drum software

Superior or EZDrummer.

Both require the purchase of extra packs.

In the end (IMHO) EZDrummer is loaded with "processed" drums and Superior is a bit more raw and has the flexibility of using their Comp & EQ etc.

Both allow multi outs in SONAR.

I also have Jamstix, Battery3, Addictive, Steven Slate, Ocean Way Drums, Jet City, Session Drummer 2/3, ALL NI Abbey Road and Drum Masters.

All in all I mostly rely on Superior or EZDrummer.

I went for BFD2

What I love about this package is that you can, if you wish, get really deep inside the editing and tweak an absolute HUGE number of parameters, or you can simply fire up one of many hundreds of useful kits and/or grooves that come ready-rolled.

The stock pieces are completey dry with no processing whatsoever.

The mixer (which I seldom use) is all  very richly featured, with EQ's, compressors, gates etc on hand.

And mapping the kit pieces into Sonar is childs play.

And of course there are many separate expansion kits which fill out your entire percussion library.

Just my opinion of course - I don't work for FXpansion

thanks guys,

bapu, you said that superior and ez both require the purchase of expansion packs. what does that mean? they are not "ready to go out of the box?"
btw, the fact you own all of the drum synths that i've heard of and find yourself actually using superior or ez says a lot in and of itself. just curious, why would you opt to even use ez if you have superior available? thanks.


guitarhacker, the artificial drummer "feel" is an interesting feature and the idea of some help with the heavy lifting is always welcome since i am not a drummer either. how many "drummers" are there to choose from? hats off to jamstix if they have a good "keith moon." trying to replicate his songs with midi leaves me shaking in my boots. that man could play the drums. thanks.


bristoljonesey, i also like a piece of "gear" that allows you to get inside and really customize the details, but for practical application, as you also noted, the usability "out of the box" is essential. tweaking is fun, but if anything must be meticulously tweaked all the time in order to be usable, then it is "half baked" imo. you've said that bfd2 offers both, so that sounds great. it does come with a price tag though. is there a lite edition that can be upgraded? i couldn't find one. thanks. edit: i just came across bfd eco, had not ever heard of it.


modbod, thanks for your opinion/affirmation of ez-superior2.2. the extended grooves sound like a time saver.


is there any info about session drummer4?

if one were to purchase a drums package like steven slate or ocean way or others, are they usable with any drum synth? some expansion packs seem to be product specific. are there any that are universal?

thanks again,
matt




 

Mod Bod


I think that EZdrummer with an eventual upgrade to Superior Drummer is an excellent plan of action.

I can't see you getting hurt by that decision. 

There are midi libraries available from Toontrack that have nice long grooves in them coming out now.  It really helps to keep the flow natural and not static.

Hi Dave,
I know you do a lot of work with EZ & Superior Drummer, but have you had any experience with BFD2 (or any other good drum software)? Just wondering what your thoughts are on when comparing the other softwares to EZ & Superior Drummer.
Thanks,

thanks mgh, if i'm understanding you, any expansion pack is usable with any drum synth. is that correct? if that's the case, then the main issue seems to be features and user friendliness/efficiency.

M@ B


thanks mgh, if i'm understanding you, any expansion pack is usable with any drum synth. is that correct? if that's the case, then the main issue seems to be features and user friendliness/efficiency.

no no. ezd expansion packs will only work in ezd (and sd cos it's the same company). steven slate drum kits will only work with the steven slate version of kontakt player etc. you may be able to 'unlock' these somehow but i don't think it's worth it. if you decide to go EZD there are always specials on offer ie 2 for 1.

Thanks Bit for the detailed info....this was the kind of review I was hoping for. (I wasn't sure how the others compared....)
I did get EZ for something like $35 a few months ago (in hopes of upgrading to Superior) and I'm quite happy with EZ Drummers quality. 

i use battery a fair bit but am hooked on abbey road 80s kit for kontakt now.......

bitflipper

thanks mgh, if i'm understanding you, any expansion pack is usable with any drum synth. is that correct? if that's the case, then the main issue seems to be features and user friendliness/efficiency.

Correction: "expansion packs are available for any drum synth". They aren't always interchangeable.

One other consideration is cost: BFD expansion packs are usually less expensive than SD2 packs.

Fortunately, Superior Drummer is amazingly flexible with just the stock sample set. It's all I use. Some of the expansion packs look very enticing, but at $150 a pop I can't justify them.

I also have Jamstix and several expansion packs. Sound-wise I'd rate it between Session Drummer 3 and EZDrummer - pretty OK but not very tweakable. The joy of Jamstix is you get a full-time jam buddy to play with, great for working up ideas. For recordings, I mostly use Jamstix for percussion (congas, tambourines, shakers, etc.) using their excellent percussion pack.

I think the primary determinators for choosing a drum package is a) how realistic do you want it, and b) how hard are you willing to work at it?

* Session Drummer sounds only OK but is very easy to use
* EZDrummer ($100) is a bargain, sounds good and is very easy to use but not very tweakable
* Addictive Drums ($200) sounds good and is easy to use but a little more tweakable
* BFD2 ($300) sounds great and is easy to use, but you'll want to invest in expansion packs
* Superior Drummer ($300) sounds great but it's almost as involved as recording real drums
* Kontakt-based sample sets run the gamut from crap to great, and tend to be more expensive and somewhat less intuitive since they have to conform to a generic interface. Some of the very best-sounding libraries are Kontakt-based, but beginners may be befuddled by them.

thanks bitflipper, for sharing your take on the various products out there. so if i'm understanding you correctly, expansion paks are generally product specific. is that correct? i'm a bit unsure because session drummer3 has some steven slate and sonic reality content. that seems to go contrary to some of what i'm reading here in the thread. do third partys create xpaks specifically for a particular drum synth?

btw, i agree, 150 bucks a piece for a supdrmr2 xpak is a quite pricey.
on the supdrmr web page they state that it comes with 20 gigs of drum content. that seems like a massive amount of drum samples. hopefully enough to not require an xpak for a little while. although, as bapu stated earlier, it only one kit. 20 gigs of content for one kit... and here i thought neil peart had a big set. 
 i'll continue to research and learn some more before i decide on a purchase.

to answer your questions,
a) as realistic as possible is always the goal, but within reason of course because, 
b) i've got approximately 25 cover songs to put together and i'm doing all of the engineering/production by my self, so there is a lot of other work i have to do. that's why respectable sounding drums out of the box is a priority. i'll tweak them to get them nicer of course, but if i have to tweak a hi hat for a long time, i'd probably conclude that i selected the wrong hat. i'd like to use drum sounds that are nice to begin with.

thanks again

just before you plump for ezd, steven slate have a lot of demos on their page, and the SSD EX plus 2 EX expansion packs is only $159 at the mo (or just $99 for the EX) - that gives you 10 kits with the EX plus 6/7 extra kits in each expansion pack...just saying like!

mgh


just before you plump for ezd, steven slate have a lot of demos on their page, and the SSD EX plus 2 EX expansion packs is only $159 at the mo (or just $99 for the EX) - that gives you 10 kits with the EX plus 6/7 extra kits in each expansion pack...just saying like!

thanks mgh, i dont find myself using the stslate kits very often with sd3.they sound very live and snappy or pumped up, at least the kits that came with sd3. i always audition them, either as a full kit or as separate pieces, and rarely have they worked. i've been going  a lot with the plain sounding, regular, dry drums and they sound the least synthetic to me. it could be (and probably is, come to think of it) that all the other tracks are completely dry on all of my projects, so it would make sense that the "steve slate sounding" drums don't fit at the moment. they may fit more appropriately at mix time, but for now i'm tracking all of the tunes dry. thanks for your suggestions and info.

You may find yourself using/purchasing various programs to get "just the right sound" for whatever you're doing.

In my "Quest for the Holy Grail", I've purchased Battery 3(as part of Komplete), Steven Slate EX, a group buy from Sonic Reality that included a BUNCH of kits for use with Kontakt, EZ Drummer and the subsequent upgrade to Superior Drummer.  (Of course, I have Session Drummer 3 as well.)

And, all have had their uses (and would ALL be good, if you do enough tweaking and adjusting).  Some (to me) are better than others.

My current program of choice is Superior Drummer.  I still use the others....but Superior seems to have everything I want at the moment.  I wondered if the upgrade from EZ would really be worth it.  It was...  (Keep in mind that EZ is also very good)

I have not purchased any of the expansion packs, as you can really get quite a bit of variety with just the included kit.  And...in my opinion it's also very useful right out of the box...without any tweaking needed, if you aren't into that.

 

M@ B


i find sd3 to be too much clicking and surfing to access  another kick or snare or whatever.  from the stuff i've seen on the utube vids, with ez you can access various other drums and cymbals right there on the same screen as the drum set. that seems to be a big time saver and less hassle. i feel like i'm always clicking away from the drum kit to go get a different drum or variation.

This is true, and was the main driver behind me switching.  I don't want to spend hours looking for drums.

tweaking is fun, but if anything must be meticulously tweaked all the time in order to be usable, then it is "half baked" imo.

M@ B


 thanks again,
matt

Sorry Matt but noticing your comment I felt compelled to to address that one. 

The point isn't to make it usable, (who the hell wants usable?) The point is to make it awesome or at very least special. 
   
It's almost like saying if you had the worlds greatest drummer playing a great drum kit in a top pro studio with best recording equipment, room & mics and top engineers  that that would somehow be enough. 
You'd just record the drums and nothing more would need to be done? 
  

Whenever I've been in to a studio it's usually been the day after the drummer because that's how long it can take just do get them set up right and sounding their best. Once you've got that recorded there's a whole lot of tweaking and mixing of drums that goes into your final mix.


I'm not an engineer but I reckon I'd be out of a job pretty quick if I'd made a comment like yours to my bosses 




Steve

 I recently bought BFD2 and already had BFD eco. I really have to say that the sound quality of the samples is amazing . Like someone else here has said, there are  lots of options in how you can make the drums sound,many more options than some of the less expensive Drumplers...but some mixes don't require that extra sheen and if you are not into making in depth drum adjustments and want out of the box simple then I would not get BFD. I like tweaking and having those options though so it fits me well. BFD will take any midi loop you throw at it or you can use the loops in it already. It is incredible how much different you can make a kit sound using the included plugs in BFD.

  I also have NI Studio Drummer which is a great program. Not as many options to choose from,but the provided options are more than capable of producing good drum tracks.

 I have heard a lot of good things about EZDrummer and Superior drummer and there seem to be tons of packs for them. In my case I decided to  buy a high quality program and  avoid the need to buy anything else later....of course,this hasn't worked at all because I still want to try other programs like Abbey Road in Kontakt.

  The quest for the best drums can really become like the firefly flying into the light or the dog chasing his tail all day. Too many choices can make the best choice more difficult.

  Like guitarhacker said, I would listen to the kits you are considering and see what you like the best. In the end its all sampled drums,and loops.After that It's the quality and velocity of the samples and the GUI.