Drum plugins

All the major vendors work well in SONAR. Expect to hear from champions of all of them when you post a question like this. All of them run sales too. If you time your purchase correctly you can save quite a bit on both the plug-in and expansion kits.

I recommend uTonic if you like to create your own drums: soniccharge.com/microtonic
 
It is now 64 bit and it is excellent.

You probably want to take a look at Superior Drummer, BFD, Addictive Drums, Steven Slate, and N.I.'s Abbey Road/Studio Drummer and Purrfect Audio Jet City (by our very own Jim Roseberry). They're all very good.
 
Dean

Thanks for all the help guys. Like I said, I know this is a loaded question and hated to be so vague, but I'm fairly new to Sonar and wasn't sure if it digested most drum plugins well. Sounds like it does. Next step now.....the credit card. I really appreciate the responses.

BFD2
 
That is all......

NI Battery is versatile, endlessly tweakable and comes with loads of content.  However it is only suitable if you are prepared to spend time setting things up.  If you want something that is easy and quick, look elsewhere.
 

My first question is, assuming you have used session drummer 3 that comes with sonar, what didn't you like about it ?
Was it the sounds? lack of velocity layers and articulations? I guess you need to know what you want first but then you also need to know what's out there
 
I think the first two questions you might want to ask your self (or that I would ask you) is...
A) do you just want drums that sound mixed and ready to go that you can throw in to your music in the hope that they'll work ?
Or  B) would you prefer to have complete control of how you want to shape them into something more original and that you can truly call your own and do you want to LEARN to MIX drums.
 
If the answer is A, then superior drummer and BFD2 might be a bit over the top for you and you may find the steep learning curve a bit overwhelming and give up.
 
I would then suggest either BFD Eco (BFD2's little brother) or EZdrummer which is superior drummers little brother.
IMHO BFD Eco sounds much better, is more versatile than EZdrummer and comes with a much better mixer and more and better
effects. It's a shame you only just posted this as Eco was on sale for $29 until the end of June but is back up to $99 for now.
EZdrummer is the simpler of the two and IMHO very similar to session drummer 3, it's clearly the better of the two but not by much.
 
If the answer is B) then both BFD2 and superior drummer work very well with sonar.
 
There is also Addictive drums which I would put just behind both superior drummer and BFD2 as the sample quality is compressed
and a lower bit rate and it sounds like it too. But to it's credit I was so impressed with the range of presets in different styles and genres that came with addictive drums and the whole program is less than 2GB.
 
My personal choice has always been BFD2 & BFD Eco.
Of course, I am biased as I'm a beta tester for FXpansion but I was a customer first and became a beta tester because I love their product and their ethos and to my ears their samples sound bigger and warmer and lovelier.
I much prefer their mixer and you get a very comprehensive range of very high end effects (not just your vanilla compressor eq and reverb)
The idea behind BFD2 (and superior drummer) is to let you be the engineer in your own drums studio. You have all the raw samples of very well recorded drums and all the control that you would have in a recording studio so you can tweak away till the cows come home.
You can get a demo of BFD2 from fxpansion to try out for your self. You'll need to register with them in order to download it.
 
Steve
 
P.S. You may also find that your machine lacks the power that is required for both BFD2 and superior drummer.
 
 

Try that Rock Legends kit for SD3 Cake gave away. If it's anything like the one for BFD it sounds great. It's not too sharp or clicky nor too boomy and flappy so it can be manipulated to go in either direction. Platinum Samples makes great stuff and this one's been serving me well. Another really nice one for SD3 is the Andy John's kit. It's a little more tight and modern sounding than the Rock Legends one.
 
As far as hosts I've got BFD Eco which I use exclusively now. Very cool stuff and it's a really inexpensive way to get high quality sounding drums. I'm itching to upgrade the BFD2. The thing with BFD though is unlike other drum hosts the kits are recorded dry so your signals behaves like they would if you recorded a real kit. You have to mix it like a real kit because of this (which I wanted but some people don't). However it comes with a bunch of drum effects and presets so you can just select a preset and not worry about mixing too much. I use Sonar's effects though I think they're a little higher quality.
 
 

garrigus
Toontrack EZdrummer or Toontrack Superior Drummer (if want more advanced features).
 
Scott

I'm with you there, Scott.
 
EZDrummer is so quick and easy to set up, and sounds fantastic, particularly with the added expansions.  Superior is much more in depth.
 
Most of the studios I've played in have used Superior, FWIW.

garrigus

jb101I'm with you there, Scott.EZDrummer is so quick and easy to set up, and sounds fantastic, particularly with the added expansions.  Superior is much more in depth.Most of the studios I've played in have used Superior, FWIW.

Hey Jonathan... yeah, I really like the Toontrack stuff. I have both EZ and Superior (along with the expansions) and I use them both depending on the project needs. Scott
--
Scott

Steve Hackett used Superior on his last two albums, and they sounded great. I'm pretty sure that most people had no idea that it wasn't a drummer.

My first electronic kit was a Simmons SDS 7. At the time I was amazed at the sound. It's funny to hear it now. I've tried many since, but haven't found anything that sounds as good as the Toontrack stuff.

Now, if I could only cure my addiction to buying expansion packs..

Oh, although the sale is over on BFD Eco a lot of places still have it for that sale price of $29 so you might want to lighten the load on your credit card.
Here some cheaper options Eco Cheapo!!
 
All of these are in the UK but since it's a download only it shouldn't matter what country your in
 
Steve

Also if you do end up with BFD keep an eye out for the Zildgian Digital Vault packs. Between the free Rock Legends kit I got as a bonus from the sale when I bought Eco and the ZDV pack I snagged for under $30 I've got the perfect kit options for what I do. The cymbals included with Eco are okay but the DV stuff blows them out the water and you get a lot more stick options and more velocity layers making them much more dynamic and realistic.
 

Wow, thanks to all of you... To answer Twaddles question, one of the reasons I'm looking for a new plugin, is that I only seem to have fully closed, or fully open hi hat sounds when I record using my v drums. It makes for a very unrealistic sounding set of hats. I'm hoping that the plugin ins you guys have recommended have the ability to let me actually "Play" my hats. Am I correct or am I missing something in my set up?

cmemx
Wow, thanks to all of you... To answer Twaddles question, one of the reasons I'm looking for a new plugin, is that I only seem to have fully closed, or fully open hi hat sounds when I record using my v drums. It makes for a very unrealistic sounding set of hats. I'm hoping that the plugin ins you guys have recommended have the ability to let me actually "Play" my hats. Am I correct or am I missing something in my set up?

Hmm... I think there is a section in SD3 where you can set three different hi hat states and adjust how they respond to the controller pedal... but maybe not. In BFD you can set that stuff though. I wish I could afford a V-Drum kit but that stuff is PRICEY. Gotta just work with my padKontrol if I want live input.

Hmm... I think there is a section in SD3 where you can set three different hi hat states and adjust how they respond to the controller pedal... but maybe not. In BFD you can set that stuff though. I wish I could afford a V-Drum kit but that stuff is PRICEY. Gotta just work with my padKontrol if I want live input.
 
Beepster, if there is , I can't find it.... Drum mapping, instrument defs and so on, are hard on this old mans head.  I think there are 3 or 4 different midi note numbers that correspond to different hat openings and closings in sd3, but its beyond me to figure out how to make them work. My brain is fried..... Ive read some of the cakewalks tutorials on setting up definitions, maps and so on, but I'm not even sure if thats what i need. This is tough stuff to me.... It would be great if someone had a video covering v-drums(Roland) and Sonar X(Roland) and how to use them with plug ins. There are 5 videos on the web that do, but they are in Spanish.  No habla Espanol..