With everything going on, I thought I’d post a thread with a real question.

When it comes to Addictive Drums 2, do you insert as a single MIDI track or do you select multi outputs?

I was telling my friend that I have my projects set up with AD2 as multi outputs and I use the faders in Sonar as opposed to AD2’s interface. He swears you can do all the same stuff - even adding plugins - through the AD2 interface. I don’t see that anywhere.

Any thoughts?

I know you can mix within AD2 and send single stereo output to DAW. I also know the built in mixer has effects, including parallel compression. Don't recall if it allows third party plugs to route into internal mixer

If he said adding fx I would say yeah but only the ones built in, but adding plugins, not a chance. I usually just use a simple instrument track and built in fx until I feel like the song is worth something and needs to be mixed properly, then I would separate everything as usual.

I use Sonar's mixer, the ProChannel FX, with occasional things like transient designers in the in the FX Bin. I ike my drums in the same space as my mix, so going to the same Reverb Bus. I have a template for this as a starting point, with a clean kit and everything removed in AD2. Best of both worlds is I still get to use some of AD2 tools if I like
 
I also like creating something in Step Sequencer, then dragging that into AD2 Transform page for Velocity dynamic manipulation and inspiration. Having the console view and the Transform view pen at he same time to balance the velocities and Volumes, while expanding or compressing the velocities and massaging their 8th and 16th accents. It's make choosing a soft drum played loud of a hard drum played soft really easy. Once I have something cool, I can drag it back to PRV for further editing.

 

One advantage of using separate outputs is you can freeze those outputs and this gives you stems you can easily import to another Daw. Usefull if the other Daw/PC does not have AD2 license or not the same Ad packs.

I do it both ways depending on my needs. Same with drums in kontakt and play. I prefer having drums on separate tracks in Sonar in general as I can get them into the mix better, but sometimes it isn't necessary or can cause problems.

What I do is setup Addictive Drums to separate tracks, setup my routings (AUX tracks & Buses) , add all my fav FX/Pro Channel stuff, set sidechains and then save the setup as a "Track Template". Next time you create a project that uses AD, just insert your track template and everything magically appears as you set it up. Great feature.
 
I think Cubase has something like this although I'm not ready to jump ship. 
 
 
 
 

Multiple outputs. I'm a control freak.

Thanks for all the responses! One more question: in AD, which option do you guys choose? Separate pre-fader, with master, etc....

Thanks for all the responses! One more question: in AD, which option do you guys choose? Separate pre-fader, with master, etc....