Here, you have access to all the libraries of MIDI content that come standard with SD2 or have been purchased separately. Finally, the last panel to the right provides info on exactly which kit pieces were used in the groove. The entire groove page is very intuitive and packed with smart features like the ability to double on a groove or even on a single kit piece used in the groove to solo exactly what is being played. Dedicated controls in the grooves page allow for playback at full, double or half speed.
The velocity knob allows the ability to turn the overall velocity of the groove up or down. This is a fantastic way to hear the true detail of SD2. By simply playing a groove and turning the velocity up or down, you can hear the drummer physically play louder or quieter as opposed to the samples simply being louder or quieter. This is an incredible achievement taking into consideration the amount of programming and processing power required.
The grooves page allows users to build complex and human sounding drum patterns from scratch very easily. Here, users can access and change the assignment of incoming MIDI notes to instruments in the drum kit. Mapping is also used to manipulate the articulations that make up the hits. For more advanced users, MAPPING is where you can stack or join drums together, allowing multiple drums to be triggered simultaneously.
The JOIN feature is how a user can add ambience mics from one studio to a snare drum recorded somewhere else. This allows you to create a full set of multi-track audio from your MIDI session which can then be imported back in and edited, mixed and treated as if it were anything else recorded for your session.
I can say honestly that SD2 has been used on every project I have mixed in the past two years. As a mix engineer, I generally use SD2 to supplement existing real drums recorded for my sessions. Therefore, my first step is always converting kick and snare audio tracks to MIDI.
Toontrack has its own standalone drum to midi converter called Drumtracker available separately. The recorded drums on tape came to me sounding good overall but lacking a bit of definition in the low end and were in need of a fair bit of help to achieve a more punchy and dynamic sound. The kick drum has a full and well-articulated low end with just enough snap. Blended together, the two snares I chose had a great deal of body and thickness and supported the natural drums perfectly when blended dB below the original snare.
The opening track on the Enter the Haggis album in particular benefited from the SD2. The intro, first verse and chorus came in with one floor tom played with a mallet live off the floor during the session.
I decided that these sections could really jump if they were supplemented with multiple floor toms spread out across the stereo image as if played by a group of people to sound very orchestral and tribal. This is where SD2 shines. I was able to convert the single floor tom to MIDI and spent a fair amount of time digging in and adjusting the velocities so they were perfectly matched.
I have also dabbled in using the grooves section to create full drum parts for demos and writing purposes. As I mentioned, the grooves included with SD2 are high quality and played by an expert drummer on a full eletronic kit. The attention to detail within each instrument, particularly at low velocities is truly awesome. The ability to drag and drop allows for quickly mixing and matching different grooves and fills to create an exciting, dynamic drum part very quickly.
Overall, the sounds inside SD2 and each available pack are in my opinion the best out there. Every instrument sounds full and crisp and has a sound unique to every other drum in the pack. I can say with confidence that the drum sounds inside SD2 are quite simply the best sounding, most natural reproduction of acoustic drums available anywhere on the market.
It always seemed like such great effort to get the right sounds, "play a beat" "ok hit the snare and then the tom" "wait just hit the tom" "ok play a beat again" "wait, actually hit that floor tom" - UGH!!! NOW I just say send me the track and I'll give you some great sounding drum tracks. Even if you just grab Superior Drummer 2. You get several snares and kicks to choose from, along with plenty of toms and cymbals.
The sounds inside Superior Drummer 2. But I find that Toontrack has done a fine job in terms of user experience as well. The Construct View first image above is not only visually appealing but also well-structured. So to my mind, you can get used to Superior Drummer 2.
A drum set is an instrument with many parts and lots of sonic nuances. So to recreate this in a virtual environment is certainly no small task. And Superior Drummer 2. When it comes to creating and fine-tuning your drum kit, the sound library gives you a range of choices that is far greater than those open to many studios and producers on a budget.
And at the same time, Toontrack has managed to make the interface of Superior Drummer 2. As such, I find that Superior Drummer 2. Have you used Superior Drummer 2. Do you have any questions left? These channels control different ambient levels of your drum set in your mix. You can mix sounds from different kits and them save the whole thing as a user preset. In terms of resources, a kit can use up from MB up to 1. It runs gig-proof on my MacBook with 4GB ram. Using Logic 9 as the host Superior Drummer never crashed or failed on me, not even during hour long sessions.
Additional drum sound libraries and presets are available at the Toontrack website. That said, what is included here sounds absolutely great. Given the control over individual microphones, the ability to pitch—shift the individual kit pieces and to adjust their transients, it is possible to conjure a huge range of acoustic drum sounds from SD 2.
I'm not sure I'd find myself delving into the various bleed options too often, but the ability to blend the close mics' bleed with that of the overheads and room mics allows you to add as much or as little ambience as required.
The Bounce dialogue provides plenty of options for creating multitrack audio outputs from SD 2. One might expect all this realism to come at something of a cost in terms of computer resources but, in basic use, SD 2. CPU load only really seemed to pick up when I inserted more instances of the various effects plug—ins into the mixer.
RAM use is perhaps more of an issue as the 'full' version of the default kit requires almost 1GB to load. However, options such as the system 'cache' which only loads samples as they are used , 16—bit mode and the ability to limit the velocity layers can all be combined to reduce this quite dramatically while composing, and can then be switched off again when it comes to the final mix.
Alternatively, SD 2. This bouncing is done at the highest quality and, as well as just creating a standard stereo mix, can be used to create audio tracks for each virtual microphone. In essence, this will generate a multitrack audio performance — just as if you had recorded a real drum kit — ready for mixing with the rest of the audio in your project. It's difficult not to be impressed by what SD 2.
Toontrack have managed to strike a sensible balance between very detailed control of your drum mix and an interface that is relatively easy to use. And as the samples themselves sound excellent, the only limits to your creativity are your programming ability and your host computer — unless you have a reasonably well-endowed one. The obvious comparison is with FXpansion's BFD2 and, having used both products, I have to say that choosing a favourite is a very difficult call.
In terms of control over your drum mixing, I think SD 2. The attention to detail in the sampling in both products is also excellent. While there are some differences between the two in terms of the approach taken to certain features, probably the most obvious difference is that BFD2 is supplied with a somewhat larger variety of drum types, while SD 2.
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