Ok so I’ve seen this post elsewhere but it needs more attention from the God of toontrack than one complaint. But before I start.
Yes, your product is amazing. Yes, you know what you are doing. Yes, you have given a glimpse of something that is the best technology we can achieve in drums, and I shudder to think of where you will go from here. And I marvel to think of all the red-hot KNOWLEDGE and passion, and determination it took to create this devilishly GOOD product called SD3. I knew this was a problem with SD3, and have had to deal with it in post, yet here I am and I still purchased it ANYWAY. That’s how GOOD you are at this. That’s how much I admire and need your work; Buuuuuuuuut:
having said all that: 500 bucks of my money still earns me the right to offer constructive criticism. But that’s only one reason- I’m not just a consumer, I’m a pro in a hurry.
your tom tones? WAY WAY too much resonant frequencies. (ring, hum, purr, bell, rattle). Yup.
The line between hyper realism AND speed and ease of use is razor thin. And you are doing a splendid job, but this is one that needs extra thought.
They are difficult to use, adding additional steps to a mix that add up to a surgical eq session, and I even have to use Izotope RX10 on your drums to REMOVE nonsense that should have n-e-v-e-r been there in the f-i-r-s-t place and return your cleaned TOM sample back into the kit. And I payed 500 bucks for this honor.
I’m speaking of your toms 50% of aren’t worth the trouble of using. BUT we are STUCK with them in the bleed. Or what? Kill the bleeds? no. That’s one of those things that set you apart. I’ve seen you offer that advice to someone on this forum, and that’s like asking a pilot to take the wings of the plane.
Now please, don’t start with mixing advice that even an intermediate mixer should already know. Here’s what you need to understand> It does not matter how “hyper-realistic”your sounds are when their USABILITY in actual production is a boat anchored by unusable toms that ARE BLEEDING Into the rest of the danged sonic picture. I would offer some sage advice back to you. – EVERY engineer knows that if you have “x” amount of time to get a sound room ready for drums, you are going to be spending 90% of “x” on dealing with the TOMSs>. Now your minus “x” is out plus “x” on post, and only a small amount of your target consumers even know how to do that. 🙁
It should sound like : BOOM BAP BOOM BAP. Not, BOOM riiiiiiiiiiiiing BAP riiiiiiiiiing.
We are here for SPEED and POWER, and INTELLIGENT design. FAST. I have movie score deadlines. Project deadlines. I have to go from idea in my head to REALITY in the cans ins sometimes in 4 hours. Let me say that again man. 4 hours for a score demo for a symphonic orchestra, and your beautiful drums. You are supposed to help me cut that time window down, not increase it.
When I have to go backwards to Logic’s drummer (which is actually not bad considering just how stock it is) for Toms and I have to subsequently turn the bleed down on all the mics in SD3 (even after gating) to rid them of your horrible toms that sound like they were recorded in the lincoln tunnel, that’s naughty.
Yes yes…. envelope. Gate. Bleed. Notched EQ.. yada yada yada. Is that user-friendly? No. Is it 500 dollars worth of user-friendly? You tell me.
Please show these emails to your amazing guru and yall need to have around table discussion about offering your users an update. And remind him of something he knows already. YOU DON’T FIX PROBLEMS that you made in the studio in a MIX, you stop them before they start from the first microphone to the preamp. He knows this. Tell him to get the damned blankets out and make some updates.
Until then I will be using multi stereo output instances of SD3 to the submix stack in the DAW where I will be keeping instances of RX10 on your toms, or cleaning your toms and returning them to SD3 because its the only real professional way to fix this mess, and recommending that my colleagues pump the breaks on SD3 until yall get this fixed.
Thank you. Seriously. You guys are awesome. this isn’t a criticism to hate, it’s criticism with admiration and kindness. And genuine intent.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
