KVR Audio

Cyrosis · Post by **Cyrosis** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 11:44 am

I recently picked up the Metal Foundry expansion for Superior Drummer 2, with basically no intention to use the drums for much metal. The expansion contains around 90gb's of completly unprocessed samples, compressed losslessly to 33.5gb's for the install. I don't want to just post what can be found on the product page however, this post is more to show some of the things you may not have noticed, and generally, some of the improvements that have been made since the initial Avatar S2 shipping library was released.

The interface of Metal Foundry shows a 5 tom drum kit, and initially allows for loading of it's included 5 tom kits, this much is obvious. What isn't really mentioned outright however, is the fact that there is also a 7 tom Sonar kit sampled, and a massive 10 tom Tama kit, which can both be fully recreated in a single instance of Superior using X-Drums. There have been a few improvements to the articulation list since Avatar as well, rides now include 6 articulations, bell tip/shaft, ride tip/shaft, crash, and mutes. The other is one more gradient in hi hat openness, for a total of 6 on top of the still included closed and tightly closed, both with tip and shaft.

The Metal Foundry library includes quite a number of micing options for those wanting to dig into the mixer, all of the standard fare can be found of course, the extra's however include a total of 5 mixer channels dedicated to the snare, a second overhead position, the 2 stereo and 2 mono ambient channels, and the studios reverb chamber. Both dynamic and condenser mic choices are available for top and bottom snare, as well as a 1940's Phillips mic they dub as a "trash" channel. The second overhead position is in the drummers perspective, using a single stereo mic, with a fairly contrasting tone to the typical set. The ambient channels are ToonTrack standard, close and far in stereo, and separate mono channels, not summed versions of the stereo recordings.

Now, before this turns into the inevitable wall of text, I figure I should get to the actual topic of this thread. The Metal Foundry drum samples are much more varied then I think the name, and the product demos imply, fully unprocessed samples that include the multitude of aforementioned micing choices allow for great control over how these drums sound. To demonstrate this, I have created a few short demos of my own, all of the demos are completly unprocessed, using no tuning or mixer inserts.

Vintage_Ludwig.mp3

10_Tom_Tama.mp3

Bonham_VistaLite.mp3

SilverSparkle_Jazz.mp3

Jojo_Mayer_Solo.mp3

Jason Washburn · Post by **Jason Washburn** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:26 pm

Your Bonham_VistaLite.mp3 is really awesome, I really love John Bonham drum sound. It really sounds heavy!

Genetic_Junk · Post by **Genetic_Junk** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:40 pm

Thanks for the audio demos. If you make more, I'd like to hear them.

Cyrosis · Post by **Cyrosis** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:13 am

Genetic_Junk wrote:Thanks for the audio demos. If you make more, I'd like to hear them.

Can do, Jojo_Mayer_Solo.mp3

Thought it would be fun to recreate, at least in part, a drum solo by Jojo Mayer. I think it turned out quite good, and again, didn't use any processing.

Here's a video of the entire solo.

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/Jojo ... ance3.html

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:23 am

So, is tom tom tama floor and kick that is getting that sound?

Cyrosis · Post by **Cyrosis** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:29 am

hibidy wrote:So, is tom tom tama floor and kick that is getting that sound?

The floor toms are played only when none of the rack toms are being played, so at roughly 2 to 3s, and 5 to 7s etc.

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:38 am

Cyrosis wrote:
hibidy wrote:So, is tom tom tama floor and kick that is getting that sound?
The floor toms are played only when none of the rack toms are being played, so at roughly 2 to 3s, and 5 to 7s etc.

er ah.......that is the kick sound? That huge OMG thunderous sound?

Cyrosis · Post by **Cyrosis** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:12 am

hibidy wrote:
Cyrosis wrote:
hibidy wrote:So, is tom tom tama floor and kick that is getting that sound?
The floor toms are played only when none of the rack toms are being played, so at roughly 2 to 3s, and 5 to 7s etc.
er ah.......that is the kick sound? That huge OMG thunderous sound?

Yeah, that kick is pretty beefy, especially with the room mics on.

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:04 am

OMG! That is something I don't like as much about SD 2, I thought the kicks are a bit weak.

Damn you cyrosis! Now I've gotta consider this

grandaddy · Post by **grandaddy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:55 am

Great description of the library....the demos are fantastic too....I especially like the Jojo Mayer solo:)

Chris@MixDSP · Post by **Chris@MixDSP** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:30 am

Really nice job and thanks for sharing!

mojamusic · Post by **mojamusic** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:32 pm

Great review. Very well done. I have all of the Toontrack stuff and use it for all of my drum programming.

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:47 pm

Cyrosis,
How hot are the levels out of the box?
Did you manipulate the levels in any way?

Cyrosis · Post by **Cyrosis** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:00 pm

bill45 wrote:Cyrosis,
How hot are the levels out of the box?
Did you manipulate the levels in any way?

Metal Foundry is not pre processed, so there is no compression in the samples, if that is what you mean by hot. I did change the levels and panning for each of the demos, as I always start with a blank slate and flat mixer in S2.0, then route all the tracks into my DAW.

@Everyone, Thanks for the comments.

JamieSkeen · Post by **JamieSkeen** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:10 pm

the bonham mp3 is great....i just ordered the NY studios vol.2...now I gotta order this one to!!!!

ToonTracks Metal Foundry; much more than metal.