Using Superior Drummer 2 in a session: How do you guys like to route the various mics/channels to tracks in Cakewalk?

I used Sd2 for so long that it was hard to say goodbye when I moved up to Sd3!
I have always set up busses for each part of the kits. I still use the same setup now in Sd3 but with the included plugins, things are even easier to accomplish now.
I have all kick channels routed to a kick bus. All snare channels to a snare bus. All toms to a Tom bus. Hi hat is a separate bus but sometimes I route it and the overheads to a cymbal bus. Any room mics are routed to a room mic bus. All of the busses are then routed to a Master bus. So it is very easy to get a rough mix happening quickly and easier to control 5 or 6 bus sliders as opposed to 32 channels.
This is in most cases where I am using only the 2 track stereo outputs going out to Sonar or CbB. Depending on what the client wants I can always break Sd2 or 3 back into separate stems if needed. If I am in charge of mixing, I use the bus method described above. It works for me because I have never been one for spreading a bunch of FX all over drum tracks. With some creative bleed control in Sd2 you can get a bone dry kick and cymbals with the snare and toms sitting in a good sized room.
Now, of course, with the self contained FX in Sd3 you can do pretty much anything you want FX wise.
I hope this helps you. It works for me. I hope you will give it a try. Btw, I haven't even mentioned using the sends to get even cleaner and faster mixes just in Sd2.

Thumbs up to bitflipper. I have done that many times if I still felt there would be more tweaking. Since moving to Sd3, the need to do this has been less. And, NO, I am not in cahoots with Toontrack to advertise for them. I just am floored with the many options that are available with Sd3.

bitflipper
My standard SD template is almost exactly like Sidroe's. Five busses within SD (kick, snare, toms, overheads and room mics). However, I prefer to route each of those to separate audio tracks that are subsequently combined into a bus or aux track. That lets me freeze the drums earlier in the process without giving up the option of further tweaks.

Thanks for the feedback man. I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean and/or how routing the drum channels to tracks in Cakewalk lets you freeze the drums earlier in the process. How so and what makes the difference? Thanks for chiming in.

There are tons of tutorials on how to make busses and assigning tracks. In most cases, the only treatments I tend to use on drums is compression and eq. I tended to use the room mics in Sd2 for ambience as opposed reverb or delays or anything fancy or radical. I would rather hear the real room that was designed and built at sometimes the cost of millions of dollars than a cheaper imitation reverb box. The compression I use is not set for pumping EMD drums. I usually get my mix level out of the Master Buss in Sd2 as loud as possible and slap an eq and compressor on the Master. The eq is there for sweetening more than sound design. The compression is set to just barely catch the stray transient you may get from time to time.
I was fortunate to afford a lot of the SDX and EDX drum kits. I used Avatar quite a bit. It and Hit Factory supplied me with good solid drums in medium to small rooms. I relied on Allaire for the big ballad room sound.
I say cleaner and faster because if you spend an hour setting up several kits that are already configured and saved, you can have a library of kits at the click of a button.
Cleaner because it is easier to deal with 5 or 6 bus channels than it is to deal with sliding back and forth across the screen to figure out which tom it is that's pushing the Master in to the red.
While the FX in Sonar are very nice and have saved my butt more than once, I would not say they are better than what is in Sd2. Either a plugin is a reliable, good sounding tool or it isn't. What matters is learning how to use those tools inside and out.
This post got really long and makes me sound like I am preaching the gospel of audio. Geez!!!
Bottom line: tutorials on line can show you about routes and sends better than I can explain. Watch and learn!
Yes! In most cases, i will use routing to busses and using sends to accomplish everything I need inside Sd2 or 3 and have only the Master Buss stereo outs to Sonar. I have not had to build a kit mix from scratch in years. I have such a huge library of my custom kits to choose from. That and the many templates in Cakewalk have me up and running in minutes!!!
That, to me, is more important than spending more time and brain power trying to juggle tracks, channels, busses between Sd2 and the DAW also!!
Right or wrong, this works for me. It may not for you.
One more tip, Toontrack use to sell Producer Packs. These were presets that world class producers developed for SD and EZ. A lot can be learned by studying those setups.
Time to go. I hope I answered your question. You already know the basics of routing. Just keep heading in that direction. I will watch this thread and check in from time to time to help if I can. GOOD LUCK, my friend!!!!!

That's awesome thanks Sidroe those are great notes for me. I've been exposed to mixing for years but never fully focused on it, I know some things, uncertain on others, but I'm a quick learn and am basically cramming to get learned in a couple months what might usually take 6. Thanks for the responses.

Sidroe
I am always glad to help out. I don't profess to know everything about Cakewalk but I have learned much from years of making my share of mistakes. As I said before, a lot of advice I give works for me but the process I use may not be for you. I am always picking up great tidbits from users right here in this forum. The guys in here are some of the most knowledgeable around and, thankfully, the most helpful. My hats off to them ALL!!!!

Thanks again Sidroe, Hey man one more question if you don't mind. Say I wanted to route the SD2 channels to the daw to mix them there instead of the plugin after all. How should I set SD2's channel levels in relation to the daw's corresponding channel levels they'd be getting routed to? Like, I can set all 14 Avatar channels in SD2 to 0 with the corresponding daw channels at 0 to mix from there, but that doesn't seem right. Or should I just get a good optimum level in SD2 and then route them at that point to daw channels that are set to 0 to be fine tuned from there in the daw?

I, too, leave the DAW sliders zeroed and do all my mixing in Superior. No muss, no fuss, as they use to say. If I know that the project calls for separated stems, I try to keep any peaks between -6 and -15. I'm use to cutting tracks around -15 from the old adat days. -15 on the adat meter was always showing 0 on my old Soundtracs Topaz mixer. Yeah, I'm old but I ain't cranky.