Superior Drummer/Expansions read before judgment

delirium trigge

New member
I searched for which topic this should be under. The reason I am posting in this topic is I have a feeling people who are talking about this topic, are going to be able to answer this. Where as I can't put it in a drum forum or you run into 100 different drum ways of doing things which I'm not interested in. It's about recording, witch using superior drummer.

Here is my question, I want from experience, no guesses: When I don't feel like programming drums, or if I need help in putting a song together I use the grooves & fills in superior drummer WITH the metal foundry expansion pack. Now this allows for a TON of possibilities. For those who don't know, it allows you to drag the groove into pro tools/Logic and manipulate it and make it at the same BPM as the rest of the song. IE: You hear a fast drum beat you like but it's too fast for your song, once brought into the DAW set at the slower BPM it sounds completely natural.

I want to expand more. I want even more grooves, because I don't just play heavy metal. I play a lot of stuff. Superior drummer gives you very few grooves but the expansion packs, like the metal foundry give you a ton of grooves. Pretty much every drum beat you've ever heard in heavy metal music.

Now I am interested in getting grooves that aren't about just metal, but aren't about slow, country, keeping the backbone only grooves either.

These expansion packs are not cheap. They cost money, therefore I do not want to just spend money on whatever and see if it works. That is what this forum is for.

Tell me what expansion packs you have, what genre you are playing, if it comes with a bunch of different useful grooves, fills, intro fills, etc.

For example, the metal foundry, allows you to write any song you want on guitar, bass, vocals, and if you feel like "I wish we had kinda an epic drum fill right there, or I wish we had a good intro drum beat going on.' The metal foundry will have that, and it will fit to your bpm, THUS providing exactly what you would want if you're writing a metal song.

But lets say I'm not writing a metal song. Where would I find the expansion pack that has a vast array of different situations included in it? I know each pack includes different drum kits and different drums also, which helps.

It looks like the new york sessions may have a lot of stuff going on, but I've never tried it, nor seen anyone else try it.

Please give me your input on the expansion that is useful for being able to rock out, go to slow parts of songs, have intro fills, chorus fills. etc etc. Without it being double bass, blast beat type stuff, like in the metal world.

I want to use the metal foundry grooves in combination with these other grooves. An example of a band like that, Coheed & Cambria. They have these different grooves going on. Of course they have a real drummer.

I also have a real drummer but that real drummer will not learn the song if I don't write it first. I need these tools to be able to write the song.

If I'm going to spend money, which one do I spend it on? No guesses. Someone who has bought at least 2 of these superior drummer expansion packs. NO arguments about how some other drum program is somehow superior. They are simply tools.
 
OK...I'll give it a try....I have both EZ Drummer and Superior Drummer.
(By the way, in down the Drum forum there is a current thread dedicated to EZD and SD)

First...are you looking for just more grooves....or both grooves and new sample expansion packs?
Toontrack offers all kinds of MIDI groove packs, and they are not that expensive....I think right now you can get them for as little as $29 a pack.

The EZX packs you can get right now for $53 from Toontrack.

If you want to add new sample packs or groove packs....go listen to the media files on Toontrack, that should give you a good idea if you like those samples or those grooves.

I have a large variety of both.
From EZX I have the Nashville, Americana, Classic, Pop, Latin, and will be adding the Rock and Indie Folk packs.
From SDX I have all three NY Studios packs.


Also....Groove Monkey has a large package of MIDI grooves for pretty cheap.

So really they are not that expensive now, and you can have several to cover anything that comes along.
 
The ones that Miro mentioned seems to be the most popular amongst all my fiends and acquaintances who are into recording. I've also heard good things about Groove Monkey.
 
Tell me what expansion packs you have, what genre you are playing, if it comes with a bunch of different useful grooves, fills, intro fills, etc.

I have the fallowing expansion packs:

Custom and Vintage SDX
Evil Drums SDX
Music City SDX
NY vol 2 (Allaire and Hit Factory studios) SDX
The Metal Foundry SDX
And obviously the stock Avatar library

I also have the fallowing EZX libraries:

Stock ez drummer Pop/Rock
Claustrophobic ezx
Cocktail ezx
Drumkit from hell ezx
Electronic ezx
Funkmasters ezx
Latin Percussion ezx
Metal Machine ezx
Metalheads ezx
Nashville ezx
Number one hits ezx
Rock Solid ezx
Twisted Kit ezx
Vintage Rock ezx

Midi add on packs:

Monster midi (Peter Fredlander)
Monster midi 2 (Peter)
Monster midi fills (Peter)
Library of the extreme 1 (Dirk Vanburen of Soilwork)
Library of the extreme 2 (Dirk)
Library of the extreme 3 (Dirk)

Songwriters 1 (Haxflux Nettermalm)
Songwriters 2 (Peter)
Songwriters fill pack (Haxflux)
Drum Riffs (Matt Halpburn of Periphery)
Metal Beats (Dirk)


I highlighted what I use most. I am playing mostly metal stuff and it's sub genres. I've done some idie rock stuff as well, but not nearly as much.
 
As others have pointed out, there's a difference between an expansion pack, which is usually about new drum samples, and grooves, which appear to be what you want. There are many groove libraries availalble, but you may have some remapping to do to make the right drums play.
 
I have the fallowing expansion packs:

Custom and Vintage SDX
Evil Drums SDX
Music City SDX
NY vol 2 (Allaire and Hit Factory studios) SDX
The Metal Foundry SDX
And obviously the stock Avatar library

I also have the fallowing EZX libraries:

Stock ez drummer Pop/Rock
Claustrophobic ezx
Cocktail ezx
Drumkit from hell ezx
Electronic ezx
Funkmasters ezx
Latin Percussion ezx
Metal Machine ezx
Metalheads ezx
Nashville ezx
Number one hits ezx
Rock Solid ezx
Twisted Kit ezx
Vintage Rock ezx

Midi add on packs:

Monster midi (Peter Fredlander)
Monster midi 2 (Peter)
Monster midi fills (Peter)
Library of the extreme 1 (Dirk Vanburen of Soilwork)
Library of the extreme 2 (Dirk)
Library of the extreme 3 (Dirk)

Songwriters 1 (Haxflux Nettermalm)
Songwriters 2 (Peter)
Songwriters fill pack (Haxflux)
Drum Riffs (Matt Halpburn of Periphery)
Metal Beats (Dirk)


I highlighted what I use most. I am playing mostly metal stuff and it's sub genres. I've done some idie rock stuff as well, but not nearly as much.
Think you have enough? It would have been easier to list the ones you don't have! LOL!:D
 
Custom and Vintage SDX

What do you think of that pack?

I was deciding between that and the NY Studios Vol 3 just yesterday.....but after listening to the media samples, I thought that NYS Vol 3 had more of the flavors I like.....though at some point I may get the Custom & Vintage.

The other SDX that I really want is the Rock Warehouse SDX.....but it's relatively new, so they won't discount it like the other packs. Audio Deluxe has the other SDX packs for $99....but if you go to eBay and find Audio Deluxe listings there, rather than on their website, they accept offers on eBay.... :)
I scored the NYS Vol 3 yesterday for my offer of $75, so I'm sure they would accept that for the other $99 SDX packs.
I'll just wait on the Rock Warehouse...it will be on sale at some point.

Today I went ahead and got the Indie Folk EZX....which on the surface may seem like a lame pack....but if you check out the media samples and video....it actually has 3 really nice sounding kits.
The other one I got was the Rock EZX, which has 8 complete kits!!! You can't beat that, plus it was recorded by Neil Dorfsman, who also did the NYS Vol 3.

I'm more into basic Rock/Pop flavors. I really dig the NY Studios packs....and I think the Rock EZX will get used a lot.

AFA the groove packs...I have...

Rock Songs
Backbeats
Music City
Ballads
Songwriter's Drumpack
Songwriter's Fillpack

...and I also bought huge pack from Groove Monkey.....not to mention, all the grooves you get with every SDX and EZX sample pack.

I really love the Superior Drummer interface, and have become quite comfortable with it. EZ Drummer is a more simpler, "ready to go" player, and not bad for people who don't want to mess around too much....but as soon as I got SD, that's all I use....with both the EZX and SDX packs.
I recently added SS Trigger....which I think is great and has some sweet sounding samples too....I just haven't actually used it yet to re-sample a complete song, but I will soon, so that adds a bunch more to pick from.

I like working with this stuff. Back in the early '90s I use to do a lot of drum sequencing, but the samples weren't that great, and the flexibility of the sequencers doesn't compare to the stuff you get today with any of the current drum apps....so now I'm have fun messing with this stuff again, and it lets me really map out my songs before I get to the recording stage, and when I work with my drummer, it's much easier for him to understand what I want, down to every accent and cymbal crash. He's always pressed for time, so trying to just verbally explain a song to him and get it recorded in an hour or two, was a PITA, and I would never get exactly what I wanted.....now he can just hear what I sequenced, and he gets it right away.

I also wouldn't hesitate using the sampled drums entirely on a song....they really do sound great.
 
I picked up C&V before vol 3 came out. Honestly as much as I love Avatar I think I would have prefered vol 3 more.

I've been using superior for quite a few years now, hence the ridiculous amassment of samples. I dig having a different set of cymbals in C & V though, they used some ziljian stuff over the usual sabian.

TBH the included midi with a lot of these libraries didn't really impress me. I would much rather hop on the e kit and bang it out myself.


Knowing how I am though I will more than likely end up with vol 3 and rock warehouse at some point. Evil drums is pretty rad, just don't know how you can even find it anymore.
 
Are the Songwriter MIDI packs worth it - I mean are there many beats/fills that are usable? Fills is where I find the standard EZXs lacking.

The Songwrter Fillpack is pretty good, IMO.....there are a LOT of fills.
The other packs always have some....but of course, you have to dig through them to find what you are looking for.


I dig having a different set of cymbals in C & V though, they used some ziljian stuff over the usual sabian.


Yeah....that was one of the reasons I was looking at C & V....for the Zidjijan cymbal selection (since the other packs don't use them that much).
 
Yeah....only thing is, it's not XP compatible, so I'm not going to bother with it (my DAW still runs on XP).
It looks like they are trying to make it into some all-in-one production app for drums. I don't really care much about having FX with EZ.....that stuff I can add later on when I mix.
Superior Drummer has all the "human feel" options....not sure if the new EZD2 will have something more/better....?...but I would think that they won't make SD end up as the inferior app.....unless they have plans to come out with an SD2....????

I just feel that a lot of people felt EZD wasn't quite there....so now it becomes a more serious app, yet it's still pretty easy to work with for the beginner and people who don't want to get too involved. We'll see when it comes out how people review it......
 
I have groovemonkey metal and slamtracks metal 2

I honestly didnt like groove monkey midi. I felt it was pretty stale and unimaginative grooves.
Slamtracks grooves are really good for the metal 2 pack.. a lot of really usable stuff

I have a lot of the toontrack midi and it is excellent. I have the monster midi pack and several metal packs (from ezx sdx expansions)

for non metal I have had great luck using the included S2.0 midi

You might find deals at audiodeluxe.com

As an alternative, you might demo jamstix. I know a lot of folks that bit the bullet and got a workflow down with it and are done buying midi.

I personally could not really get it working in my workflow but I think it may be easier for non-metal type of stuff.
 
Thanks for the help. I am going to get some of these packs. As I cannot just have metal grooves and that's mostly what I have. I do have some others but not as many as I need. I play progressive rock/metal. It's basically rock that sometimes can get epic so it needs metal drums. But not all the time. The more non metal drums I can get the better. Without it being a country type drum or stadium rock type drum. I'm looking for, almost a jazz type expansion with grooves like that. But that would go in a rock song.

The reason I buy these expansions is for the different drum kits, thus different sounds. And the different grooves. I do not program the drums myself really. Although I do manipulate the grooves given to me. So it sounds like I programmed them because I have learned how to manipulate it. But I don't like to start from scratch. I like to start with the groove and then make that work for what is in my head.

Which I am able to do. And if I can pile up a ton of grooves I will have even more ways of doing this.
 
I think the first metal dirk midi pack is the most usable for hard to program and play stuff. It's all blast beats and variants.

Blast beats are pretty tough to program convincingly.
 
I can program the blast beats. That's easier for me than it being the other way around. But that's only because I grew up being trained in that world. I was sort of taylor made to play metal guitar by my surroundings. If I was gonna manipulate a blast beat groove, I'd make it a quarter note hit and delete the others that come too quickly after it and all of the sudden you got a regular snare hit.

But it is time consuming. That's why I want more expansion packs. The more grooves, the less I have to do with messing with them. Especially drum fills. I do not want to program drum fills. I want 100's of drum fills to just choose from. I mean how many can there be? lol
 
You know what was most frustrating? To date I still don't think I have found this fill (al 16th notes, you will recognize it instantly) within any of the toontrack stuff:

K,K,Sn,Sn,K,K,rt1,rt1,K,K,rt2,rt2,K,K,ft,ft

Easy enough to program and add to the collection under the user stuff, but serious common. That fill and variants of it is so versatile.

The reason why I say dirk is because it's more than just one blast. You have hammer, old school, gravity, the dirk blast, some syncopated blast stuff.

Really it's pretty good. It definitely doesn't work for an entire track though.
 
I'll look into this expansion. It is called Dirk?

What do you know about the entire new york studios collection for 300 bucks? It includes all the volumes of it. How many grooves does that have? And how many styles? It has a ton of drummers, and a ton of kits, it has to be the most vast array of any expansion they have.

I wonder if it would be worth it to just pay 300 dollars for that and virtually have most everything I can think of.

I don't like to program fills. My mind doesn't work like that. I understand how to do it, but I need to feel something to make it accurate or else it could take me all day and I don't have that type of time.

I was using the axiom 61 to manually do this. But as of yesterday, the axiom 61 just quit working. So I'm stuck with this little key rig 25 which doesn't have drum pads on it or anything. This is the SECOND time this has happened. There is no new driver to fix it either.

Next time I'm going with a novation midi keyboard. I do not trust m audio at all at this point. Because they make it cool and flashy at first but then when technology changes, and i don't mean drastic change, I mean barely changes, they WILL NOT keep up with it.

Off topic on a rabbit trail but I read a story of a guy who sat there and waited 8 months for them to put out the Mac driver so it'd work again when this happened before. 8 months is not reasonable. Maybe you can go a week and hold off on using midi stuff. But 8 months?

I am still researching. I want a company that is more interested in Logic and Mac than it is in PC and pro tools. It can work with PC and pro tools. But I want their focus to be OSX and Logic. So if anything happens, I know they are on top of it.

Which is exactly what M audio sells you. They make it look like that's the case with them. It's not.
 
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