I have Studio Drummer from NI, any thoughts on where that fits in? I got EZDrummer because it was super cheap and I wasn't that satisfied with Studio Drummer, but since getting EZDrummer I see the benefits of a more complete package now.

awesome link !!!
thanks a lot

To be fair Resonator63 posted it first

You can always just load kits or single kit pieces and monitor output through stereo bus if all you want is simplicity.

BFD isn't really complex, it just has everything you need to make great sounding drum tracks. However you can always bypass its own processing if you want to use external effects you've grown accustomed to. It's really flexible. I love how BFD Eco sounds, it's definitely more natural than both AD and EZD, and I LOVE how AD sounds (but in a different way)

+1

Cheers
-B

If you mean options of different pieces of kit, expension packs take care of that, but of course that's extra money.

When it comes to tweaking the sounds, you can chose between everything from 100% close miked to 100% room, so it does everything from dead to live. And you're free to send outputs wherever you want for processing. It does the job for me, but then again my needs are surely a lot simpler than the expert tweakers and drum-fanatics out there. I just want to get something decent quickly. The midi-files are generally far too busy to be used as they are, but with a bit of pruning they can work fine.

I recently posted this on another thread:

I recently did back to back A/B listening tests for several of my drum vsti's using the same grooves along with my favorite acoustic kits. Included were Superior Drummer, BFD2, SSD4, Studio Drummer and Addictive Drums. I like and use all of these programs, but I have to say that the best quality (to my ears at least) was Studio Drummer. Rounding out my rankings were BFD2, SSD4, Addictive and, lastly [and ironically], Superior.

Couple of thoughts on each:
Studio Drummer is a really high quality sounding sample set. There are a few presets for different sounds, i.e. Studio kit, stadium kit, etc, and fitting in the mix is easy. My guess is NI will take the HUGE Battery collection of kits and turn them, somehow, into expansion packs for Studio Drummer. But if you already have Battery, I have found that many of the kits already play quite well with SD MIDI files.

BFD2-Highest quality kits with the most diverse choice of styles. Also, you can tweak to your heart's content. Included groove library is very good too. A lot of expansion options, with a fair number of 3rd party developers using the platform as well.

Steven Slate v. 4 - The new SSD sample player is actually quite impressive, and the included MIDI library covers a lot of bases. Bonuses include a very intuitive re-mapping function, as well as easy auditioning of grooves.
Kits are presented in a wide variety of presets. Tweaking is a bit more difficult than in similar programs, but fortunately, the presets are made to really slip well into a mix.

Addictive Drums - Only a couple of kits are sampled for raw material, and this keeps the footprint very small for a program like this. The dozens of kit presets represent a lot of different styles, but this is achieved through the extensive use of effects. Expansion packs will provide more raw material for even more diversity. Excellent groove library with very easy auditioning.

Superior Drummer (big brother to EZD) - Certainly better sounding than EZDrummer, but there's still something a bit Mickey Mouse about this one to my ears. I know a ton of people swear by it, but in comparison to the other programs listed above, the overall sound doesn't measure up. That said, I think the MIDI groove library and the MIDI expansion kits on offer for this are excellent, but I try to use them with re-mapped BFD2 or Studio Drummer.

Cheers
-B

Let me just let you know that that won't happen. Why? Because it's not feasible nor easy/user-friendly to do that in Kontakt.

Maybe with the un-pimped default kit, I give you that.

There are 3 unsuspicious little boxes at the bottom of the first page, called "Layer Limits" and "Soft", "Gradient", "Hard". Increasing them will make SD use more than the default 6 (IIRC) different samples per velocity, so turn them right up and you'll notice hardly a difference to a real kit!
Plus there's a snitload of articulations like center/edge, flam, roll... use them correctly, and no one will know SD2.0 from real drums.

I have the Metal Foundry SDX, and that gives me 3 Kick mics, 3 or 4 Snare mics, and 4+ Ambience and Room mics to play with. These mics deliver just the real and plain sampled studio recording footage, just as if you had recorded them yourself.
Mix and route them as you wish, you could mix them internally and just get the Stereo Out back in your Host, or you can route each mic to another Output and mix them externally, right in your host.
It even has a load of great Sonalksis FX on board, from EQ to Comp to Limiter to Transient Modele... everything you need in A+ quality right at your fingertips.

I don't mean to "talk down" or so, but maybe you should educate yourself about SD2.0 a little more.
If there's anything you can't do with that or something you're doing sounds Mickey Mousey ... it's not SD2.0!

(And no, I'm in no way connected with Toontrack.)

I'm curious why Jamstix isn't mentioned much anymore?

Not yet 'officially' 64 bit. As a result, it fell out of rotation in my rig, and I'm sure others are similarly affected.

Also not getting any love lately is Kitcore/Drumcore. This is also not x64 which is a shame because Kitcore (kits with midi files only - no loop samples) is an amazing sounding cost effective drum solution with a ton of included kits in all styles.

Cheers
-B

I got into EZDrummer because of some ultra-cheap offer. I didn't really need it, considering the other high quality drum programs I already have. But I figured the EZD MIDI files would at least be worth the price of admission. Well, I wasn't very impressed with the overall sound, but I wasn't really expecting much in the first place. (I should add that I own a number of other Toontrack products which I do like. And, overall, I like their EZ concept which I certainly have use for in certain situations.)

Some time later, Toontrack offered a very cheap Superior upgrade, so I figured I would see what all the fuss was about. And again, the added MIDI files would, at the very least, make it worthwhile. You are correct that I have never explored more than the standard default kit. But I did try to tweak as best I could to get sounds that I could use. Just couldn't do it. At least not anything that was better than the other excellent products I already own. And since I prefer to spend my studio time making music, and not tweaking software, I never felt the need to invest any more time in it.

I look forward to further tweaking using your suggestion about the layer limits. However, I have to say that, in a very competitive market, I find it odd that Toontrack wouldn't want to really tweak out the default kit right out of the box. Why would I want to purchase any of their expansion packs (which cost some serious money) if the default kit from the main program (again, serious money) doesn't sound as good as it could.

Cheers
-B

I'm not a programmer like you (and others here), so I'll take your word for it. However, my experience has been that the relationship between the Battery interface and Kontakt is about as seamless as it gets. In fact, I will re-map a lot of sample and loop files in Battery's GUI (drag and drop into those huge, user-friendly cells) and then bring the whole shebang into Kontakt for further editing. Nice as you please.

I can't imagine that it would be all that difficult to add a feature to Studio Drummer that exploits the relationship between Kontakt and Battery, essentially allowing Battery kit samples to replace existing SD samples. Build in some copy protection and some added value in the form of MIDI files, and, voila, you've got some SD Expansion packs. No?

Cheers
-B

maybe because it's not so much a drum sampler as it is a MIDI track generator? I personally very rarely end up using its samples.

EDIT: there was a post asking about why Jamstix wasn't mentioned