EZdrummer2 or Superior Drummer?

Etudica

Inspired
Looking to switch to a new vst drum plugin... Which of these two do you guys prefer and why?

I've given the EZdrummer2 trial a go and it sounded pretty decent, but I'm not sure how much better superior drummer is sonic-wise. I don't really care about the preset grooves and arranger functions so much since I'm used to sequencing it all out manually. Just curious if the superior library really is superior as far as sample quality.

I'm coming from SSD4, which I never really bonded with.
 
It's all a matter of preference. Superior and EZD have completely different sounds, but one isn't necessarily better than the other. EZ's kits are pre-mixed and pre-processed so you can just drop them in a session and go. Superior requires you to mix the drums a bit to get the sound you want, but there are some included presets to get you started and also some for sale. I think the most important thing is finding out which Superior/EZD sounds are jumping out at you. Listen to the clips on the Toontrack site and see if any of those drum sounds excite you.

Superior can load all EZX expansions, but not the other way around. It'll also you mix and match components of other expansions (Ive got a kit made from Allaire, Avatar and Hit Factory, for example) but this isn't possible in EZX.
 
Well I got both, EZdrummer2 for workflow and Superior Drummer for the better sound/tone/dynamics/versatility, works very well. I wish Superior Drummer had the workflow features of EZD2!
 
Superior Drummer is like a old muscle car. Still works great, flexible routing and customizable but has drawbacks of feeling dated, a little complicated to get your grips on and can be slightly complicated to get a good sound out of the box.

EZ drummer is more like a 2015 ford focus. Less powerful. More tech. More updated. More efficient. Drawbacks are that if you wont get the in depth tweaking SD will have.


To me, i only use EZ drummer 2, even though i have SD. Mainly because I bus every drum out to a channel strip anyways. I use it as a platform to get a quick performance going and tweak the rhythms.
 
Both are excellent. I was using SSD4 also before I switched over to Superior Drummer. Reasons I vote Superior Drummer:

1.) It allows you to do things with routing/bleed that you cant even do with a real kit and a console which is AMAZING when you really like the sound of a kit but there are minor things you want to alter.

2.)You can load the EZXs into Superior and not the other way around.

3.) You can mix and match kit pieces from all of the different sample packs with the Xdrum feature. My main kit is a frankenstein of the METAL! EZX (snare), Rock Solid EZX (for the huge sounding toms), Metal Machine EZX (kicks, cymbals).

4.) Onboard mixer. Some folks hate the plugs that come with Superior Drummer, but I actually use them all the time. My normal drum sound is 99% mixed coming straight out of Superior Drummer. In fact the clip in my signature is the kit I am talking about, and thats basically how it sounds coming straight out of Superior.

THINGS ITS MISSING!

1.) I also manually program ALMOST all of the midi performances for my songs. However, the "detail" know on EZDrummer2 looks awesome! For adding some additional ghost notes or just humanizing the playing a bit, I would love for them to add this to Superior.

2.) Adding your own samples! It would be AMAZING if they could integrate a sample mapping feature like Kontact, but I'd even take being able to load up single shots. SSD4 has the win in that area.
 
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I guess EZ Drummer 2 for ease.............But I use Steven Slate Platinum Drums 4.0....................great stuff. If you haven't bought yet you should at least check it out.

I have Both and , like others use EZD2 for quick stuff.......
 
I have Superior and EZ. Also have Studio Drummer and BFD Eco.

EZ Drummer is cool for laying stuff out and coming up with ideas. I lay out with EZ, export the MIDI, then play it on final with Superior. Superior uses 24 bit samples, EZ Drummer uses 16 bit samples so... yeah it sounds better when it's all said and done. The MIDI loops on both software versions basically suck. Oddly Superior sucks worse.

BFD is raw. Very realistic sounding.

That said Studio Drummer, by Native Instruments, kicks all their butts (IMO).

The MIDI loops and the kit sounds are the best I've heard.
 
The Superior libraries are indeed superior to the EZD stuff. Although as far as I recall, some of the EZDs are from the same recorded libraries as Superior counterparts, just they're stripped down, 16-bit, and somewhat pre-processed. It's not like they're rubbish, just that it's a) not supposed to be their flagship product, and b) aimed at a different kind of user.

If you want the best sound and the best control over the sound, Superior is the way to go. Aside from the sounds being better, the software is more flexible, with full mixer, routing, FX, bleed, etc. control.

If you want something that's more aimed at being able to just get in there, load up a kit, drag in some grooves, etc., then that's where EZD comes in. If you're sequencing from scratch and not using pre-made MIDI grooves and whatnot, you're basically left with the "benefit" of pre-processed sounds that you can just drop into the mix and go. For me that's not a benefit, and I'd take the flexibility of the sounds and software of S2.0 any day. It might take me a bit of time to put together a kit and get all the sounds right, but it's all part of the writing/recording/mixing process. And once I have a kit I like, I save it as a user preset. Start a new project, pick one of my kits, the whole kit with all its mixer settings is loaded up. Between layering kit components (i.e. stacking 3 snares to get your 1 sound), the capabilities of the mixer, the built in FX, all the various mic channel options (from memory I think Metal Foundry gives like 4 or 5 mic channels just for the snare), etc., there are a LOT of options to play with. That said, the fact that you can so easily cheat your way around real-life drum recording/mixing problems is pretty handy. Want a big roomy sound for everything but the kick drum? Piece of cake.

That said, the stock Avatar kit that comes with S2.0 isn't particularly raw sounding. It's still fairly flexible and you can get plenty out of it, but since I added a few SDXs, I don't think I've used Avatar for anything. Maybe I've layered an Avatar snare in with another kit or something.
 
...but since I added a few SDXs, I don't think I've used Avatar for anything. Maybe I've layered an Avatar snare in with another kit or something.

It's always interesting to me (and funny sometimes) how different we all are. For me when I do use Superior I always go to the Avatar kit and choose natural preset and usually replace the snare with Studio Drummer snare :)
 
It's always interesting to me (and funny sometimes) how different we all are. For me when I do use Superior I always go to the Avatar kit and choose natural preset and usually replace the snare with Studio Drummer snare :)
It's not a bad sounding kit or anything, but not really my kinda thing. If I wanted a big sounding rock kit type thing, yeah I might load up Avatar. The snares are actually one of the things that really pushed me towards trying some SDXs. It seemed to me it didn't matter what I picked, it was all just varying degrees of a big fat rock snare sound.

So yeah, if I want to beef up a snare from another library, layering on a bit of an Avatar snare is one way to go about it. :) But yeah, it's not really the kind of thing I'm usually after.
 
I like and use both ezd2 and superior (among an embarrassing number of other drum vsti) , but my fave far and away is Drumasonic. Why? -The realism and articulation.
 
... but my fave far and away is Drumasonic. Why? -The realism and articulation.

Hey tell me about this. Never heard of it. Looks like it's made by the same NI that makes Studio Drummer (my fav). What's the difference in Luxury and Drumasonic 2?
 
Thanks for the input guys. Decided to go with EZdrummer2 for now. After all, I'm not a drummer, so I think the humanize functions and adding ghost notes and such will come in very handy. Perhaps I'll pick up Superior down the road to remaster once I have a decent amount of originals to put out there. For now though, I'm going to focus on making some backing tracks to get a feel for it. Oh yeah, picked up Metal! and Rock Solid packs as well.
 
I like mixing in superior. I have both and they are both great. If i could do it again i would have stuck with superior alone
 
The sound quality is much better in Superior. It has "raw" samples, with natural decay, whereas the Ez-version is pre-eq: d and it feels gated too. Not a problem if you just need drum beats, but any additional tweaking will sound better with SD. Sort of jpg vs raw thing, they look the same until you try to do any changes.

And of course this applies only to the two Ez packets that I tried, I don't remember what they were.
 
It comes down to how much you want to tweak. I have ez2 and like it but the sounds aren't that tweak able. I also have the first addictive drums and the sounds are allot more tweak able than ez2. And superior will be even more so.

I'm happy with ez2 for what I do with it , it's got a good workflow. But if I was recording seriously with it id go superior.
 
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