SD3 distorting and clicking also latency issues

[thebaz_1]

I have just installed SD3 to my PC running win7 64. I am using Reaper v6.35   I have a digirack 003+, and Roland TD12. I am using asio drivers on the 003+

I had extremely high latency and changed the buffer to 64 samples and that helped a lot. When I change kits there is a noticeable distortion like a loose wire sound more noticeable on some presets than others. I think it may settle down after a while and then does it again when I change kits

I changed the buffer to 128 and that did not seem to make much difference but did increase the latency.

Also when I change the asio buffer, Reaper will not allow me to close the options window and I have to shut down Reaper and then re-start and the buffer size is changed.

I can’t seem to get any sound out of SD3 as a stand alone either but it works fine as a VSTi with reaper. It records and plays back without issue.

Any suggestions are very welcome.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: Windows 7

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

Topic

[pumpkinking]

I’ve noticed the clicking noise as well, and I’m using a Mac so seems to be unrelated to the audio driver and settings.  I notice the clicking specifically when I change kit/SDX and start playing while it is still loading the samples, and the clicking persists after the samples have loaded, so seems like a corruption of the samples in memory.  I do not have dynamic caching set and always load all samples into memory.  It seems if I am patient and wait for the samples to all load before playing anything, I can avoid the clicking noises.

This issue does not seem to affect bouncing, and I can change to another kit and back, waiting for samples to load, and the issue goes away.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

1

Thanked by: thebaz_1

[thebaz_1]

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like your experience is the same as mine, so it may be like you say an anomaly of playing before everything is loaded into memory.

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

[Mark King]

I’ve never had this. The noise you mention is usually due to the pc hitting 100% utilisation on a core which causes glitches. Have you looked to see what utilisation is? Have you tried the program latency mon? I don’t think this is an SD3 problem

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

[thebaz_1]

It seems a lot better today if I wait for the preset to load completely. I added the ram I have been waiting for so now i have 8gb. the cpu does not seem to go higher than around 15% and the memory around 3800mb. I returned the buffer to 64 and the latency is better, but not as good as audio straight out of the TD-12. the kit sounds are great, but there are not a lot of tom sounds i am really keen on yet, where the TD-12 had great toms sounds but the snares were not as good as I would have liked. anyway, early days so I will start to customize the presets.

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

[Mark King]

Crikey shows how different peoples opinions are. I have a td20 my son uses and a td30 I use. The tom sounds are absolutely awful. I could practice using the snares, kick and cymbals but not the toms. I always use SD3 even to practice as all the sounds and especially the toms are so much better.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

[thebaz_1]

I have spent a lot of time on my TD-12 tuning the toms, eq, compression etc and there are only a handful of kits that I would use for recording. I have found so far that I am not getting the attack of the toms that I got from the TD-12, but like I said, I am still trying the kit presets pretty much out of the box so far. I am keen to try the Death and Darkness SDX and add it to SD3.

I have a kit I made from real drums and fitted mesh heads and home made triggers and I have used that from practicing for years with great success using real cymbals and hats. I am now recording this way since the lockdowns prevent recording with a real kit and have been pretty happy with the results.

Since it has become more common to record this way I went with SD3 so I can record the drums in midi and have a lot more control of the final sounds after the performance is recorded. I am nearly ready to start recording now.

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

[Mark King]

You should get the what you want from d&d. I use it as well as Rooms of Hansa. I have used edrums since the early 90s and know how to program the td20 and 30 but the base tom sounds are very poor which no amount of tweaking can fix. I’ve used toontrack drums for recording since before sd2 as the sounds are so much more realistic than any module can reproduce but maybe the unrealistic tom sounds work for you.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

[thebaz_1]

I actually feel that the TD-12 sounds I use are reasonably realistic especially the tom sounds I use. I am not really a fan of over processed drum sounds although they work really well in some contexts. I do find that I was not happy with the majority of sounds on the TD-12, but found a select few that I felt worked for me and sounded closest to my acoustic kit sounds, but I was looking to expand the range of sounds so every tune didn’t have the same drum sound. It is possible that seat of the pants is coloring my perception, as I can still feel a bit of lag in the response when playing that would not be noticeable when playing back, but appears to lack attack when  playing the kit.

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

[Mark King]

Sounds like you need to get your latency down. What buffer size are you using and what does SD3 in standalone mode report latency as?

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

[Andrew Payne]

I have to agree with Mark in that the raw drum (and cymbal) sounds in SD3 are far more realistic than any Yamaha or Roland module sounds that I have come across. And the advantage with starting with realistic raw sounds is that any processing applied to to these is also going to maintain a degree of realism. There are also so many more options in SD3 (and SDX’s) than in any drum module – through use of ambience channels, processing on channels, routing to busses, parallel effects channels (eg reverb and compression). It is almost a never ending journey with all the parameters available for tailoring sounds (and feel) and then velocity curves and settings within e-drum modules give even more options to alter the “power” and attack in the sound. I also use transients a lot in SD3 to also tailor attack on individual drums, as well as the obvious property box settings. It is almost like treating each drum as a real acoustic drum and then applying all the principles of tailoring these sounds via the electronic means available in SD3.

I now only ever use my (Yamaha) electronic kit to trigger SD3, and rely solely on sounds through SD3/SDX’s.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[Andrew Payne]

Forgot to mention I always use 16bit versions of kits for recording MIDI with single output channel to reduce latency and load on CPU. I then use the MIDI file to render to audio (with appropriate processing/effects) using full 32bit version of the kits and multiple output channels.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[thebaz_1]

Thanks for the info ondjayn.

I didn’t realize there were 16bit versions of the samples so I will try that. Are you meaning that you only use a mono output to monitor during recording?

These are good tactics to know.

I am running a 64 sample buffer and getting some distortion although the latency is OK, (around 6ms from memory). I have gone to 128 samples and it is a bit better. CPU does not seem to exceed 15% and memory use is under 4gb.

I have managed to run SD3 as a stand alone, but it will take some time getting the setting right to be comfortable with the response.

I have started recording and am already very happy with the snare and kick sound in the track, (I am using real cymbals and hats), but still need to adjust the tom sounds to get the definition I got with the TD-12. The raw sounds are better, there is no question, it is just getting the sound to suit my style and taste. I am sure I will be happy with the result once I get more familiar and experienced with SD3 .

8,10,12,14,22, 14sn, mesh head triggered drums.
Paiste cymbals and hi-hats
Roland TD-12, PC, Win7, Digirack 003+
Reaper v6.35, SD3 V3.2.4

[Andrew Payne]

I use a single stereo output for recording with 16 bit so my user kit is approx 2070 MB. I still have busses and multiple channel outputs but don’t route to these when recording MIDI so all Busses route to stereo Out 1/2.

When I am rendering to audio and creating stems, I then use all multiple outputs and the 32 bit kit which is approx 3664 MB in my case. I have uploaded a few screenshots to show this setup. I use a lot of extra user channels for extra instruments.

I record in DAW (Cubase) as I use a Hi Hat fix from MintberryCrunch (https://www.toontrack.com/forums/users/arno-meyer/) and this gives me a much higher degree of realism in feel and sound when playing hi-hat. It enables me to use 7 articulations for edge and 7 for bow even though the Yamaha RHH135 hi-hat I use only has a single closed and open articulation for bow and edge respectively. This also demands more CPU usage and is another reason I only use 16 bit versions for recording.

Hope this helps

 

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[Author]

Replies