Superior Drummer Q&A

[niffnoff]

Originally Posted by dbrozz

Thanks for the input
I tried boosting the highs on the kit and it was a positive change, I'll keep tweaking.

I was wondering if anybody might have some tips towards getting a better sound out of the S2.0 Avatar kit cymbals? I've seen some examples of gating bass drums and snares to have a more defined sound in the kit, are there any similar methods used with the cymbals? A lot of the time in my mixes the cymbals tend to mask eachother when played in a close sequence (especially crashes/splashes). Can the cymbals be routed separately in a DAW via multichannel or are they confined to OH mic's and mic bleed?

Just after that sound

You may be able to choke them, I couldn't tell you the key but if you look in SDs menu there should be one for the keys of each piece of the kit and their articulation (for example)


Snare: 38- Snare
39- Flam
40- Rimshot

something like that. lol

[EtherealEntity]

Dbrozz

The cymbals are confined to one mic output.

Choking wont sound too good and will sound unplayable haha.

On Niffnoffs suggestion, though - the most recent update has choke articulations for all cymbals and they can be triggered by note off.

I.e. 49 might be crash
50 might be the same crash, but will choke when the note is released.

Pretty useful


Anyway, I suggest using the volume envelope editor within Superior Drummer on the cymbals - to fade them out faster.

[James R]

To whom it may concern:

I am very interested in purchasing Superior Drummer 2.0, but I heard it doesn't have crash bell support. I later figured out that one of their SDXs Music City has bell samples for their crashes, but I wanted to know how I could incorporate the samples into the superior drummer engine. I know that the crashes in superior drummer are only crash and choke, but if I could apply a workaround by just adding an extra ride or two in the superior drummer and map the 3 zones on it to crash/bell sounds. Is that even possible? That would be a workaround for me to justify the purchase of this product, since I need the cymbal bells to work, because I use them in a song in my bands album, but using roland td-12 sounds instead.

Please help It would be very appreciated.

JK
--------
Using Roland TD-12 Drumset with Roland Td12 brain n protools for recording midi drums.

[EtherealEntity]

^ I think I understand. Yes you can add in extra drums from the same product or other products using the X-Drum feature.

[Red32]

I have a question about mixing the drums in Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.3.0. Don't send me to the official support. Don't ask why.

In every Toontrack product there are dry microphone sound and room/ambience mics. They are separated.
I use multi-channeling to create sound with external plug-ins.

I turn off all stuff from ambience/room mics except Cymbals, Rides etc.
It's comfortable for me to create sound separately. But if I turned off snare, kick, toms then they sounds too dry. And I can't achieve certain sound if room/ambience is mixed with Cymbals(I mean it's not comfortable and pretty hard, especially when you changing volume while mixing).

The question is: Is there any way to put each instrument(snare, kick, toms, hat) into multi-channel with leveling of ambience/room? For example Channel 1: snare+snare ambience. Channel 2: Kick+kick ambience .... Channel 5: Cymbals, rides, crashes etc.(pure ambience/room)
Or should I suggest such idea to Toontrack?

I've recorded some stuff with Superior Drummer Metal Foundry and kicks and drums sounds pretty dry. That's the problem to hear.
Download Insomnia1Pred4.mp3 from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

[Red32]

I know, there is a way to open Superior Drummer few times for each channel lol. It's bad way. Then I need to know. How to map one midi track for few VST instruments in Nuendo 4.

[iRaiseTheDead]

When I use midi files for superior drummer or even write out the drum parts it doesn't see "powerful" but when I click on each individual piece of the drumkit, each piece has more definition by just clicking on it. I want the same feel I get from just clicking when I write it out.

[zao_89]

It could be that when you write out the parts, the velocities aren't as hard as the defaults in the plugin.

[aawshred]

I've been using SD2.0 for a while with logic. works great and everything, but i want to have each drum on its own track in logic. how do i make that work? i can't seem to make it happen by any means. be as detailed as you can, thanks!

[EtherealEntity]

Yeah check your velocities - I find that sound if they are below 110.

[Fiction]

I think the set velocity from Guitar Pro Midi is around 97 I think, before exporting change all the drum parts to fff instead of f and they'll export with a velocity of 127, or you can just press Select + A, and drag all up to 127 or Quantize them and then start editing your fills and what not.

[rock90]

I make the gp5 midi export of the drums and then I import them into Cubase and then select SD as and out. It loads and when i klick on the snare it makes a sound a nice cool sample, but when i play the track the drums sound totally different wery thin and quiet and i dint even touch the mixer yet.
Any idea?

I remember it was the same deal with DFH i used the eq and mixer to make it sound decent.

Is this normall SD behavior?
Do I just need to use the mixer to make it sound like the sample?

Tnx

Cheers

[James R]

Ill simplify my post. Mypost was #128.

Can I add a ride cymbal, and assign whatever sound I want to them (like a crash sound, or a crash bell from another SDX Package..) Through Xdrum?

I basically want to add a Ride but use it as a crash instead by assigning crash bell sounds from another SDX package into the bell position on that ride, and then just triggering a regular crash sound in the edge position of the ride to somehow crudely simulate multiple zone support for crash cymbals. Is this workaround possible?

Hope I made this as easy as possible to understand. I really like the sounds of this package, and Im willing to go this far to aquire the product. I have not heard one package out there (NI Modern Drummer, BFD, Steven Slate,
Drumwerks, vdrumlib) That even comes close to the sounds triggered from SD. Drumweks is close, but they have no interface to easily use those samples. I know its a little complicated to try this workaround, but The stuff sounds amazing, and nothing compares to it.

Thanks,

JK

[Tree]

Originally Posted by rock90

I make the gp5 midi export of the drums and then I import them into Cubase and then select SD as and out. It loads and when i klick on the snare it makes a sound a nice cool sample, but when i play the track the drums sound totally different wery thin and quiet and i dint even touch the mixer yet.
Any idea?

I remember it was the same deal with DFH i used the eq and mixer to make it sound decent.

Is this normall SD behavior?
Do I just need to use the mixer to make it sound like the sample?

Tnx

Cheers

I refer you to the posts directly above yours

[EtherealEntity]

Originally Posted by James R

Ill simplify my post. Mypost was #128.

Can I add a ride cymbal, and assign whatever sound I want to them (like a crash sound, or a crash bell from another SDX Package..) Through Xdrum?

I basically want to add a Ride but use it as a crash instead by assigning crash bell sounds from another SDX package into the bell position on that ride, and then just triggering a regular crash sound in the edge position of the ride to somehow crudely simulate multiple zone support for crash cymbals. Is this workaround possible?

Hope I made this as easy as possible to understand. I really like the sounds of this package, and Im willing to go this far to aquire the product. I have not heard one package out there (NI Modern Drummer, BFD, Steven Slate,
Drumwerks, vdrumlib) That even comes close to the sounds triggered from SD. Drumweks is close, but they have no interface to easily use those samples. I know its a little complicated to try this workaround, but The stuff sounds amazing, and nothing compares to it.

Thanks,

JK

Understood. You don't even have to add it by Xdrum in this case. Why not just trigger two seperate cymbals and pretend they are one?
Panning could be the answer to that. Yes make sure you pick two that are close on the kit..
Or, if you do it by Xdrum, I think you have control over the pan. But yeah, just use two different cymbals in two different slots!
If you are using an electric kit and this is why you think it could be a problem, it's easily solved. Say your kit cymbal outputs 70 for the edge and 71 for the middle (random numbers).
Simply set the crash sound in Superior to 70, and the bell sound to 71. Xdrums or not.

In actual answer to your question, no it's not possible to change the sounds within one cymbal but that isn't a problem here

[James R]

Thanks etherealentity, I will try that way to see if it could work for me. Very cool idea with the panning, because it makessense that the instrument you play on the right of the drumset should sound on the right side of the mix. All sounds on the drumset are usually panned to th center, but this idea can still work out.

I also thought up something interesting as well to try. since the music city sdx package supports crash bells, maybe I could use the mapping of a typical music city drumset, since it already has the crash bells programmed in it, but replace all the other instruments (toms, snares, bass drums and all cymbals) with one of the SD 2.0 kits. that way, I get the kit I want with the bells preprogrammed in, all I would have to do is a full drumset swap.

sounds easy, but it may be more complicated than I think.

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention"

JK

[iRaiseTheDead]

Are X-Pads/drums used to double up a piece of the kit? Everytime I use a pad it either works as the pad or the actual drum. Not the both.

[EtherealEntity]

Originally Posted by iRaiseTheDead

Are X-Pads/drums used to double up a piece of the kit? Everytime I use a pad it either works as the pad or the actual drum. Not the both.

Not entirely sure what you mean. But they are simply another drum slot that can load a kit piece from any library.

Originally Posted by James R

I also thought up something interesting as well to try. since the music city sdx package supports crash bells, maybe I could use the mapping of a typical music city drumset, since it already has the crash bells programmed in it, but replace all the other instruments (toms, snares, bass drums and all cymbals) with one of the SD 2.0 kits. that way, I get the kit I want with the bells preprogrammed in, all I would have to do is a full drumset swap.

Nah, as far as I remember you can't select kit pieces from other libraries when you have a kit loaded up. You can only load them as XDrums.

So you'd want to load the Avatar kit (standard S2.0 kit) and then add an X Drum for the Music City Crash.
You have precise control over what MIDI notes trigger what sample of said crash (hit/bell/mute) etc.

[EtherealEntity]

I say you should download the demo and try this XDrum thing, just using another cymbal from Avatar kit. Check it does what you want, though I'm sure I've understood you and it does

[James R]

Originally Posted by EtherealEntity

Nah, as far as I remember you can't select kit pieces from other libraries when you have a kit loaded up. You can only load them as XDrums.

So you'd want to load the Avatar kit (standard S2.0 kit) and then add an X Drum for the Music City Crash.
You have precise control over what MIDI notes trigger what sample of said crash (hit/bell/mute) etc.

So youre saying that I cant really modify the expansion pack drumsets, I only can add more pieces through xdrum. so in essense, you sugesst what I should do is simply use the standard sd2 kit, but remove the crashes that do not have the bells, and simply add the ones from music city through xdrum, to have that capability. If its that simple, then Im game.

[iRaiseTheDead]

I've seen someone use an X-Drum to use as a second snare (so he had two different snares hitting at the same time) but he didn't really explain how to do it. They were both from the Avatar kit. I've tried to do this but it'll only play one of them not the both :c

[EtherealEntity]

You can't modify any drumset with kitpieces that ARENT in that set.

For example you load the Avatar S2.0 kit. You will have a few options for the snare slot, all of which are Avatar options.
If you wish to use something from Music City, you must load it as an XDrum.

So you suggested loading Music City kit and replacing all the drums with Avatar. Firstly that isn't possible, but it would be slower anyway than simply loading Avatar and inserting Music City Crash as an Xdrum

But yep, you're right, it's that simple. You needn't remove the other ones if you wish. But if your kit outputs certain notes then yes you will want to unmap the originals and map the Xdrum instead to those notes.

iRaise the dead - yep you can do that. You're right that if you simply set the trigger note as the same, they erase eachother. That's why you're only hearing one (the last one you set). You need to use the MIDI Node feature. I've never used it but I did read it in the instructions - should sort you out Have a look

[iRaiseTheDead]

So in the piano roll I should write out both keys that each snare is assigned to?

And to Jame's response... Your saying if I had a... lets say a 'better' sounding china cymbal for example, I could use an X-Pad to trigger it?

Or is the X-Pad/Drum only good for using different drums from different ToonTrack kits?

[James R]

Originally Posted by EtherealEntity

But yep, you're right, it's that simple. You needn't remove the other ones if you wish. But if your kit outputs certain notes then yes you will want to unmap the originals and map the Xdrum instead to those notes.

Thanks. This just about solved my issue now to actually purchase the two packs and getting to work.

I dont have to remove the sd crashes, but id do so just out of memory management issues. I like to use only the cymbals I actually use to save more memory, which are 2 crashes, a china and a ride. I think the initial view has more drum pieces than I actually have on my fully expanded roland td-12 with aux 1 and 2 taken up by floor 2 and china. So by doing that it would free all sort of map assignments to add more drum pieces I have to add later, like a small splash, extra tom and an additional "stacked cymbal" sound, which I believe is already included in sd 2.0 already.

Next question id like to ask is this. Once Ive added the xdrum/s, do I have to add a room mic to it, so it can blend with the rest of the kit? or does it come with pre-configured mics?

Thanks,

JK

[James R]

Originally Posted by iRaiseTheDead

So in the piano roll I should write out both keys that each snare is assigned to?

And to Jame's response... Your saying if I had a... lets say a 'better' sounding china cymbal for example, I could use an X-Pad to trigger it?

Or is the X-Pad/Drum only good for using different drums from different ToonTrack kits?

I believe that EtherealEntity clarified that. He said you can add whatever instrument from whatever sdx or edx library into sd so long as its an xdrum.

If its a kit piece that you want to replace, or even add, that comes from the same drumset, then choose it from the list of pieces that kit supports. Like I hear that superior 2.0 has like 7 snares, but you only can pick from those 7 snares for that particular kit. any other snare that you add, if its from another edx or sdx package, you then would have to add it as an x-drum. So, there you go.

JK