Real to Reel thoughts/review

[Shen G]

https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/real-to-reel-sdx/

 

Posted a drunk rant/opinion/review last night in the requests and feedback area of the forums but now wonder how regularly SD3 users go there, so hope it’s OK to mention it here as I would like to have some other voices/opinions involved.  Perhaps I like it so much because it’s more compressed and processed on the way in than some other SDX’s and others wont like it for not being the rawness they want.  Or if anyone has any questions about it.

Will just reiterate here that the edrumming experience with it, especially the snares, is the best I’ve had.  And while I’m no expert, I do own most of SD3 SDX’s to compare to.

 

Cheers again.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.1
Operating system: Windows 10

Topic

[Korken]

I read it the other day. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, it can help others to decide.

[Wolfgang]

Many thanks for writing your review! One question just to be sure and because you’re mentioning your edrumming experience: Are there really no snares with wires off? And no other tools than sticks, no rods oder mallets? I’m just asking because I think that’s an opportunity that Toontrack keeps missing out on. Using SD3 in a band context and having quite a bunch of SDXs I’m more looking for kits with the option to switch between sticks, mallets und rods. On an acoustic kit if my bandmates want me to vary my sound I would switch tools, not drumsets…

Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

• This post was modified 4 days, 8 hours ago by Wolfgang.

[Shen G]

Yeah, spot on.  It doesn’t have any of those alternate tools or snare wires off.  I probably should have mentioned that but I guess I forgot because I rarely use them, in part because of my narrow play style, but also find the drums they choose to use for the rods (probably the only type I’d use), brushes, mallets etc are on the drums I don’t want to use.

Although I have considered asking for/putting the idea out there for an SDX that is going for the most “virtual drum kit” possible.  Instead of spending so much time and effort in to the multiple rooms and kits, just sample a high quality 7+ piece kit thats as universal as possible.  With a modest bunch of snare options that cover as wide a range of sound as possible, a few different sized kicks with some muffling options and enough cymbals to suit different stuff.  And sample it with all the possible tools and have the options to “throw” the wires off on any snare.  Also have the buzz from each snare be appropriate to the snare that’s is in use.  afaik only 1 snare’s buzz is usually sampled?  Perhaps each kit has it’s own default snare sampled now judging by Real to Reel…  I know sometimes a tight piccolo snare will have the loose buzz of a fatty.

But have it be the most customizable, do anything you want with it that you could do if you had it for real.

Not sure which SDX’s you already have, but Legacy of Rock and Decades seem to have the most options for tools.  Along with Stories Iso A room and State of the Art and Jazz Sessions also have a few choices.  I may have missed something.

Cheers.

edit:  also regarding RtR, I turned positional sensing back on on the snare and think they’ve dialed in the off center and edge samples better than last I’ve tried.  Tbh I can’t remember when I tried it last, quite a while/perhaps many SDX’s, but always the found 3 different areas to sound too far from each other, and not really manageable on my Roland PD-128S and Edrumin setup.  Perhaps on 3 different pads.  But playing around on the snare sounded too strange, needing some kind of blending tech to sound natural (SD4 anyone?).  While there is still a bit of that in this SDX, it sounds close enough that I might actually use it, albeit set as close to the edge as I can to avoid accidental triggering.

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 3 days, 18 hours ago by Shen G.

[Author]

Replies