I had high expectations in Sd3, so I bought it although no demo version was available.
I am pretty much familiar with drum plug ins, I have or have had AD2, NI Studio/Abbey Road, Battery, Maschine etc. and work with them on a daily basis for clients.
I think the whole concept of Sd3 with its mixer, groove section is pretty awesome. The quality of the samples is great, maybe the best so far.
But: I just cannot use it in my (pop/rock/dance) productions.
– most of the snares are ringing like crazy, it takes major eq-ing to get over it.
– most of the kicks have a ridiculous sustain/decay.
– (ALL !!) OH and ambience mics introduce a hall/cathedral kind of reverb
– the hits somehow lack impact.
I can work around some of these issues by using the envelope generator, eq and compression. But honestly, I do not see the point to spend time on solving conceptual problems before getting into my workflow.
I spent hours to get this thing working for me and cannot but shake my head.
The grooves are fantastic – I use them with AD2 now. IMHO.
