SwissArmyKnife
New member
Hi all ... first post. Please be gentle.
I'm not a drummer, so take that into account. But I've been around music for a long time -- and drummers for a long time -- so I do have a good feel for what is realistic on the drums and what is not. I'm also not a professional engineer, and I don't have tons of money to pay one.
That being said ... until recently, I was all about acoustic drums. Since I don't play, I would buy tons of audio loops. Of course, that leads to a whole set of problems, mostly dealing with how they were recorded and what has been done to them.
A lot of people tried for a long time to get me to switch to MIDI drums, but I resisted because it just wasn't realistic enough. But I decided to give it a try about a year ago, buying EZ Drummer from Toontrack. The flexibility was nice, and the samples were good, but not quite there.
Then I got turned on to the upgrade ... Superior Drummer 2.0. And I have to tell you, it's absolutely KILLIN'.
My Christian band just led worship as guest band at another church. The home church uses e-drums, and they're old and crappy. The triggers are just about shot, and the sounds are really bad. So we decided to bring a spare kit, just a little Roland TD-4, and we hooked them up to my Mac running Superior ... Firepod to the board via stereo outs.
The sound was absolutely beyond belief. Even the cymbals. We heard so many comments from the congregation about how good the drums sounded. Of course, they were used to crap, but still.
All stock samples for Superior are recorded at Avatar Studios in upstate New York. There's a "how they made it" video at Toontrack.com that shows all they went through to capture this stuff. Really interesting, and I think you'd be surprised at the level of detail. All the MIDI loops that come packaged with it are recorded by Nir Z, which is no slouch. And the software is phenomenal. Full mixing capabilities, plug-in effects (if you want them), separate control over each mic, ability to build "virtual drums," on and on. You can switch pieces in the kit, edit velocity curves, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't quite get my arms around yet.
The sound is so good that I'm going to do my next CD project with a Roland TD-20 triggering Superior.
By the way, when I make demos, I only use professionally recorded MIDI loops. I try to edit as little as possible for the very reason that I'm NOT a drummer and I don't want to make anything sound unrealistic. If I DO edit things, I always consult my drummer buddy to make sure I'm not doing something stupid. I've started collecting loops and probably have 25,000 of them now. Of course, for a non-drummer, it's never enough.
Oh yeah ... Superior retails for $349, but you can typically find it for less. My wife actually got it for me for Christmas, on sale for $99.
Anyway, that's my 2¢. Thanks for listening.
I'm not a drummer, so take that into account. But I've been around music for a long time -- and drummers for a long time -- so I do have a good feel for what is realistic on the drums and what is not. I'm also not a professional engineer, and I don't have tons of money to pay one.
That being said ... until recently, I was all about acoustic drums. Since I don't play, I would buy tons of audio loops. Of course, that leads to a whole set of problems, mostly dealing with how they were recorded and what has been done to them.
A lot of people tried for a long time to get me to switch to MIDI drums, but I resisted because it just wasn't realistic enough. But I decided to give it a try about a year ago, buying EZ Drummer from Toontrack. The flexibility was nice, and the samples were good, but not quite there.
Then I got turned on to the upgrade ... Superior Drummer 2.0. And I have to tell you, it's absolutely KILLIN'.
My Christian band just led worship as guest band at another church. The home church uses e-drums, and they're old and crappy. The triggers are just about shot, and the sounds are really bad. So we decided to bring a spare kit, just a little Roland TD-4, and we hooked them up to my Mac running Superior ... Firepod to the board via stereo outs.
The sound was absolutely beyond belief. Even the cymbals. We heard so many comments from the congregation about how good the drums sounded. Of course, they were used to crap, but still.
All stock samples for Superior are recorded at Avatar Studios in upstate New York. There's a "how they made it" video at Toontrack.com that shows all they went through to capture this stuff. Really interesting, and I think you'd be surprised at the level of detail. All the MIDI loops that come packaged with it are recorded by Nir Z, which is no slouch. And the software is phenomenal. Full mixing capabilities, plug-in effects (if you want them), separate control over each mic, ability to build "virtual drums," on and on. You can switch pieces in the kit, edit velocity curves, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't quite get my arms around yet.
The sound is so good that I'm going to do my next CD project with a Roland TD-20 triggering Superior.
By the way, when I make demos, I only use professionally recorded MIDI loops. I try to edit as little as possible for the very reason that I'm NOT a drummer and I don't want to make anything sound unrealistic. If I DO edit things, I always consult my drummer buddy to make sure I'm not doing something stupid. I've started collecting loops and probably have 25,000 of them now. Of course, for a non-drummer, it's never enough.
Oh yeah ... Superior retails for $349, but you can typically find it for less. My wife actually got it for me for Christmas, on sale for $99.
Anyway, that's my 2¢. Thanks for listening.