I don't have SSD, but have a friend for whom it's his go-to kit. I have to say it does sound very, very good. He's not the tweaker type (except for guitar tone, for which he has endless patience) so SSD is great for him because it takes very little effort to make it sound good right out of the box. That seems to be a basic strength and limitation of Kontakt-based drums in general: they can sound great but you get what you get and no more. 
 
For me, Superior Drummer is close to ideal. Granted, it does take more effort - almost as if you'd recorded real drums, but cleaner. The upside is that it's so flexible that even with just the stock kit I can adapt SD2 to any style I want. But I'd still love to have SSD for those times when I don't feel like working so hard at it.

Glyn Barnes

mixmkr
Is there any truth that BFD3 is a little glitchy?  Other than load times, Toontrack has always been solid.  Sometimes I have to reload, but not much.
 

I have not encountered any problems with BFD3.

I, also, have had NO problems with BFD 3....IMO it is the BEST Drum Sampler out there...

SSD 4 is good....Superior is good...until BFD 3 I think BFD 2 and Superior were about neck and neck...subtle 
and varying differences, but soundwise they were both great products.

But BFD 3, for me, takes the Prize...

The one place where Toontrack excels is ADD PACKS.  They make sure there is no shortage of them.

SSD is no longer Kontakt-based. SSD is supposed to be mix ready. It's kind of the premise behind them. They should slide straight in with no messing although you can tweak if you want to.

bitflipper
 so SSD is great for him because it takes very little effort to make it sound good right out of the box. That seems to be a basic strength and limitation of Kontakt-based drums in general: they can sound great but you get what you get and no more. 
 

For the record, SSD is no longer Kontakt based. They have their own sample player, some tweaking is possible but that's not SSDs strength.

I have EZ Drummer, SD2, SSD4 Platinum, AD, The NI Period Kontakt drums (60s, 70s, etc.), NI Maschine and 9 addon packs, Spectrasonic Stylus RMX.  Damn I got a lot of drums!
 
I only have the Indie EZ addon pack. 
 
I am not a tweaker of drums.  I want to get in get something laid down and move on.
 
I have been using SSD4 for solid no tweaking drums and Stylus RMS for laying down drums.  Just really quick out of the box laying down of tracks.
 
Ez to much tweaking and need all those addon packs to cover different styles, SD2 is really good sounding but I spend too much time tweaking and of course addon packs aren't as cheap and some are needed (brush hits etc).
 
I might get BFD3 eventually if they have a super sale but at full price it's to much for me and I have so much already to work with.
 
SSD4 platinum is great sounding  - I think og it as working with a old hardware drum machine, great sounding not much tweaking and ya move on.

Well, now might be a good time to buy SSD4 or practically anything at Slate Digital......they're having a 50% off sale for the month of March.

Glyn Barnes
 
For the record, SSD is no longer Kontakt based. They have their own sample player, some tweaking is possible but that's not SSDs strength.

And FWIW, as much as I was delighted when they announced that they would be moving away from Kontakt and creating their own player, I cannot bring myself to use the player. It's uselessly big and clunky and inefficient. Looks and feels like beta software designed by the creators of SawStudio.
 
The few times I use the SSD library (usually to beef up existing tracks), I use the old Kontakt version.
 
EZ Drummer/Superior Drummer remain my go to drums tools. They offer a good compromise - they're polished but not so much that you cannot tweak them, certainly not as pre-mixed and song-ready as the Slate stuff. In terms of ergonomics, to me, the Toontrack stuff is a notch above everything else.
 
If I were to want to dig really deep, I'd opt for BFD, which has the most realistic/less polished sounding drums of the bunch. The Platinum Samples' Evil Joe Barresi library for BFD sounds like it could be all the drums I ever dreamed of.

I'm like most of us here and have a bunch of drum libraries (it's a real problem...), including some rather obscure ones. At the moment, SSD4 is my go to, but I also regularly use NI Abbey Roads and the kits available in Infinite Player (Platinum, Neil Peart, etc.).
 
I notice no one here says AD is a favorite!? Since it is available with X3, I would have hoped more of you liked it. It is the one feature that makes me want to jump to X3 from X1d. If it ain't all that and a bag of chips, I may keep on using X1d...
 
Regards,
Dan
 

mixmkr
and being the owner of Superior...should I have an interest in the other?  I'm not looking for MORE...but is it *better*.
 
Just saw a video on FB that the guy says it slams Superior...you get all these extra drums without buying expansions, the layering is great and easy to do and then he raved about the cymbals and HH.

I like Superior quite a bit, but always have the door open for improvement.  Quite frankly, Superior done *right*...whatever that means... would seem hard to beat in the "sound catagory".    

 
You have superior and you like tweaking ?
 
Bear in mind BFD3 is a point 1 release (okay, it's at 3.0.2.8) but as a new product redesigned from the ground up it's inevitable there will be some glitches to be ironed out. I have had very few and the few I have had have been minor.
Of course the best way for you would be to try The Demo which is on the right of the page.
 
For tweakers there's none better than Superior and BFD3 they both have their strengths and weaknesses but for me the sound of BFD3 is much more........well....just much more, plus a number of other new features that put BFD3 firmly back at number one for me. Just ask Bapu
 
I have slate but never use it, has some great out of the box sounds for heavy rock but lacks variety and as with all out of the box sounds they are very heavily processed and the mixer/gui as CClary pointed out is the worse I have seen for a long time.
 
As you don't own any fxpansion products (?) you might have to pay the full monty but you should really try and get your hands on BFD Eco when the next merry-go-sale comes round and you might be able to upgrade from there.
Last spotted at $19 which is just giving it away.
 
Steve

funny nobody uses Cakewalk session drummer 3, least they haven't admitted it.  I have it installed with Sonar but have actually never used it at all.