Superior Drummer 2.0 Mixer Soundclips

[brandondrury]

I'm simply unwilling to commit to a new engine if I'll lose my sounds from the old one. (even if the old samples aren't quite as good)

So you are saying that even if the new thing is better, you won't use it. Okay.

TOontrack produce some of the WORST manuals I've ever read.

Really? They seem about average to me. I've seen some bad manuals...like no manual at all!

The last thing I need is this - duplication of cymbal sounds and an ability to run 2 rides, 2 hats, and 12 crashes/chinas/splashes. I just can't quite see how it happens?

I don't think you can run 2 hi-hats at the same time without loading up two instances. They give you the option of selecting different hts, rides, snares, and kicks but that is to give you tonal flexibility. It's not like you'd use them all at the same time.

You mean can you use S1 samples in the S2 engine? Good question, i dont know.

I don't know either, but if I REALLY needed the DFHS samples, I'd just use the old player. It worked fine. I prefer the Superior Drummer 2 samples by about 10,000 so I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.

[Xplora]

Well one of the big motivations is to move to the better featured VSTi, not just the sounds. I'm thinking quite seriously about EZplayer Pro, and if I can get that without the extra cash, well why not? If I can port the old samples, that makes decisions easier.

I'm a bit surprised that no push was made to include multiple hats. Yes, it sucks up a lot of RAM but in 18 months everyone will have 8-16 gigs anyway. Oh well. Two instances is OK.

[Money Shot]

Originally Posted by Xplora

Yes, it sucks up a lot of RAM but in 18 months everyone will have 8-16 gigs anyway. Oh well. Two instances is OK.

Do what? That's a shit ton of ram. I have 2 1/2 gb and can only have a maximum of 4 gb.

[Xplora]

Originally Posted by Money Shot

Do what? That's a shit ton of ram. I have 2 1/2 gb and can only have a maximum of 4 gb.

In 18 months, the majority of Power Users, of which the audio crowd are members, will have decent 64 bit computing and ram will continue to be cheaper. I can get 8 gigs for less than 100 bucks now. WOW. No way will people have less than 8 gigs in 18 months.

[Money Shot]

holy f-n s#@!

I will have less than 8 gigs.

[Xplora]

But you COULD easily have 8 gigs if you wanted. It won't be the massive barrier it is now when using sample libraries. All we need to do is be patient. Computers always catch up to our dreams!

[brandondrury]

Computers always catch up to our dreams!

Then why are so many people posting about computers ruining their dreams on here?

[One03wannabe]

Brandon,

I just purchased my copy of Superior 2.0. I am pretty impressed with it as well. But I just had a few questions about your setup. The samples you provided, were those played on an electronic kit, programmed by hand or is it just a loop with the different samples?

Also lets say I am using an E-drum set, is there a way to record the midi performance then have it play back with the superior 2.0 samples?

Right now the only way I can really figure out how to route it in pro tools is to create a stereo instrument track and add Superior 2.0 as a plug in and record to that track.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to have a Midi performance with one of their preset drumkits but also have the option to switch out my snare or toms later down the road.

Is this possible with Superior 2.0?

[Xplora]

Definitely, but if it was Click that easy, this forum wouldn't exist.

You need to load the S2 instance with samples, then play your Edrums, and record the MIDI inputs. It's not super hard, but there is a logical discontinuity about it all which can make it hard.

[lividone]

Bumping an old thread, sorry.

I was a little slow getting the upgrade to Superior 2.0 from DFHS. Now I have it, and well, I don't like it......

Anyway to address a major question I noticed in this thread. You CAN use all your old DFHS samples in Superior 2. In fact, it's integrated extremely well. On top of that, you can use all the EZDrummer and EZX expansions within the engine as well. That's about the only reason I haven't returned it. On top of that you can mix ALL of these samples within the engine in the same way you would mix the new samples in the built in mixer and effects. Which is cool. I prefer my own routing and mixing in Nuendo, but I think I'm just stuck in my ways now. I worked so damn hard to get a decent handful of drum mix types out of DFHS, that I don't want to start over with the new bag of goodies in Superior 2.0.

I really like being able to finally map the midi for E-Drumming to the correct drums in say the "DrumKit from Hell" EZX expansion of EZdrummer. You could use E-Drums with EZDrummer before but you couldn't assign anything. Say you're used to your china being on this left crash trigger or whatever. Well too bad because you'r midi "brain" (in my case a Roland TD-20) does not output the right midi note to correspond to what's preprogrammed in EZDrummer.

Not anymore. I can rock out on DFH or Twisted Kit or the original EZDrummer exactly as I see fit in the Superior 2.0 engine.

Hell, you can mix and match your kit pieces from different expansions and DFHS 1 with the Superior 2 samples.

Thank the Toontrack gods for that one, 'cause I can't stand the new samples .

Which is why I don't like it very much.

Don't get me wrong, they sound GREAT in their own respect. They just don't sit well in MY mixes. Maybe my stuff sucks, I don't know. I like pretty heavy styles of rock/slower metal type stuff. The new kits included with the it just don't fit the bill for me. It just has this glamy, poppy, feel and ambience. I mean even the "unprocessed" versions of the new kits still sound processed somehow.

Meanwhile, the original DFHS sounds extremely raw and well, almost crappy until you dig out the sounds you like. A clean canvas I guess, where as Superior 2.0 kinda has a base coat of "pop rock".

Maybe I'm speaking to soon. I've only spent 8-10 hrs with it total.


Overall, the engine overhaul is bad ass. The customization options allowing all sample libraries to coexist in a variety of ways still makes the upgrade worth the $$.

I'll just have to wait for Vol.2 and beyond with my fingers crossed.



Oh yeah, on that note. Volume 1 of Superior 2.0 was tracked at Avatar Studios with a GMS kit.

Volume 2 will be tracked at Allaire Studio with Gretch and Ludwig kits ( I probably won't get much use of that either ) and also tracked at The Hit Factory with more same GMS type kits as the current 2.0. Vol.2 to be released early 2009.



There's alot of talk on the toontrack forums about the shift away from the "From Hell" line and the metal focus. In response, Andreas (Toontrack CEO) has made a number of assurances that their will be a more "heavy" music focused volume for 2.0 in the works. Those of us looking forward to that will just have to wait and see....or just stick with DFHS.


2 cents.

Maybe less.



Later.