Appletell
Appletell reviews ToonTrack’s Superior Drummer 2.0
ToonTrack’s Superior Drummer is an appropriately named piece of software / sound generator plug-in. It will breathe life and warmth into the all too often cold world of digital music. You can use it to take your drum programming to the next level, or better yet, hook up a set of MIDI capable edrums to emulate the type of sound you could only get from a phenomenal set of acoustic drums that you probably can’t afford, plus thousands of dollars worth of microphones and recording talent on top of it.
The idea behind Superior Drummer is to replace the need for using mics to record acoustic drums, or to make purely programmed drum sequences sound convincingly real. Instead of using mics, you can use drum triggers with a set of acoustic drums or use a set of electronic drums (edrums). Edrums have the obvious added benefit of being quieter; quiet enough even for some apartments.
So instead of buying all of the necessary mics yourself, and then trying to set up a good environment to record in, and then do all of the other things involved with recording, you can skip directly to great sound. That is an amazing feeling. And not only that, if you make a mistake while recording, you can fix it in post like the pros (do they do that?). What I mean is that if you forget to hit a note, or if you hit a drum out of time, you can move it later since the only thing actually being recorded is the timing of drum hits along with its associated velocity (which can be edited later). Garageband even has a built in feature that will sync up your drumming to the beat. It won’t replace years of lessons or even just good old fashion practice, but honestly, this probably isn’t much of an issue for you if you’re considering a piece of software that costs this much.
You can use Superior Drummer on its own or in your recording software of choice, which, for many of us, is Garageband. I chose to test it out in Garageband, which is more than sufficient for my purposes. After adding a new “real instrument” track, you change the generator to Superior Drummer in the edit tab. It takes a few seconds for the sounds to be loaded into memory, but once they are loaded there is no waiting. Now you can play around with all of the options available to you from the software. It’s incredible really. You can do as much or as little as you want to the drums. But all you really need to do to get great sound is start playing. The difference between Garageband’s default drum generators and Superior Drummer is eye- (ear-) opening. You may even forget that you’re playing through software; I know I did. It’s like the first time you watched a BluRay movie, you don’t realize how bad what you’re used to (Garageband’s default drum generators) really is until something better is presented to you.
There are only two downsides to Superior Drummer, and both of them are obvious before you buy it. It costs a ton, and it takes up a ton of storage space. It comes on 5 DVDs. Yes, I said DVDs. It’s huge, but that’s a result of how high quality it really is. And that’s what you’re paying for. Would you really want any less? I say the 20GB of space that the full install requires is more than worth it.
Time after time I say it, and more often than not it’s true. You get what you pay for. Is this for everyone? Nope. It’s for the drummers out there who need professional sounding drums on a lower budget. Yes, I said lower budget. This one piece of software eliminates the need for a lot of things, like mics and headaches involved with recording drums. You get sound that only thousands of dollars of equipment and hours upon hours of time could produce in mere seconds. Plus, you get the benefits of being able to edit your patterns after recording them. Try that with a mic.
Normally I’d rate this a 4 out of 5 purely because of the price, but considering the level of quality and what it potentially could replace (or eliminate the need for purchase) I’m giving it an unrestricted 5. The days when you can truly record a studio quality album at home are here.
Rating 5/5
|
|
|
