SD3 help needed for double kick left/right in metal blast beats

[RANDY BROWN]

Hi, I’m using SD3 to create death metal beats with lots of double bass blast beats.  Can you give any pointers, resources, or videos to give me best practices for setting this up?

Up until now I’ve been using a preset (Djent) with only a single kick drum in the kit, and I went through and checked all the options for Randomize Hits, Use Adjacent Layers, Use Alternate Hits, and Velocity to Volume.  It sounds pretty good even for double bass blasts, but I’m wondering if it would sound more authentic to have dedicated Left/Right kick drums and change my midi notes to alternate between them.

What I’ve tried so far:  started with Djent preset with single kick drum.  Then I added a new instrument (shows up in the left area, not in the normal kit visualization) for a duplicate kick drum. I chose the same kick drum (16×20″ Pearl Masterworks).  I did not change any of the mic routing or mixer stuff, so both are going through the same channels (Kick In, Kick Out, Kick Sub, and several bleed mics). My original kick is triggered by midi note 36, and the new one is triggered by midi note 35.  I have adjusted my blast beat midi patterns to alternate between 35/36.  I have confirmed by looking at the drum kit user interface during playback and it does alternate between them correctly.

So far it’s working and sounds as good as before. But honestly I can’t hear a difference between that and the single-kick approach.  Am I missing something or was the single-kick approach with the randomization/adjacent/alternate settings basically just doing the same thing.  Is it worthwhile to pursue separate kicks like this or was SD3 already doing this for me behind the scenes?

I am using the default core samples with SD3 (no expansion packs). I have looked at the Death and Darkness SDX Expansion, and am wondering if it does something like this (the photos appear to have double kicks), but I hesitate to purchase it since I can’t preview it first.

Any other tips/tricks about metal blast beats with SD3 would be appreciated.  Thanks!

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.5
Operating system: Windows 10

Topic

[Metatool]

maybe try very slightly de-tuning one of the bass drums.

Joseph.
Imac
Macbook Pro Catalina 10.15
Roland V-drums w td-9 module
Logic Pro X 10.4
Superior Drummer 3

1

Thanked by: RANDY BROWN

[RANDY BROWN]

Thanks for the reply.  I tried slight de-tuning by about .1 which seems to help.  I will experiment with it.  Any other recommendations welcome!

[List UserGuy]

I’m amazed that this question hasn’t been asked more and/or answered by the team.

Are double kick users just SOL here?

Seems odd.

[RANDY BROWN]

Follow up… I bought the Death and Darkness expansion pack.  The Death kits have double kicks by default.  I’ve continued to alternate my midi hits on kick blasts such as 35/36.  It sounds pretty good to my ear, but again it’s hard to tell much difference between that and just using a single kick.  So at this point, I think a single kick with randomize/adjacent/alternate clicked is probably about as good, but I’ll continue keeping mine separate now just in case I decide to detune one or otherwise process them separately in the future.

[Scott]

I guess there are a couple of options. Setup like the OP did and detune one of the kicks. Perhaps eq one slightly differently as well. So they sound different enough to sound like 2 kick drums.

The other option, especially if the blast beat genre is something that you do all the time,  is to use a library that has 2 kick drum kit setups. They are made for that purpose. The Metal Foundry SDX is one.  Death & Darkness SDX is another obvious choice.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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