Put down that gun, Toontrack!

[HCMarkus]

Dammit! I paid up. $209 on credit card. Ouch. I kind of resent the time limit, Toontrack. On January 1, because it's discontinued, my past purchase counts for nothing and I'd be a new purchaser? I'm not happy.

Hopefully, this will be a "Hurts So Good" scenario James. Merry Christmas!

[mhschmieder]

That is kinda pricey. I think I paid $149, or even discounted to around $129, when I upgraded to SD3 at the time it came out (or maybe pre-order). $209 seems too much for an upgrade.

[James Steele]

That is kinda pricey. I think I paid $149, or even discounted to around $129, when I upgraded to SD3 at the time it came out (or maybe pre-order). $209 seems too much for an upgrade.

That’s what they charged to go from Superior Drummer 2 to 3. That’s the best price I could get on their website. Ugh. And now I have to decide soon if I’m going to do that with Slate Drums.

[mhschmieder]

Slate Drums is a VERY different product. I don't talk about it much because it might demoralize some people who waited so long for it and love it. After all, different strokes for different folks. But both Dave and I reached the same conclusion regarding the level of resolution of the recording sessions relative to dynamics and tails, where the sticks hit the heads, etc. I think he also chose not to do the upgrade, even though cheap.

To me, even if I liked the new SSD, it's another system to learn how to work with, and there's enough EZ Drummer stuff coming along all the time that I wouldn't feel bereft of choices in just sticking mostly to Superior.

I think the new SSD makes more sense for those who don't want to do any (or much) production work (though you can accomplish that in Superior also), and are low on disc space and/or just don't have much of a budget to delve into Superior (or BFD) any time soon.

But who knows what will come later? It is a new platform after all, and eventually there will be new kits recorded, that are likely nothing like the older SSD kits that can be forward-ported currently.

As for the deadline, I wouldn't worry in Slate's case, as the upgrade would probably be offered at discount again at some point within the year. Maybe I'm wrong on that point, but Steven constantly surprises me. For instance, even though I didn't do any pro-level mixing or mastering this past year, I continue to auto-renew my subscription to Slate's plug-ins. I was pre-billed the normal charge, but the actual renewal was heavily discounted, even though there was no advertised special in place.

[Babz]

The main thing holding me back w/ SD2->SD3 is I don't have 230GB of free disk space right now. So that means the cost of the upgrade + another hard drive -- which I will need eventually, but a big expense crunch all at once.

Does anyone know, is there a way to install a "lite," smaller size of SD3? If so, how much space does that take up?

OK, locate and RTFM, and partially answer my own question... it looks like the "Basic Sound Library" is 40GB. I think I would also need the "Room Mics 1" library (but it doesn't say how big it is). I can't definitely live without the surround downloads.

[Babz]

P.S. Still staring down the barrel of RealiDrums (which obviously isn't in the same league as SD3), but seems like a really easy and flexible interface.

This video makes a good case for RealiDrums as a lite-n-easy sidekick for SD3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPpUPI7fr4

[James Steele]

The main thing holding me back w/ SD2->SD3 is I don't have 230GB of free disk space right now. So that means the cost of the upgrade + another hard drive -- which I will need eventually, but a big expense crunch all at once.

Yeah... but the upgrade pricing has passed. If you want SD3 now, it's going to cost you over $400 I think? After January 1st, the fact that you owned SD2 is entirely irrelevant as far as Toontrack is concerned. It's a discontinued product and 1/1/19 was their deadline. That's really the problem I had with it. Raise the upgrade price another $40-50 perhaps, but kick a SD2 user out into the cold like they never bought in to the product line? I don't agree with that. I'm sure though they got a big shot in the arm for their bank account in the last week.

[Babz]

The main thing holding me back w/ SD2->SD3 is I don't have 230GB of free disk space right now. So that means the cost of the upgrade + another hard drive -- which I will need eventually, but a big expense crunch all at once.

Yeah... but the upgrade pricing has passed. If you want SD3 now, it's going to cost you over $400 I think? After January 1st, the fact that you owned SD2 is entirely irrelevant as far as Toontrack is concerned. It's a discontinued product and 1/1/19 was their deadline. That's really the problem I had with it. Raise the upgrade price another $40-50 perhaps, but kick a SD2 user out into the cold like they never bought in to the product line? I don't agree with that. I'm sure though they got a big shot in the arm for their bank account in the last week.

Yeah, bastards. I guess the crossgrade from EZD is still available for me, but less savings, of course. Wish I could’ve, but just couldn’t swing it now. Someday, after I upgrade my whole SSD situation.. Maybe then I will have a quarter of a TB to devote to more drums. But I hear it really is the one to get, so I think you’re going to love it in the end.

[btate]

Yep. This is where this long time user gets off the SD train. I chose not to upgrade.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[James Steele]

Yeah, bastards. I guess the crossgrade from EZD is still available for me, but less savings, of course. Wish I could’ve, but just couldn’t swing it now. Someday, after I upgrade my whole SSD situation.. Maybe then I will have a quarter of a TB to devote to more drums. But I hear it really is the one to get, so I think you’re going to love it in the end.

It seems pretty good, but then I'm not much of a drum engineer and I like something that's pretty much pre-mixed right out of the box. Most of the time I'm using it for demos that will be replaced with real drums recorded elsewhere, so I wasn't even sure I wanted to continue with it as I could make the case that I don't really need it. I just didn't like the IDEA of being kicked out into the cold by Toontrack on some arbitrary expiration date.

As for the disk space required, I do almost everything in stereo so I elected not to download and install the surround samples and the "high surround" samples or whatever, but just stick with the basic close mics and room ambiance. I know they have additional mic bleed samples as well which I think I also neglected not to install. Heck... I'm a product of the 80s and *realism* when it comes to drums wasn't exactly all that much of a priority in that production style.

[FMiguelez]

As for the disk space required, I do almost everything in stereo so I elected not to download and install the surround samples and the "high surround" samples or whatever, but just stick with the basic close mics and room ambiance. I know they have additional mic bleed samples as well which I think I also neglected not to install. Heck... I'm a product of the 80s and *realism* when it comes to drums wasn't exactly all that much of a priority in that production style.

At first I did exactly like you.
But then I read that those extra surround mics can be used as regular ambient mics for extra (!) options (as if we needed more options and delightful complication) .... So I had to buy an extra disk and reorganize my samples, which I needed to do anyway.

I'm really digging all aspects of SD3. It's almost too good to be true