Abbey Road Drums Worth It?

YES!!!!! YESSSSS!!!!!

Seriously, I love them. There's so much more control over the individual elements in the kits, plus the new MIDI loop content. They were worth the price of me getting Komplete a few weeks back.

They can be a bit CPU intensive mainly owing to a lot of the kits having transient shapers available on each drum.

Yes quite CPU intensive if you use the onboard mixing. I find that if I turn all of that off and recreate the same FX chain as plugins (Transient Master, Solid EQ etc) it is much less of a strain. The onboard AR mixing seems to spike one core for me, whereas if I use separate plugs it's more evenly distributed. Don't know if it's the same on other people's systems. 

I have 70s AR.... really sit nice in the mix for the early 70s vibe.. I guess that you get what you pay here with this product. They have become my GOTO drum kit.

JK

I have been using Superior Drummerfor the last 18 months or so. For reasons unknown I loaded up AR drums about ten days ago and have been very impressed with the detail. It also has a better 'vibe' for my intentions but that is very subjective.

Still researching the products but I could see them becoming my goto kits.

Regards

Drum kits in Session Drummer and EZ Drummer are both processed (so I heard...I don't own them). But the kits in Abbey Road Drummer (and Studio Drummer) libraries are all unprocessed, meaning you'll have to apply EQ, compressor, etc., everything from scratch to make it sound really good in the mix (several mixer presets with these effects already applied are available for each kit, but I personally find them not very good).

Although NI encourages users to use the built-in effects (I do use them) for convenience, the knobs on the effect modules and faders on the mixer don't show parameter values (and there's no compressor gain reduction meter, no EQ spectrum, etc.), so you'll have to completely rely on your ears. Also, I've realized that the Drummer libraries have noticeable volume differences between cymbals, etc. (I've only noticed this in 70s Drummer so far), so if you don't like that you'll have to edit the volume by going into Edit mode.

I have AR70s, AR Modern Drummer and Studio Drummer, and love the AR ones very much.

 fwiw if you need to see the parameter values for the fx, you can wrench the instruments and look at the bus sends and instrument fx which show them all.  kinda a pain, yeah, but it's possible.

Maybe "worth it" was not the right way to ask.  I was just gathering opinions.

Nothing wrong with the drums I have, but I like to have diferent drum sounds on different songs while maintaining a consistent sound.  In other words, I might have ten different acoustic snares on ten different songs, but it would not be consistent with my style to throw in a wildly electronic snare on a song.  I like to have a wide variety of organic drum sounds.

For example, I am always seeking a better kick: it needs to have a solid bottom without sounding too hard, and enough definition on the higher end to cut through without sounding like a disco slap.  Toontrack EZ Drummer is great but I find the Nashville kit kick to sound a little too hard—like the head is too tight.  I have found some good kicks in SD3, but finding drum sounds in the SD3 folders is not especially easy and it takes a long time to assemble a kit.

Another example: I just used a snare from the Fantom synth built into the V-Studio for a song.  It works perfectly in that song, but I may not use it again for a long time.

Anyway, the comments here have been great.  Thanks.

Konrad, I have the AR bundle and the drummer as well. I think you will like them. If you want to hear them on songs here is a link to my buddy's songs. AR is all he uses.
 
http://www.youtube.com/user/754samuel?feature=results_main