Superior Drummer 2.0 Mixer Soundclips

[brandondrury]

While it's a bit early to give a comprehensive review of the Superior Drummer 2.0 (I've had it about 2 days), I wanted to write to describe how impressed I am with the mixer.

My copy of Toontrack's Superior Drummer 2.0 just came in the other day. I have to say that I'm extremely impressed. It's actually better sounding than they let on. I'll give a full blown review sometime down the road, but in this short blog I wanted to show the Superior Drummer 2.0 mixer.

In the default setup, Superior Drummer 2.0 actually comes with it's own mixing software with EQ, compression, transient designer, and a handful of other things. All of these combine within Superior 2.0 and are ran into a single stereo track within Cubase, but can be routed to individual inputs in Cubase.

At first I was a bit concerned that this mixer wouldn't do what I wanted. I thought I would be stuck with so-so plugins, less control, and basically be less happy than with the method used on DFH Superior 1.0 where each drum track was routed to an individual track in Cubase.

The Plugins Are Great
First I must say that I've been very happy with the EQ, compression, and other effects built into the mixer. The way that Superior Drummer 2.0 tracked and the way the busses are setup in the mixer, the possibilities are enormous.

Actually Usable Presets
I've not been shy about my disdain for presets. Presets can take the attention away from tweaking to find the sound to scrolling through endless menus. Presets can take the emphasis away from listening and put you in some dumbed down state.

In DFH Superior 1.0, I have to admit that I seldom thought the stock sound was exactly what a given song called for. In fact, it only happened a few times. I was always going for something else. It takes a while to play with EQ, compression, levels, etc to squeeze new sounds out of drums. It was very possible to do with took quite a bit of time. This was time I did not have when I wanted to create.

The new mixer has allowed Toontrack to create drum samples that are very natural and neutral if you want them to be or very processed. The cool part is they can do the processing for you if you choose to use their available presets. In more primitive sample libraries, you were stuck with either natural sounds or the processed sounds in the library. If these processed sounds weren't ideal for the song, you had to compromise or get creative.

Take A Listen
Here's the default kit in Superior Drummer 2.0 (which sounds GREAT!) where I've went through and simply selected a mixer preset. It needs to be said that I've done is used different mixer presets and nothing else. The raw audio from the triggered samples is exactly the same. You still have numerous options with the drum kit (different kicks, snares, toms, cymbals, etc). Of course, no one says you can't tweak. I like the idea of selecting “X” preset that gives me very close to the sound I'm looking for and then tweaking from there.

Educational Benefits Of These Mixer Presets
The beginning dude in the world of audio engineering may not be comfortable with parallel compression and various advanced mixing techniques. That person will be very happy with the mixer presets in Superior Drummer 2.0. I think it's cool that when the person is willing to dig a little deeper, they can see exactly what the Toontrack engineers came up with to get a sound this way or that way. “How did they add so much attack and crack to X sound”. Now you can simply solo individual busses until you find the bus with the tremendous attack. Take a look at what they did and you instantly learn a huge audio engineering less.

[brandondrury]

Here is some more.

[Ruzz]

I haven't tried Superior but I use EZDrummer. Question for you Brandon, does Superior offer - er... superior crash cymbal sounds? Specifically, once struck, do the crashes fade away naturally? None of the crashes in EZD fade properly - they all get kinda cut off with a sudden fader drop after a couple secs. This isn't so noticable mid-song, but at the end of a song it sounds shit - you know the kinda thing - bing, bang, bishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - can't be done realistically in EZD.

Ruzz

[brandondrury]

Specifically, once struck, do the crashes fade away naturally?

I just went and checked. They all sounded good to me. They decayed in what I call a very natural way.

Brandon

[Money Shot]

Hey now. It appears you can do what your heart desires. I know this has an eq, high-low pass, gate etc... But would you probably use all that stuff all the time or just some of it sometimes? What's your most commonly used plug-in in the past few days? Also, since you're able to mix your drums before they're in cubase, what kind of mixing is needed once in the mix itself? I assume only some eq.

[Xplora]

Diggin' the kick sound. Very strong. I like the variation of the various snares and ambiences, but there is no way I'd spend the money - I gotta get some value from DFHS v1 first!

[Money Shot]

Originally Posted by Xplora

I gotta get some value from DFHS v1 first!

DFHS is awesome. The only problem I have with it is that I know what it sounds like and can tell when someone is using it.

[brandondrury]

Hey now. It appears you can do what your heart desires. I know this has an eq, high-low pass, gate etc... But would you probably use all that stuff all the time or just some of it sometimes? What's your most commonly used plug-in in the past few days? Also, since you're able to mix your drums before they're in cubase, what kind of mixing is needed once in the mix itself? I assume only some eq.

On rock drums, I use quite a bit of plugins. I'll start immediately with a compressor on the 2bus working fairly subtly to either accent the attack or to reduce it a hair (usually accenting it). I usually EQ in one way or another. The rest really depends. It's rare that I don't gate the toms, EQ the kick, put a high pass on the overheads, etc. I sometimes compress the snare or kick individually. I usually have parallel compression going on to increase the attack of the kick and snare. It really depends, but I typically have quite a bit going on with drums tracked at my place.

You can really see that with the mixer presets. You can see all the routing with parallel compression, EQ, etc. It's a tremendous lesson for newbies.

I gotta get some value from DFHS v1 first!

I've had DFHS for a couple years. It's good. Superior Drummer 2.0 is GREAT! That's my opinion anyway. The've improved tremendously. If you've got the first one, you can upgrade for $120 or so. It's totally worth that in my opinion. I don't expect to be using the first one every again to be honest.

DFHS is awesome. The only problem I have with it is that I know what it sounds like and can tell when someone is using it.
Really? I guess I overmix so much that I can't tell what the hell I used on my own recordings half the time. But I was never really content with DFHS right out of the box. It was a good quality drum sound, but it wasn't my favorite drum sound (if that makes any sense).

Brandon

[Money Shot]

woah man. That's a good bit of info there. Seems like this program is the shiz. Can't wait to tinker with it for I know It's one of the key ingredients to making professional and believable recordings. I just hope it isn't too intimidating for me. I've never even used EZ drummmer.

[Money Shot]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

DFHS is awesome. The only problem I have with it is that I know what it sounds like and can tell when someone is using it.


Really? I guess I overmix so much that I can't tell what the hell I used on my own recordings half the time. But I was never really content with DFHS right out of the box. It was a good quality drum sound, but it wasn't my favorite drum sound (if that makes any sense).

Well, I'm pretty familiar with the sounds of DFHS Superior, and I heard this band recently and could tell pretty quickly that they were using it. I knew because of the snare sound which was really punchy sort of and loud (great f-n snare sound by the way). I don't know tho maybe they had just eq'd it the way another band had which was how I knew it was DFHS...

I guess my point is that it's great that newer drum sample keep coming out with different kicks, snares etc.... Because it keeps things fresh. If someone could tell exactly what drum software you were using that could suck. For me anyways. It would seem to take away the magic in the person knowing it's only samples and not a human. So I'm totally about fooling ppl into thinking my drums or guitars are authentic when they're really not. Even tho I'm not in that position right now hahaha. I like to think about that stuff tho.

Some older recording I did in a studio with my Alesis actually fooled my friends. Mostly on the songs that didn't go over the top with fills and stuff. They'd be like, "Wow! That drummer is awesome." And I'd be like...."yea".
It kinda can sound like nintendo beats tho.