I didn’t know where else to post these questions but since I have already purchased S3 I guess I should look for “Solutions after the plunge” section instead. I’m absolutely thrilled with this software! I own practically every Drum VI on the planet & for the most part am satisfied that S3 will be my goto drum VI engine for years to come because this will be a tough act to follow.
That being said there are a couple of things I’m very puzzled about? The first is the recording of the Hi-Hats & Toms doesn’t seem to match the rest of the kit sampling technique & sound. I’m saying this because all the 7 kits exhibit the same issues that I want to discuss here so I’ll use the Kick as an example on this post. The issues I want to point out will probably be dealt with in a future upgrade so no real need to get overly excited regarding what I’m about to discuss.
The drums that seem to be consistent are the Kick, Snare, & Cymbals but the ones I’m having difficulty with are the Hi-Hat & Tom samples. I want to make it perfectly clear I might be overlooking something in the Superior 3 VI, or my technique needs an attitude adjustment because the solution is buried within the GUI & as of yet I have not found it. If it is already dealt with I want to apologize profusely & beg for forgiveness because I have not fully read the documentation that S3 comes with. Either way, I hope you can help me understand wherein the solution lies.
Unless I resort to some serious plugins the Toms are very lame! They lack the Timbre, fullness, & aggression that a drummer achieves to get that fat sound that is needed from the Toms in the mix. The Kick has the snap & aggression without resorting to any additional tool but not so with the Toms. It seems like the drummer was swapped out & a Jazz drummer (no insult intended here to Jazz drummers) took his place in striking the Toms to collect the audio samples. Lame indeed! They barely even make it when I process the crap out of them. I can seem to get any “Thunderous Thud” that I was expecting with S3. I have some Mapex drums that I bought years ago in a Mom & Pop music store for $300 that sound very similar to the S3 sampled Toms. What can I do to get them over the edge & have this issue resolved?
The open Hi-Hat samples have some issues as well that I’m puzzled by. Drummers using Toontrack drums should have picked up on this problem years ago but it has been overlooked & even denied by many of your support staff as well whenever I brought this topic up.
In my opinion the problem lies in the open Hi-Hat sample whereby the recorded sample is too short & lacks the sustain to get it to (sound) or play all the way through to the next note. This is especially evident in a slow ballad where the open note needs to be heard (by sustaining the open note longer) so it fills the gap entirely. Although the problem still exists on faster songs it is not nearly as noticable, but, it’s still there. It has gotten so frustrating for me that over the years I have resorted to using Native Instruments Battery 3 & loading some additional samples for the Hi-Hats & Toms to complete my drum sound.
I have done this on every song I have produced over the years & was hoping to stop using Battery 3 in conjunction with Superior Drummer 3 because it is very time consuming setting up two drum samplers to achieve the sounds of a kit that seems to be part of the same drum kit. It also makes it Hell on my PC because I’m running two large samplers that are on the edge of my memory limit. I can use the PC for roughly 45 minutes before I start to notice it slowing down and forcing me to re-boot my PC due to the pagefile size.
Anyway, I still love this software & will continue using it as my primary drum sampler for years to come.
