Drum mixes with a drum VST

Just curious....when using a drum VST such as Addictive Drums or Superior / Easy Drummer...do you use the separate outs of the kit pieces to Sonar or do you do the drum mix within the VST mixer?
 
Using the individual outs can give you more control over the kit pieces...but the kit mixers within the VST are pretty powerful too.
 
I normally use individual outs...but was curious if most others do also.

I use mostly Superior Drummer 2. I have used both ways but I found over time that I can get what I need just using the FX and features in the VST. Most all of my projects end up with just a stereo mix out of SD 2. If I know the project is going to be mixed by someone else on another DAW then I break it out into separate DRY tracks. I recently bought Mixbus 2 and I am looking forward to breaking out separate tracks to import in to Mixbus so I can see what all the hoopla is about. I am skeptical about Mixbus 2 sounding better than X3. It should be fun finding out. 
BTW, I break my midi drum tracks out to separate tracks for each drum. For me, it is easier to deal with fine tuning the velocity for each piece of the kit. I create a folder with the name of the kit and put all the midi tracks for the kit in there. There is a CAL file that allows you to separate notes to tracks. It's a little more work in the beginning but come mix time it is very easy to zero in on that one cymbal crash or rimshot that's a little too hot or not hot enough.
I also do the same process for any percussion tracks. Separate midi tracks in a percussion folder.

Teds_Studio
Just curious....when using a drum VST such as Addictive Drums or Superior / Easy Drummer...do you use the separate outs of the kit pieces to Sonar or do you do the drum mix within the VST mixer?
 
Using the individual outs can give you more control over the kit pieces...but the kit mixers within the VST are pretty powerful too.
 
I normally use individual outs...but was curious if most others do also.

I use BFD3 which comes with 36 very good high quality effects.

Despite that my starting template is still routed out to individual channels just on the off chance I may want to use some effect that isn't covered in BFD3.

That hasn't happened yet though

I think if I were using EZdrummer, AD or Session Drummer and even Superior Drummer I would definitely want to use third party effects, EZdrummer 1 has no effects built in anyway and I found the effects in AD to be quite poor.

Not sure what the quality of effects in EZdrummer 2 is but the pictures of the gui looked liked they'd got some free ones off the net somewhere. Hopefully they sound better than they appear.

I just wish cakewalk would give us the option to create folders in the mixer as routing to separate tracks can take up an awful lot of the mixer especially if you have routed all to mono and you have 32 tracks of drums, a collapsible drum folder would be so useful.

Steve

@Twaddle you can show & edit multiple tracks on one PRV view, I use that all the time not just for drums.
 
@Steve I create additional busses to act as folders in the console view, e.g. send all the drum tracks to a 'drums' buss, mix them into that to get the right balance between individual drum tracks, then hide the individual tracks and complete the overall mix with just the drum buss visible.

lbk3918
@Twaddle you can show & edit multiple tracks on one PRV view, I use that all the time not just for drums.

 
Good point, I had forgotten about that but I know I did use it for a while but didn't adopt it as I like to have as few tracks as possible and didn't feel there was any great benefit.
 

@Steve I create additional busses to act as folders in the console view, e.g. send all the drum tracks to a 'drums' buss, mix them into that to get the right balance between individual drum tracks, then hide the individual tracks and complete the overall mix with just the drum buss visible.

I do that too and although I'd never thought about using the 'hide tracks' feature I'd still prefer to have an expandable group/folder in the console. BFD3 has this and a few other features I'd love to see adopted in sonar.
 
If you could hide tracks as a group that would speed things up but when you have 32 tracks you want to hide and you have to click each one individually to hide and un-hide them that's not the best solution for me as haveing an expandable folder/group in the console view takes a fraction of second to reveal.
 
Steve

Teds_Studio...when using a drum VST such as Addictive Drums or Superior / Easy Drummer...do you use the separate outs of the kit pieces to Sonar or do you do the drum mix within the VST mixer?...
...I normally use individual outs...but was curious if most others do also.

I think using the individual outs is pretty much a Must Do.  It's the only way to get a nice, fat, dryer kick, for instance.  I use EZDrummer, and find it easy to get the mix I want in its GUI, but besides wanting my kick dry, I don't want to be stuck with particular settings of the Overheads and Room.-- NOTE:  I said "stuck" with levels because I always bounce my MIDI tracks to audio before mixing, and I'd rather not re-do.  If I need more cymbals, I can do that easily after a bounce since the Overheads are on a separate track.
 
Another note - After developing the drums MIDI track, I cut the bass and paste it into its own MIDI track.  Otherwise, the kick will be bleeding through the Overheads and Room, even if its fader is all the way down in the EZ GUI.
 
Randy B.

I use a combination of the drum sampler's internal mixer and individual audio tracks. My standard template combines instruments into five busses within Superior Drummer's internal mixer that are then routed to five separate audio tracks:
 
Kick in, out and sub -> KICK bus in sampler's mixer -> Kick audio track (mono)
Snare top, bottom and comp -> SNARE bus -> Snare audio track (mono)
HH, OH -> CYMBALS bus -> audio track (stereo)
All toms -> TOMS bus -> audio track (stereo)
Ambience near, mid, far, bullet -> AMB bus -> "Room" audio track (stereo)
 
Effects are also a combination of the sampler's internal effects and track effects. EQ is done within SD2, and I often use the built-in transient shaper on kick, snare or toms. Compression and limiting are normally done in the track, since that's what's most likely to be tweaked after the drums have been frozen.
 
Part of my rationale for doing it this way has to do with my underpowered computer. SD2 is a big CPU and RAM eater, so the drums are typically the first thing to be frozen. Routing to separate audio tracks and using external effects lets me retain mixing options that would otherwise be frozen if I did it all within the sampler.
 
 

Great idea and info guys.  I too have my templates set up for individual outs for drums.  It's interesting how people have different ideas and logic for how they approach their workflow...!  That's what makes this so much fun....there really is no wrong or right way for most of the things we do.  It all depends on what works for each of us...!
 
Thanks again for all the responses.