Wolfgang
Participant
Topics Started: 7
Replies Created: 29
Has Thanked: 10
Been Thanked: 6
WolfgangI would second that to a certain extent. Having more options tool-wise instead of having to switch to completely different sounding kits would be a big benefit for e-drummers. Of course not in every style and with every drum. But let’s say with some of the favourites – a modern sounding DW, some vintage Ludwig, alltimers like a Recording Custom. Examples being the Songwriter Kit from Stories, the Modern Kit from the Jazz Sessions or the Hillside Kit from R2R.
I wouldn’t go so far as to switch head types or dampening, that would mean a huge amount of effort for too little effect. You can get pretty far with the velocity curves to shape attacks and releases.
WolfgangOf course it’s not for every set, can’t think of any Area 33 kit played with brushes… But there are many great and delicat sounding kits that would benefit from some more playing styles and tools. E.g. the Songwriter Kit from Stories or the some of the kits from Stockholm. Or (btt) all three R2R kits in the Wood Booth. I just think we have enough great sounding sets played with sticks. Would be cool if they could give us some more choices tool-wise.
WolfgangI do have Decades and State of the Art and yes, there are some options. But as a drummer, I would generally prefer to see them sample fewer sets per SDX and instead use more tools for those sets. That would make the sets much more versatile. What about a SDX with one DW, one Ludwig and one you-name-it all recorded with sticks, snare off, rods, brushes and mallets? This would cover many styles plus make it a very usable tool for drummers.
WolfgangMany 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…
WolfgangSo why not let choose users if they want to sacrifice some latency for more security? Just like some audio interfaces provide in their driver settings.
One question though: If I’d run my SD 3.4 with 32 samples buffer and after the update switch to 16 samples. Should latency and performance be about the same as before? Or is the new extra buffer handled somehow different?
WolfgangSo does this only affect Ableton Live? Then imo a switch would really be the best solution.
1
Thanked by: MintberryCrunchWolfgangThanks for the feedback. Just to make sure, you are suggesting that we should provide a way for users to actively disable the 16 samples latency that was introduced in 3.4.1?
- At sample rate 44.1 kHz, the plug-ins (not in the standalone) now always have and report 16 samples added latency, to prevent potential latency changes during playback. Related to this, in some hosts (for example Ableton Live), looping would in version 3.4.0 cause an audio glitch.
I can make sure that the development team receives the request. Is there anything else you would like to add to this, before I forward your message?
Thanks for your Reply, Petter! Maybe someone could provide some more information on this issue? What were the “potential latency changes during playback” and when did they occur? As someone who never had any problems playing SD3 with 16 samples live an extra 16 samples is not much appreciated. A switch like “turn safety buffers on/off” would indeed be very helpful.
WolfgangI’ve bought Stories and State of the Art and tested them for a while. Maybe some of you are still interested in this topic:
With Stories I particularly like the Classic Rock, which goes well with a production I’m currently working on. Modern Rock is a kind of all-purpose but I don’t have any use for it yet. Musical Theater is good because of its different playing styles. I still don’t understand why Toontrack doesn’t do this with more kits. Please sample less kits but more playing styles!
My absolute favorite for what I was looking for is the Songwriter Kit. Very detailed and dynamic, very balanced and musical. Perfect for quiet to medium loud pop and folk. The big disadvantage of the kit is the hi-hat. The transitions between closed and open are unfortunately very uneven, the individual stages sound too different. That’s why I replaced it with the 15” Paiste 602 from Hitmaker, for me one of the best hi-hats out of the SDXs I own.
With State of the Art I haven’t used the drier-sounding sets from Studio Iso and the Library yet, but that may still come. My personal highlights are the Craftsman Kit and the Teardrop. The Craftsman is wonderfully versatile, I like that it sounds a bit darker so it fits well into the mix. The Teardrop surprised me as I’m not really a big fan of “vintage”. But it sounds really detailed and differentiated, I’ll definitely be using it soon.
Regarding the playability of the hi-hats, I find those from State of the Art better. With Stories (especially the Songriter Kit) the individual stages sometimes sound so different that there are clearly audible breaks when you open or close them slowly. And yes, I use the setting for E-Drum Optimized. Hopefully Toontrack will improve this with SD4, along with the missing transition between positional sounds of the snare. These are still the two biggest weaknesses of the software for me.
WolfgangThe hihat articulations from open 0 to open 5 are the different stages of openness. Usually they are all played by the same MIDI note and the stages are controlled by MIDI CC 4. So yes, a controller pedal could be useful. If you need the hihat or ride louder just open the “Level” tab and raise the volume.
WolfgangThat’s exactly how you would play it on the ride. But again have a look at the video: he plays the blast beat with the tip on the bow. I doubt that shank on the bell would give him enough rebound to play that fast.
Of course it’s totally up to you to use the bell shank 🙂 I just wanted to make clear how a drummer would usually play it.
WolfgangOn top of what Jack mentioned, there are other variables such as the producer, their choice in drum tuning, their recording chain, the setup in the studio, and even the studio itself. It’s no longer a “drums in the room” type of instrument but more of a recorded drums situation. Each library will act differently to your playing more because of how it was captured.
jord
The crucial point is exactly how each library acts with your individual playing. Maybe some time we get demo versions…
WolfgangNot sure if I get you right but let me answer from a drummers perspective:
The closed articulation represents the state of having your food down on the hihat pedal in a relaxed way. Kind if the usual position to play. The tight articulation simulates giving some extra pressure on the pedal. This gives you an extra short decay and alters the overtones, some hihats start kind of ringing when beeing squeezed. So it’s not a extra heavy hit, neither edge, tip/bow or bell.
Playing blast beats in high tempi you usually don’t hit heavy because you use finger technique. Have a look at the video you posted, it shows very clear that he only moves his fingers and takes advantage of the rebound of the cymbals and drums. So turning velocity up to 127 might not be the best way to simulate blast beats. If you need the hihat to be louder try to raise it in the levels tab or in the mixer.
WolfgangAs I said: digital pads on hihat, snare and ride. And no, these pads aren’t comaptible with eDRUMin, I use my eDRUMin 4 to make the crashes 3-way.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all of your answers! But it’s not about triggering or trigger settings in general, I’ve put quite some time into dialing all this in. There is some experience here with e-drums over the years (decades…), anybody remembering the old TD-7? 🙂
As this is a rather special point maybe the best would be if Toontrack would offer some kind of demoing. Coming from a long time with my acoustic drums I’m probably just very petty.
Wolfgang@thedrumdoctor Would you mind sharing the kit you built based on the core sounds?
WolfgangThanks for answering! Turning up all the bleeds ist usually the first thing I do with every set 🙂
I spent a fair amount of time with dialing in the trigger parameters in the brain and am pretty happy with it. Next I startet with the TD-50X MIDI preset in SD3, tweaked some things like the response of the snare zones and the hihat open/close states. In fact after fiddeling around for some weeks I pretty much came back to the defaults. I tested and tweaked all these things during several recording sessions and three live gigs and I think I came to a state where it works the best it can.
One set I used to play was based on the Fields of Rock Stone set. The 15“ Istanbul hihat has a pretty nice transition from closed to open with kind of naturally differing states in between. In the Stockholm Rock kit the 15“ Paiste hihat feels like it doesn’t give me the same amount of subtleties, like some of the 7 states sound too close to each other.
Sorry, not a native speaker here so I hope I can make my point clear.
edit: using the digital pads on hihat, snare and ride
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