KVR Audio

rasmusklump · Post by **rasmusklump** » Sun May 18, 2014 1:15 pm

I jumped ship when this new bad activation rubbisch started

LoopyFruit · Post by **LoopyFruit** » Sun May 18, 2014 1:18 pm

Bombadil wrote:So far, for all of my plugs from major players, only Spectrasonics and now XLN don't have user forums. I don't know who is making decisions at XLN, but I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. First, a rather weak upgrade with more expensive adpaks, and now no dedicated forum.

Nope. Not impressed, at all.

Got to agree and I won't be upgrading my AD1 there's not enough in AD2 to justify the price.

On the other hand the EZDrummer 2 upgrade offers good value and is working great for me.

morelia · Post by **morelia** » Sun May 18, 2014 10:45 pm

EvilDragon wrote:You would need to adjust the keymapping in AD.

Do you mean manually? There does not appear to be a preset to do it.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon May 19, 2014 7:08 am

EZdrummer's mapping is very similar to GM mapping, so that's a good starting point.

morelia · Post by **morelia** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:58 am

EvilDragon wrote:EZdrummer's mapping is very similar to GM mapping, so that's a good starting point.

That was the first I tried but hihats are missing for a start. The mapping for hihats in AD2 looks a bit daunting. I was hoping there would be a simple preset to select. Can't remember if there was one is AD1.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:31 am

There was no EZD mapping preset in AD1.

Gotta do it manually I suppose.

morelia · Post by **morelia** » Mon May 19, 2014 10:36 am

EvilDragon wrote:There was no EZD mapping preset in AD1.

Gotta do it manually I suppose.

Thanks. Might have to do that. If I can get my head around it.

musicdoc · Post by **musicdoc** » Wed May 21, 2014 7:02 am

Well after downloading and trying this out:

I have most of the expansion packs. I think XLN did a great job of reworking all the presets. The boxy, roomy, big raw sound is mostly gone replaced by a much more mainstream more polished sounding product. Many reviewers attribute this to the new engine, by I think it's by and large more the programming.
I loaded up several raw kits from both 1 and 2 and to my ears, when parameters are matched they sound pretty much identical. I didn't really check but I feel like the added effects might be a bit cleaner.
XLN is almost forcing you to buy an extra expansion for only $20 more so I think it would be pretty silly not to take advantage of the offer if already buying the upgrade. So if you figure like $40 for an expansion at sale prices regularly, you're getting the upgrade with all the new patches for like $60 which I think is fair.
XLN still has a more raw sound than say Drumasonic or NI Studio Drummer or even EZ drums/Superior. It still has it's place in certain styles of music. I personally like a little bit more refined hi-hats and feel like although the snares and basses sound big, they don't have the precise eq cuts in place that make things punchy without a bit of post processing work.
When it comes to patterns I feel like XLN does fills and riffs better than what I've heard from the other competitors. Again-personal preference.

Limerick · Post by **Limerick** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:10 am

Oh man i'am heavely addicted,
been doing nothing else than playing drums for the past days (nights), yesterday i've got the last three adpacks i did'nt own, just for the hell of it

,
i had some best service easter cupon i had to use, so i got the producer bundle for 149 bucks...

AD 2 just sounds great and convincing, and i find generally the sound is more alive compared to AD 1.

i did a lot of comparing between AD 2, Ezdrummer 2 and superior 2...
i've choosen AD 2 as my main drum programm for the time being...

here some of my reasons why...

first of all i haven't much to say about Ez Drummer 2, it's a great programm but it just doesn't appeal to me, so it was out of the race pretty quick...

i started with AD 1, as my first Drum programm way years back, i bought it when the version 1.5 came out, i think it was around 2007/8, i used it long time and did great things with it... but at a certain point i wasn't happy anymore and switched to superior

so the hardest battle was between AD 2 and superior 2,

superior indiscussibly sounds great and due its lots of ambient channels and bleeding options it sounds more natural (threedimensional) if compared to AD 2 solo,
the things changes when you try to fit it into a song, as you probably process the drums sounds anyway, you will move away from that super natural sound and give it some color, touch, compression or wathever it needs to fit the song.

there AD 2 has just a quicker/ funnier workflow and you can achieve the drumsound you have in mind within minutes.

let's be honest superior is pretty rigid when it comes to swapping kits or sounds, i normaly route out to single tracks, and do the main processing in my daw, as nearly every sdx has its own channel numbers but also differnt channel orders,
if i change a drumkit i have to redo the right daw track assigning, also that xdrum feature works like a pain in the ass ( mapping assining, microphone channels assinging, ecc.)

in AD 2 it's like, oh i don't like that ride ... klick... maybe better this one... klick... or that one... klick... just get the eq right (or whatever)... klick... that's it.
the same with whole drumkits the track routing is the same so i can swap out drums instantly mantaining my daw track processing without problems and without redoing anything...

so at the moment, for above mentioned reasons and many more AD 2 is my top choice...

And the new fairfax adpack is just amazing, i mean really amazing,
found this video today, just to give you an idea:

so after all that words i want just to say
bravo XLN audio

can't wait for fairfax vol 2

happy drumming to everyone

Charlie Firpo · Post by **Charlie Firpo** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:26 am

I really like Ad2.. The transient shaper is very nice. However, it skips very fast drumming notes? Try it with the linndrum snare, and the fastest transient attack. I've tried different latencys, but still the same result.

Limerick · Post by **Limerick** » Wed May 21, 2014 10:57 am

sorry

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Wed May 21, 2014 2:00 pm

I miss the categories they had for some presets like Experimental, Distorted etc. Now the presets are just a ll over the place with no organization. Am I missing some tagging system or something? I see I can click the packs to filter that way. The only other thing I see is natural to extreme. I guess that's supposed to cover everything?

DrumAddict · Post by **DrumAddict** » Wed May 21, 2014 3:52 pm

Echoes in the Attic wrote:I miss the categories they had for some presets like Experimental, Distorted etc. Now the presets are just a ll over the place with no organization. Am I missing some tagging system or something? I see I can click the packs to filter that way. The only other thing I see is natural to extreme. I guess that's supposed to cover everything?

same here , you don´t miss anything , the new preset management in ad2 are really an step backwards , and i don´t like this

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Wed May 21, 2014 4:01 pm

It's a pain trying to change kit pieces between different packs. My scrolling menus are very long. It's so much easier in Toontrack EZD2.

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Wed May 21, 2014 7:19 pm

While I love the sound as always, I really don't like all these new browsing styles. I mean how many different ways do we really need for browsing kits and auditioning clips? So there's the normal browser, where you can play a preset pattern per kit, or change kits while the currently played pattern continues (this part is pretty cool actually). But then there's this whole other view where you pull up the AD pak (rather than filter it in the browser), and have clips to play there. Then sometimes there is the ADpak and the "ADpak - Selections" which just seems like a different bunch of kits. Is this just a part 2? And then there is another view that's very similar where you trigger clips as well based on paks. Not looking at it right now but just remember there was at least three different ways to browse kits with preview clips. And none of them had any descriptive styles at all, just the paks they came from.

Addictive Drums 2