MOTUnation.com

https://www.toontrack.com/superior-drum ... %20Monitor

Finally, they add drum head tuning, which is one of the main reasons I still exclusively use BFD even though I own a ton of Toontrack libs by now. Lots of other interesting new features too.

This might be the final death knell for BFD (and probably Addictive Drums as well).

We shall see though, as I make pretty sophisticated use of just about every non-loop-oriented feature that BFD offers. And certainly I have sounds I depend on quite heavily, so that won't change, but many of my favourite libraries are from Drum Drops and Chocolate Audio, who do multi-format libs.

I think for Toontrack to fully rule the Virtual Drum world though, they'd have to open their format, and it's unlikely they'll do that, so it might be just as interesting to see where Platinum Samples goes with their new player.

Already there is a review, from someone who was there at the sessions under NDA:

https://ask.audio/articles/review-toont ... -drummer-3

This is a must-buy for me. I'm still going to finish my current albums with BFD3 vs. disrupting things this early though.

It will be interesting to see how well the Tracker works on Audio-to-MIDI conversion, compared to Melodyne and/or various drum replacement apps.

Based on the description of how it operates, though, I am thinking it might be from another vendor, and something I've already tried, as it can ignore bleed from other tracks and isn't strictly a single-track-oriented converter.

Not sure the below is true, but glad I cross graded to SD2 when on sale earlier this year.



Superior Drummer 3 is released worldwide on September 12, 2017. Upon release, the previous version of Superior Drummer will be discontinued and no longer sold online. It may however remain in some retail outlets as long as stocks last.

Took care of my upgrade just now for roughly $166 at Best Service.

I decided not to wait, as things could get busy and I might forget.

Release date is 12 SEP. I doubt a better price will come along.

Well, I'm waiting for TT to offer a stereo-only version at a significant saving. I doubt I'm alone in not being interested in the extra 100GB or whatever of surround samples.

If TT is serious about pulling in all the customers it can, it'll do this; it's a no-brainer to me.

I am, however, going to wait and see what SSD5 offers and how it sounds before I make a final decision; one shouldn't need both IMHO, especially on a meagre budget like mine.

monkey man wrote:I am, however, going to wait and see what SSD5 offers and how it sounds before I make a final decision; one shouldn't need both IMHO, especially on a meagre budget like mine.

When is SSD5 being released? I've not heard a thing about it in a while. I have SSD4, but had all but given up on a new version.

As for SD3, since it's no longer rumor-ware, I'll probably go that direction.

Hey Billy!

I've been following the "waiting" thread over at BeerGutz for well over a year, and whilst Steven said it had been all-but-completed early this year and that he was merely waiting for an appropriate window amongst Slate's busy release-and-marketing schedule through which to bring it out, there've been no informational updates provided since then.

The general consensus in that thread is that he's erring on the side of caution in light of the many occasions on which he's made release-schedule promises he wasn't able to keep. We know it's going to happen; the fact that SSD5's engine and kits are used in a hardware product (drum brain) prove it's essentially-there. My guess is that the SD3 release will either prompt further tweaking and an expedition of the existing release timeframe or at the very-least the latter; either way, I expect something will have to be said soon, if for no other reason than in the interest of retaining market share.

Great to hear from you Nicky, I hope everything is going well for you.

I guess I will decide whether to wait on SSD5 or go with SD3 once the latter is released and more reviews are out on it.

The reviews will be good, Billy; there appears to be nothing "wrong" with SD3.

The thing is 'though, one cannot make an apples-to-apples comparison 'til we at least know something about SSD5, or better-still, get to see it in action in reviews.

I'd hang onto my money for now if you're able to(!), mate; at the very least there's IMHO a good chance a surround-sample-free, cheaper version of SD3 will become available once the company comes to its senses on this.

Toontrack' s EZ Drummer line is quite good. I used it on and off for years. I went to SD2 when Sweetwater put it on sale in 2015 for less than the EZD upgrade so I jumped. Including the pre-release order, I'm still ahead on price overall than if I bought SD3 for the first time.

The Slate certainly looks nice, but like SD, it's overkill for me.

I certainly don't need anything more than EZD for what I do but Toontrack made SD less expensive. Ok, twist my arm...

I just watched some of the promo vids for this on YouTube. So many features my eyes sort of glazed over and I felt thankful I'm basically a rocker guy at heart and made me yearn even more for the days of just using a human drummer whenever possible.

That said, the feature that caught my eye was the one where you can tap in a basic pattern and then SD3 will search its groove library for all the grooves that are similar to the pattern you tapped in. Takes a lot of the hit or miss out of it, especially if I'm working on a song where I have a basic idea of what the feel should be with the kick/snare. I could see myself using that one often.

I got my download links from Sweetwater this morning.

Unfortunately, getting 502 Bad Gateway errors at toontrack.com. I'm not getting that at my user login but it's not connecting either.

I expect this will all work out pretty soon but it is a little frustrating.

Web site is up today. It turns out, that wasn't necessary.

If you have previously downloaded and installed the Product Manager (inside the Applications/Toontrack folder), you enter your serial# there to register and download. Note for next time.

Still downloading and installing the libraries. So far, going smoothly.

monkey man wrote:The reviews will be good, Billy; there appears to be nothing "wrong" with SD3.

The thing is 'though, one cannot make an apples-to-apples comparison 'til we at least know something about SSD5, or better-still, get to see it in action in reviews.

I'd hang onto my money for now if you're able to(!), mate; at the very least there's IMHO a good chance a surround-sample-free, cheaper version of SD3 will become available once the company comes to its senses on this.

Well Nicky, after watching a few reviews, I decided to go with SD3. The sample replacement function put it over the top for me. If SSD5 ever does come out, I'll revisit it, but SD3 is tangible, so it wins this round.

Took me all night and all day (I hate leaving my computer on while at the office) to do the downloads/installs, but now it is done and I launched it quickly enough to make sure it works and that it found all of the libraries.

Greatly improved interface and workflow overall. A bit strange though that some EZX libraries are getting identified as Superior libraries.