Black Friday fight - XLN Addictive Drums 2 vs Steven Slate Drums 5.5

[mabian]

They are more or less same price now at least until end of this month:

SSD 67% off @various websites
XLN AD2 65% off @ADSRSounds

Which one would you pick and why?

Thanks,
Mario

[donkey tugger]

I have both and get good use out of both.

I'd always go for AD2 first though. Whilst SSD does a certain type of quite polished big rock sound extremely well, AD2 is much, much more versatile in terms of available kits, eq and effects (essentially similar to those in the company's RC20, whereas SSD has none built in).

If you're confident at doing your own drum routing/mixing/effects then SSD is a nice additional one to have for the quality of the samples, but for a better and more versatile all-rounder it would be AD2 for me.

[mabian]

Thanks, I found AD2 quite cheap and could not resist, seems for me much more versatile indeed, while reading around SSD seems more a (very good) one-trick pony.

- Mario

[donkey tugger]

Thanks, I found AD2 quite cheap and could not resist, seems for me much more versatile indeed, while reading around SSD seems more a (very good) one-trick pony.

- Mario

Nice one! Forgot to add,you can also usually pick up additional ADpaks quite cheaply in the buy and sell forum here, and the process of transfer from another user is quite painless.

[ReleaseCandidate]

SSD has the worst interface (the MIDI mapping!) of all drum plugins, and is getting even worse with each new release (at first it was a Kontakt library). That's why I still use SSD 4, because I can use my old presets (in Live drum racks) and am not forced to making new ones. The default mix you get out of it is actually quite good, so no need to change that if you don't want to.
So: try the free version of SSD to see if you can live with that.

[mabian]

SSD has the worst interface (the MIDI mapping!) of all drum plugins, and is getting even worse with each new release (at first it was a Kontakt library). That's why I still use SSD 4, because I can use my old presets (in Live drum racks) and am not forced to making new ones. The default mix you get out of it is actually quite good, so no need to change that if you don't want to.
So: try the free version of SSD to see if you can live with that.

Thanks, I already tried the free SSD, and I like it.
But I don't like the I-Lok stuff (which is not there in the free version) and I am afraid that SSD is not very versatile soundwise, though great for what it focuses on.

I think I will keep this free version and complement it with AD2.

Re: Midi mapping in SSD, I thought that recent version had improvements (I see it as a common complaint), is it still so bad in 5.5?

- Mario

[nirm123]

They are more or less same price now at least until end of this month:

SSD 67% off @various websites
XLN AD2 65% off @ADSRSounds

Which one would you pick and why?

Thanks,
Mario

can you link the 65% xlnaudio deal ? the most I see is 50%

[ReleaseCandidate]

SSD has the worst interface (the MIDI mapping!) of all drum plugins, and is getting even worse with each new release (at first it was a Kontakt library). That's why I still use SSD 4, because I can use my old presets (in Live drum racks) and am not forced to making new ones. The default mix you get out of it is actually quite good, so no need to change that if you don't want to.
So: try the free version of SSD to see if you can live with that.

Thanks, I already tried the free SSD, and I like it.
But I don't like the I-Lok stuff (which is not there in the free version) and I am afraid that SSD is not very versatile soundwise, though great for what it focuses on.

Oh yes, I forgot about that. They also changed that after 4 (that still uses a license file), that's another reason I didn't switch.

Re: Midi mapping in SSD, I thought that recent version had improvements (I see it as a common complaint), s it still so bad in 5.5?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKbiLf_l194

[mabian]

They are more or less same price now at least until end of this month:

SSD 67% off @various websites
XLN AD2 65% off @ADSRSounds

Which one would you pick and why?

Thanks,
Mario

can you link the 65% xlnaudio deal ? the most I see is 50%

Sadly it's gone. It's been "fixed" and all XLN stuff is at around 50%.

- Mario

[Inversion Of Control]

How would you compare them to Battery 4 and Superior Drummer 3?

[mabian]

I think (just looking and reading around and listening) that Superior Drummer 3 is a real monster with lots of tweaking ability and degree of control. And I'm not interested in so much depth.

Battery 4 for me is strongly oriented to electronic sounds, I haven't used that much for acoustic but I could be missing a treasure who knows...

- Mario