Steven Slate Drums EX as AudioMIDI no-brainer deal at $20

[cbergm7210]

I didn't look at them that long, but are there no separate oh's, rooms, etc? That's the reason I didn't buy that Ocean Way Drums deal a while back.

This is the case, yes? Someone please verify this...I have SSD 2.0 and never really used it because there were no overheads or room mics to have on separate tracks. SD 2 was more useful to me because of this.

Thanks,

Chris

There were some multi-tracked kits as part of the bonus. The main body of the samples were stereo kits (MT vs ST as part of the file names).

Thanks for the info, guys! That's how vs 2.0 was. There was a control to feed the room mic for that drum, but there was no "room mic" or "overhead mic" stereo track that one could control by itself. So if you wanted to process the overhead mics with eq / compression, for example, you are out of luck, at least with version 2.0. So I was wondering if it is still set up the same with this EX version.

Chris

[bongo_x]

OK, I spent another solid 2 1/2 minutes looking into it and this is what I got;

They're all stereo tracks. On each individual drum you can turn the oh's on or off, but not adjust them otherwise. On each drum you can also adjust the room mics level. The rooms also come up all together on a fader, so you can adjust the total room mix level. There is no master oh's level. There is no insert that I can see for the individual oh's or rooms.

Kind of strange, since you can turn the oh's on or off they're obviously on separate tracks, why not just have a level for them like the rooms? This would make a pretty huge difference in the variety of sounds you could get going. There's even an empty space on each instrument where there's room for a knob. But there is a pan for the close mics and the room mics. Panning the stereo rooms is more useful than adjusting the oh's level? I'm not much of a panner so this seems kind of silly to me. Am I gonna pan the kick rooms to one side and the snare rooms to the other?

The oh's and rooms seemed to be pretty processed already, so having access to them wouldn't be THAT useful. I don't think that's the focus of this set. I think it's supposed to be premixed sounds that you either like or don't. You pull one of them up and if it's not what your looking for you try something else.

I had absolutely no trouble with the downloads. Quick and easy. Installation was a bit complicated.

bb

[cbergm7210]

OK, I spent another solid 2 1/2 minutes looking into it and this is what I got;

They're all stereo tracks. On each individual drum you can turn the oh's on or off, but not adjust them otherwise. On each drum you can also adjust the room mics level. The rooms also come up all together on a fader, so you can adjust the total room mix level. There is no master oh's level. There is no insert that I can see for the individual oh's or rooms.

Kind of strange, since you can turn the oh's on or off they're obviously on separate tracks, why not just have a level for them like the rooms? This would make a pretty huge difference in the variety of sounds you could get going. There's even an empty space on each instrument where there's room for a knob. But there is a pan for the close mics and the room mics. Panning the stereo rooms is more useful than adjusting the oh's level? I'm not much of a panner so this seems kind of silly to me. Am I gonna pan the kick rooms to one side and the snare rooms to the other?

The oh's and rooms seemed to be pretty processed already, so having access to them wouldn't be THAT useful. I don't think that's the focus of this set. I think it's supposed to be premixed sounds that you either like or don't. You pull one of them up and if it's not what your looking for you try something else.

I had absolutely no trouble with the downloads. Quick and easy. Installation was a bit complicated.

bb

Thanks, Mr. Bongo.

[newrigel]

So---I got eveything installed and it's all workin' right with DP. With this download, there were also a bunch of MIDI grooves included. Is there a way to preview these grooves within the Kontakt Player? I've been reading all the manuals but I can't figure it out. In EZ Drummer, you can audition grooves before you drop em' in.

I've tried droppin' the grooves that came with the download, and they work fine. I really wanna hear em' first though. If Kontakt doesn't allow this, is there another way....

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm still learnin' this stuff...

Not stupid @ all... how are you going to know what you want unless you audition the groove?
Plus, EZD and SD lock to the sequence tempo while playing the sequence and you can see how they fit in the mix... works great! But I think there's the free EZ player in which you use it like a plugin to play a VI and audition any MIDI file... just have to make sure your keymaps are setup accordingly.

[Dan Walsh]

Not stupid @ all... how are you going to know what you want unless you audition the groove?
Plus, EZD and SD lock to the sequence tempo while playing the sequence and you can see how they fit in the mix... works great! But I think there's the free EZ player in which you use it like a plugin to play a VI and audition any MIDI file... just have to make sure your keymaps are setup accordingly.

Over the weekend I've been using this dirty method where I audition the grooves in ToonTrack solo. I run that outside DP 7. The prob with TT solo, is that you don't have the option of setting the BPM's alongside the tempo in DP. You only have the option of either 1/2X,1X or 2X the tempo in whatever MIDI groove you choose. This method has been workin' ok, but I'm seriously considering purchasing EZ Player Pro. It looks like this would do everything I need.

Anyone had any experience with EZ Player Pro? Or is there an even better program for this?

[Rainman]

Hey Dan, I've been using EZPlayer Pro for quite awhile now and it's become an essential part of my rig. There is a mild learning curve but once you get past that I think you'll be pleased at how functional it is. Being able to grab an entire measure or several measures at once or just the Hi-Hats is really cool. And of course auditioning files for any sampler etc. while locked to tempo is the ultimate.

Rainman

[David Polich]

Well, I received another long apologetic e-mail from SSD saying they'd fixed their servers, and I should try again. Same old same old - can't even log on.

I'm gonna give up on this one, chalk the 20 bucks up to a loss and write it off on next year's taxes. I just don't have time to keep checking to see if I can get "lucky" and log on to their site. And judging from the reviews posted, I'm probably not missing much - frankly, between Battery 3 and BFD2, plus all my Drumagog libraries, I've got the drums covered.

One thing is for sure - I'll never purchase another no-brainer from audio-MIDI, or anything from Slate Digital.

[cbergm7210]

Well, I received another long apologetic e-mail from SSD saying they'd fixed their servers, and I should try again. Same old same old - can't even log on.

I'm gonna give up on this one, chalk the 20 bucks up to a loss and write it off on next year's taxes. I just don't have time to keep checking to see if I can get "lucky" and log on to their site. And judging from the reviews posted, I'm probably not missing much - frankly, between Battery 3 and BFD2, plus all my Drumagog libraries, I've got the drums covered.

One thing is for sure - I'll never purchase another no-brainer from audio-MIDI, or anything from Slate Digital.

Really odd, David. I purchased this morning and are on hour #4 downloading with no problems so far. I wonder what the issue is.

[Dan Walsh]

Really odd, David. I purchased this morning and are on hour #4 with no problems so far. I wonder what the issue is.

Yeah, I'm wonderin' also. I d-loaded the Slate deal on Friday night, and except for one file that I had to try 4 times, everything worked fine. As a matter of fact, I have done five of these no-brainers w/ AudiMidi over the past 6 months, and have not had a prob.

Today, I decided to pull the trigger on EZ Player Pro, and I got it from AudioMidi for 10 bucks less than anywhere else. I'm pretty happy with the company......

[James Steele]

I have EZ Player Pro also. Cool stuff. I wonder if you can move Addictive drum grooves over to it now? Used to be you couldn't.

[Dan Walsh]

I have EZ Player Pro also. Cool stuff. I wonder if you can move Addictive drum grooves over to it now? Used to be you couldn't.

I don't have any of the Addictive stuff, but I'm assuming you're using it no probs with the Slate stuff? I've found a few mapping inconsistency's with the Slate stuff in regards to using it with ToonTrack solo and I'm hopin' EZ Player Pro resolves that with some ease...

[James Steele]

I have EZ Player Pro also. Cool stuff. I wonder if you can move Addictive drum grooves over to it now? Used to be you couldn't.

I don't have any of the Addictive stuff, but I'm assuming you're using it no probs with the Slate stuff? I've found a few mapping inconsistency's with the Slate stuff in regards to using it with ToonTrack solo and I'm hopin' EZ Player Pro resolves that with some ease...

Yeah... it works great with Slate and if you get the newest EZ Player Pro they have a mapping specifically for Slate. What did bother me is that in one of the Slate kits I heard no ride cymbal and found they have a Ride instrument called "Ride (X)" and I'm not sure what that's about right now, but it doesn't make any sound that I could see. I like a ride cymbal, ya know!

Addictive Drums puts all there grooves inside one proprietary file. Someone asked on their forum about whether or not they would make them available so users could utilize them with other Drum VIs and they said they'd look into it, but that was a long time ago and don't know if it's changed. Problem for me is I really like a lot of the included patterns with AD. And also, if it ain't 4/4 I got no use for it!

[buzzsmith]

Well, for $20, I'm pretty pleased!

Took about two hours this morning to download, and I saved to a folder on the desktop 'cause I had other things to attend to.

I just went through the install process, and the only hitch was that I already have Kontakt 3.5 (I was wondering about this), and the install caught that, so I wasn't required to install the player.

Ran Service Center which found the library and entered the authorization code.

I've only auditioned two kits (Kontakt 3.5 had to convert the files), but the library shows up in Kontakt 3.5 as available and is indeed working.

I'm pretty impressed!

Buzzy

[buzzsmith]

Kontakt 3.5 had trouble locating the "Absolute Rock Kit" samples.

I used the "Spotlight" feature in 3.5 and out of 1400+ missing samples it found all but a dozen or so...

Just FWIW.

Buzzy

[Rainman]

I dl'd mine overnight using "Speed Download" and everything is working great with the exception of the missing ride that James mentioned earlier. They are very good kits, not my first go to but these days my style is more along the lines of the drums on Neil Young's "Harvest" album, even created a kit by that name.

Rainman