NI:s new Studio drummer - kills Superior drummer 2 and BFD2?

[EvilDragon]

I bet you will be able to just add MIDIs to already existing folders and load them from UI.

[lingyai]

More cowbell?

[filkertom]

I hardly ever use Kontakt. I certainly don't use it with my Steven Slate drums. It's just a freakin' pain, compared to... well, to anything.

Looking forward to buying Jamstix. Currently using Band In A Box with RealTracks and DrumCore 3 with a whole bunch of MIDI grooves.

[lingyai]

Is it certain that more midi files can't be imported into it?

Also -- does anyone if the output from each piece of kit can be rendered to its own wav file?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I guess NI:s strategy is to use the widespread familiarity of the Kontakt GUI to attract

what a shame

[kelvyn]

stay cool people! Its just another product that's gonna help us make fantastic music... The only thing that can hold us back is our imagination. Interesting times!

[klagga]

Is it certain that more midi files can't be imported into it?

Who has said that? We don't know yet, but one would probably expect it to be possible. I just hope it's possible and sure will try to find out before maybe eventually buying the product.

[klagga]

I guess NI:s strategy is to use the widespread familiarity of the Kontakt GUI to attract

what a shame

How come, you don't like the GUI or whatever?

[klagga]

I hardly ever use Kontakt. (...) It's just a freakin' pain, compared to... well, to anything.

How come? What is it you don't like with it? Can you be specific? Just curious.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I guess NI:s strategy is to use the widespread familiarity of the Kontakt GUI to attract

what a shame

How come, you don't like the GUI or whatever?

i'm not a fan

[filkertom]

I hardly ever use Kontakt. (...) It's just a freakin' pain, compared to... well, to anything.

How come? What is it you don't like with it? Can you be specific? Just curious.

I admit that I only have the Kontakt Player, but it sure seems to have most of the functionality of the full program except for the timeouts.

First thing I dislike is the interface. I'd like to be able to scale it more easily, and change (and change the size of) the fonts. And I can't tell where the hell anything's going to be -- it's as intuitive as a Beef Wellington recipe.

Multis are also a pain, especially with routing. I'm very used to things like WusikStation and Garritan's Aria, where you click on the channel box, assign, and BAM there you are, routing and everything already taken care of. Trying to use a drum set from Steven Slate EX, on the other hand, means individually routing each drum in the set. If there's a way to not have to worry about that, I haven't found it.

And, Komplete may be awe-inspiring and all that, but I find the Kontakt Factory Selection to be pretty dry. Much more interesting and useful sounds with Wusik, any of the u-he or HG Fortune synths, and especially Alchemy.

YMMV.

[robogone]

i'm not a fan

Clearly.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

i'm not a fan

Clearly.

[lingyai]

Is it certain that more midi files can't be imported into it?

Who has said that? We don't know yet, but one would probably expect it to be possible. I just hope it's possible and sure will try to find out before maybe eventually buying the product.

Sorry, I read your comment earlier "Would be cool if you could import more midi files in the Studio drummer" as implying you couldn't... guess I misread it

[klagga]

I hardly ever use Kontakt. (...) It's just a freakin' pain, compared to... well, to anything.

How come? What is it you don't like with it? Can you be specific? Just curious.

I admit that I only have the Kontakt Player, but it sure seems to have most of the functionality of the full program except for the timeouts.

First thing I dislike is the interface. I'd like to be able to scale it more easily, and change (and change the size of) the fonts. And I can't tell where the hell anything's going to be -- it's as intuitive as a Beef Wellington recipe.

Multis are also a pain, especially with routing. I'm very used to things like WusikStation and Garritan's Aria, where you click on the channel box, assign, and BAM there you are, routing and everything already taken care of. Trying to use a drum set from Steven Slate EX, on the other hand, means individually routing each drum in the set. If there's a way to not have to worry about that, I haven't found it.

And, Komplete may be awe-inspiring and all that, but I find the Kontakt Factory Selection to be pretty dry. Much more interesting and useful sounds with Wusik, any of the u-he or HG Fortune synths, and especially Alchemy.

YMMV.

Thanks for sharing. I agree, the Kontakt GUI in itself is a bit unintuitive.

I can relate to what you are saying. I've had Kontakt since v1, and use it as-a-matter-of-fact, but still, I've never really clicked with either it or several of the libraries made for Kontakt (Alicia's keys, Scarbees Funk guitar, Vir2 instruments etc).

But I find this special Studio drummer GUI a lot more intuitive. So it's first now with Studio drummer I think Kontakt is getting really interesting.

For example, comparing Studio drummer to Toontrack's EZdrummer and Superior drummer 2 (SD2), as I said in my first post, there seems to be as much ease of use in Studio drummer as in EZdrummer, and still more depth that clearly gets into Superior drummer territory.

There may be more features in SD2, but, at the same time, SD2 is not that easy all the time. For example, the mixer is a PITA when you have to scroll all the time to see the channels far to the right. With Studio drummer you, as far as I can see, always see all the channels at the same time, so you have a better overview of the mixer.

Some of the SD2 "features" are a bit over the top, too. I think the are a LOT in SD2 that the regular user won't use, because it's just too complex, or unnecessary.

I've had SD2 for years, but never clicked with either that much. It has a beautiful GUI, graphically, but I think it's a bit overcomplex for my taste.

I demoed BFD2 several times, but never like that one at all. It was a lot worse than SD2, a bit nerdy in a way with all the ways you can control the drums and far from intuitive IMHO. Like SD2, an engineer's dream, maybe, but distracting from making music.

So, perhaps, NI Studio drummer can be a nice balance between EZdrummer and SD2/BFD2.