit I worked with (now using Metal Foundry more) had one set of room mics that only contained cymbals, another that only contained toms, and another that only contained the snare. And no kick in any of them. Impossible with a real kit, but it let me really tweak the hell of the EQ and compression for each part of the room sound for different parts of the kit. :) I use very little close mic bleed and let the overheads and room mics tie everything together.
 
Use the room mics. If you're not used to hearing them it might sound odd at first, maybe even crap. Once you've got them tweaked and the kit is in a full mix, they add a lot to the drum sound. :)

Unless of course you're going for some ultra-tight and dry sound, in which case using the room mics would be just plain counterproductive.

Also, don't be afraid to "cheat". It's one of the great things about S2.0 (and I'm guessing other products let you do this at least to some extent). The last Avatar kit I worked with (now using Metal Foundry more) had one set of room mics that only contained cymbals, another that only contained toms, and another that only contained the snare. And no kick in any of them. Impossible with a real kit, but it let me really tweak the hell of the EQ and compression for each part of the room sound for different parts of the kit. :) I use very little close mic bleed and let the overheads and room mics tie everything together.

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me know about that.
 
I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me know about that.

Also, much like with the Axe-FX... RTFM. You'll be able to get a lot more out of S2.0 if you've at least read through the manual, even if you don't manage to take it all in at once. :)
 
Also, much like with the Axe-FX... RTFM. You'll be able to get a lot more out of S2.0 if you've at least read through the manual, even if you don't manage to take it all in at once. :)

I was able to find a download somewhere. I don't know if it is the most current, but good advice. I'll give it a read through.
 
You could try drum replacement too. I use Drumagog.

You can record a simple tapping part, sticks on a table top, or just fingers tapping something resonant, then trigger drum samples from that track.

That's a quick way of getting a tricky rhythm pattern in vs. the more tedious note-by-note programming.

Richard
 
I ended up ordering Superior Drummer 2.0 today. And I also got the Joel Barresi Evil Drums SDX after listening to some samples from that package. It had some things I expect to use. I read the SD2 manual cover to cover. I am pretty excited. I hope I am not creating unrealistic expectations. I've been revisiting some old tunes that I wrote a long time ago. In most cases updating, re-writing parts or writing new ones and the idea of getting rid of the Alesis SR-16 drums sounds and getting something closer to "real" has me... inspired.
 
Anybody buy EZ drummer and upgrade to Superior Drummer 2 using the crossgrade package? Looks like I could save about $25 going that route instead of the buying Superior Drummer out-right on Amazon.
 
I have. I found the crossgrade from EZ to superior on Amazon for 79.00 and had musicians Friend match it. Downloaded it and registered the update thru Toontrack and it worked perfectly. It took a few days to get the cds for the Avatar files. Recently whoever had it at that price on amazon raised it to 129.00. Its definitely worth upgrading from EZ drummer.
 
Thanks for the reply. I am also curious if EZdrummer/superior drummer works well in Reaper?

Thanks
 
I say get ToonTrack Superior 2. Simply the best. And if you want to use other drum samples (example..Joey Sturgis) with it.. grab DrumAgog or Trigger. ToonTrack has some of the best Metal Producer presets too! From Andy Sneap to Jason Suecof to Michael Keene! There's others...
If your brand spankin' new to programming, your in for a long journey. (Don't make any three handed drum fills :lolhehehe) But there's now so many midi libraries out. They'll get you started.
Shameless plug coming >> Here's a recent tune with Superior 2 and the kick is a blend of three different kicks using the Trigger plugin.

Good Luck!
 
I've used Jamstix off and on for a couple of years and think it is worth a look.

Yeah I am going to download the demo version and check it out this weekend. Might be more of what I am needing since I am not really a drummer and don't want to spend a lot of time working on drum parts. Just want something that sounds good and can get going easily so I can record ideas with.
 
My favorite is Superior 2. I love the Metal Foundry add-on (NOT just for metal!!!), plus the Evil Drums (Joe Barresi, Platinum Samples) add-on. I may be partial though (I have done freelance work for Platinum Samples on all of their packs). If BFD2 would get rapid fire hits to sound as good as Superior 2 does (my opinion!), I would truly be torn between the two, as my favorite kits are the Platinum Samples ones. But, snare work sounds best to me with Superior 2. The subtleties are vital for me; I am a huge Bruford fan, along with Peart, Gavin Harrison, Buddy Rich, etc.
 
yes, SSD4. I did the beta test for it and it's amazing!

Don, my main host is ProTools 10 running on Windows 7 64 bit. I have the old SSD3.5 samples for Drumagog and love em.

Do you have any feeling for SSD4.0 on ProTools under Windows in regards to stability etc.

Thanks,
Richard
 
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