I have been using Superior Drummer (SD) for a few weeks, in Pro Tools LE 7.4 (PT), on a Vista machine (although I also have it set up on a MacBook Pro).
While the samples seem to sound good in SD, they do not sound at all good in the mix. Particularly the bass drum sounds flat. I get a much better sound from my outboard Roland Handspring or Alesis D4, at the end of the day. I have tried to figure a way out to send drums from SD to different audio tracks in PT, but although SD has a very sophisticated mixer with very cool inserts and effects, it does not seem to send buses or outputs to specific tracks in the DAW (if there is a way to do this, it may just solve the problem, by letting me process each drum track-- esp the bass drum-- separately).
Alternately, do I need to create a separate midi track for the drums, and use separate instances of superior drummer to allow me to send different drum sounds to different audio tracks for independent processing? This seems overly complicated, but if it is the best way to get good drum sounds, I will do it. Have not tried it yet though.
Please, anyone with tips on using virtual drum sample software such as Superior Drummer in a DAW such as Pro Tools and getting good sounds in the mix, let me know. I thought it would be much simpler, but I don't mind working at it. It would be a great help to know which direction to take though. Meanwhile, I seem to get great bass drum (and other sounds) from the Alesis D4 and an old roland drum machine, and the handspring, recorded direct to audio in PT. Of course, once this is done, I cannot edit the MIDI data any further, so I have to have the song really well fleshed out before I lay the drums down. I prefer to sort of build the drums as I build the rest of the song, fleshing out instrument and vocal parts at the same time as I expand and refine the drums. Because of this, the software instrument would be much handier for me, if I could learn how to get the best sounds from it.
Thanks!
PS: I am not sure if it matters, but just in case, my setup is through a digirack 002 onto a fast PC with a good amp and monitors. I also have a MacBook set up through the same interface, but haven't used it much, because it is new, and I set it up just to compare the performance with the windows machine.
While the samples seem to sound good in SD, they do not sound at all good in the mix. Particularly the bass drum sounds flat. I get a much better sound from my outboard Roland Handspring or Alesis D4, at the end of the day. I have tried to figure a way out to send drums from SD to different audio tracks in PT, but although SD has a very sophisticated mixer with very cool inserts and effects, it does not seem to send buses or outputs to specific tracks in the DAW (if there is a way to do this, it may just solve the problem, by letting me process each drum track-- esp the bass drum-- separately).
Alternately, do I need to create a separate midi track for the drums, and use separate instances of superior drummer to allow me to send different drum sounds to different audio tracks for independent processing? This seems overly complicated, but if it is the best way to get good drum sounds, I will do it. Have not tried it yet though.
Please, anyone with tips on using virtual drum sample software such as Superior Drummer in a DAW such as Pro Tools and getting good sounds in the mix, let me know. I thought it would be much simpler, but I don't mind working at it. It would be a great help to know which direction to take though. Meanwhile, I seem to get great bass drum (and other sounds) from the Alesis D4 and an old roland drum machine, and the handspring, recorded direct to audio in PT. Of course, once this is done, I cannot edit the MIDI data any further, so I have to have the song really well fleshed out before I lay the drums down. I prefer to sort of build the drums as I build the rest of the song, fleshing out instrument and vocal parts at the same time as I expand and refine the drums. Because of this, the software instrument would be much handier for me, if I could learn how to get the best sounds from it.
Thanks!
PS: I am not sure if it matters, but just in case, my setup is through a digirack 002 onto a fast PC with a good amp and monitors. I also have a MacBook set up through the same interface, but haven't used it much, because it is new, and I set it up just to compare the performance with the windows machine.