How many virtual drumkits do you have and actually use?

[JohnPativens]

After last black friday deals, I was thinking about how the market is saturated with sampled drums of any kind and about how many do we actually need. Same can be said about other virtual instruments too, drums is just a much more virtually used instrument maybe.
As a drum programmer I invested in some of them in the last 10 years, and always try to invest in things I don't have rather than buying more drums during deals
At the moment I still use SD2 as my main drum sampler (would upgrade maybe if Toontrack let me ). I have:
- New York Studios Vol 1 SDX (GMS kit)
- Metal Foundry SDX (2 Sonor, 2 Tama, 1 DW, 2 Ludwig kits, ranging from bigger old school drums to small octobans)
- Rock! EZX
- Pop! EZX
- Jazz! EZX
- Electronic EZX
- Latin Percussion EZX
- EZD 1 Kit

Then I also have:
- NI Studio Drummer (Pearl, Yamaha, Sonor kit)
- NI Abbey Road 60s (Gretsch, Ludwig kit)
- NI Battery 3 and 4
- NI Drumlab

Plus all the samples included in Kontakt, Sampletank etc, which I usually don't even install with their library.
Among all of those, I never happened to use the NI drums in any project, and I think I could program some very realistic drums with those five kits alone. Never used Drumlab either. Used Battery as special fx only. Not using the EZD Kit anymore, cause its sound has been abused and is too recognizable.

If we add the collection of snares and cymbals included in the two forementioned SDX libraries, that's more than any world class studio could hand to you for recording.
If I had to start back today, I think I could get the job done buying SD3 only, a few specific expansions maybe, no other samplers needed.

What do you have and use the most?

[vurt]

whatever is in komplete 11?
i do ocassionally use some of the kits in battery. and once i used an acoustic set in kontakt and discovered it did fills n stuff

kids! don't do drums!

[soulata]

I guess I have most of the virtual drum thingies.

Ez, XLN, NI, you name it. A few Kontakt libs, too. Such as Sonic Couture's Sun Drums and Moonkits.

I guess I'm more a collector than user because I usually start with EZ or program my own grooves using whatever's fastest to load.

And then ask my drummer friends to have a go.

Sometimes I keep the programmed drums but real drummers usually win. Not that it sounds better, it feels better.

k

[glokraw]

I like PolyPlex in Reaktor, and West Africa/Cuba in Kontakt.

ProteusVX is free, and has dozens of varied kits.

The CM version of STIX is also fun.

[Rabid]

Everything in Komplete Collectors edition
BFD 2
Maybe 5 DFH sets
A dozen Addictive sets
XO with an expansion...

I think I will stop now. Do I use them all? Well, I do a lot of mixing and matching. I also use them as sound sources with my V-Drums or Zendrum. The Zendrum is why I got so many Addictive sets.

[wagtunes]

Unlike a lot of people, the stuff I buy, I use. Some things more than others, granted, but nothing just sits on my hard drive collecting virtual dust and I'm proud of that.

Having said that, I don't actually have a lot of virtual drum kits. Aside from the stuff that comes in Komplete (a ton) I have...

MODO Drums
EZ Drummer
VPROM
Stix
Jamstix4
RetroHit
Groove Agent (comes with Cubase)

And that's it.

These are the ones I use the most in order of most used to least used.

MODO Drums
Kontakt 70s Drummer
Battery 4 (including custom samples that I downloaded from all over)

I will never lack for drums...Ever

[EnGee]

I have and use just one 3rd party acoustic drums and it is Addictive Drums with Fairfax vol1 kit. I don't feel the need for another really!
Anyway, I use also whatever there in Logic/Ableton (standard). In addition, I have XLN XO and many Akai samples. Sometimes I use the drum kits in my Yamaha MODX.
However, I use drum machines and different kind of samples more than acoustic drums. Lately Korg Electribe-R is my favourite but I also love Ultrabeat in Logic

Not installed and not used (they are great but I've noticed I rarely use them, so I uninstalled them):
Groove Agent 5
DrumComputer
NI Drumlab
RB Punch

[_leras]

whatever is in komplete 11?
i do ocassionally use some of the kits in battery. and once i used an acoustic set in kontakt and discovered it did fills n stuff

kids! don't do drums!

You sound indignant!

Why would a kit have fills?

(tb fair not my thing)

[_leras]

NI Drumlab

This one... Is actually brilliant!

[EnGee]

NI Drumlab

This one... Is actually brilliant!

Really?! I didn't like it at all! It sounds harsh and unbalanced to me. I don't know! I don't like it.

[martiu]

NI Drumlab

This one... Is actually brilliant!

Really?! I didn't like it at all! It sounds harsh and unbalanced to me. I don't know! I don't like it.

Add Glitchmachines Subvert to it, it will feel better

[vurt]

whatever is in komplete 11?
i do ocassionally use some of the kits in battery. and once i used an acoustic set in kontakt and discovered it did fills n stuff

kids! don't do drums!

You sound indignant!

Why would a kit have fills?

(tb fair not my thing)

kontakt did the fills, if you held a note it would play a triple beat rather than the single sample it would if you put a single midi note in.

[DocAtlas]

BFD2 and Superior 2. Usually driven by Jamxtix, with a little tweaking of the rhythms. I have a LOT of expansions for BFD2, and it's what I usually use. To paraphrase Wagtunes, I will never lack for drums.

[noiseboyuk]

Oh, um, I have a lot.

For acoustic drums I decided a whole ago to go all-in on Toontrack. I love SD3, the whole groove thing, so I mix and match from 9 SDXs inc the core libraries of 2 and 3, and 33 EZX kits (some of these are multiple kits from the same expansion). Pretty much covers me across any genre. I don't look at any of NI drummer series, most are not installed - I'm sure they're very good, but they're not part of the SD ecosystem so there it is.

For beats, I switch between Battery, XO and Stylus RMX. I have a ton of samples from Goldbaby, Eraserface, Rhythmic Robot, Samples From Mars and NI that I use as fuel for XO in particular. I don't have Drumlab installed.

Whereas I want for nothing with the acoustic drums, I can still imagine much better beats software. I'd probably get whatever Spectrasonics replace Stylus with in 2049 (in my flooded care home - I lack good life priorities).

[jamcat]

I have all of the kits in MODO DRUM.

I mix and match kit pieces in MODO DRUM a lot, so I’d say I’ve used most of the kits at some point.

I don’t have any other drum plugins as I now find sampled drums to be lacking and canned.