My Thoughts On Drum Sample Software

The Abbey road drums take too long to load, or I would use them, I predominantly use The Superior Avatar set.

It would be nice to know which Abbey Road Drums you use. The 60's, 70's, 80's, or Modern? All of the above?

Do you have an audio demo on soundcloud or somewhere else? I'm curious...
Personnaly I used Superior's avatar kit on this one...
http://soundcloud.com/deadwhitehorse/gary-numan-sc
anner-dwhs-remix
any advise?

boing peng boom cha..... is history repating itsself? Is Life just an endless repitition?
Do you want to invent the wheel again?

How many thousands number one chart breaker were produced with sounds and drum samples no one would use today....but they did and it worked ....so, every one here has to decide which way to go....cutting edge ultry crisp and clean 196 khz with 32 bit and 7.1 surround or maybe better some stereo mp3....you have the choice.

@ lee1970

You forgot to mention what kind of music you make, would be interesting to know in this context.
I second the request for a sound-sample

bfd for me always wins... i use to load a single piece, record
and than mix all the resulting waves together... nothing
is more realistic than bfd for me..

Due to my background in producing hip-hop and urban music i tend to use samplers such as NI Battery and Poise however, i do come across times where i want to use a realistic kits for my productions and once upon a time i use to use the Toontrack EZ Drummer which i was always satisfied with but due the lack of editing you can do i wasn't too happy but then i came across XLN Audio's Addictive Drummer which i absolutely love due to the fact that it has build in filters/eq's/effects that i can use to make the kit sound completely different. The drum tracks sound realistic as well and it doesn't take too long to load on Dual Core processors.

I haven't tried BFD due to its size but im perfectly happy with Addictive drummer.

When inspiration strikes i can't really afford to wait for a drum kit to load, i want something instant and the same goes for my synthesizers. Does anyone else share this feeling?

I record my own drum set and sample it as well. It's much funner playing to a song you've made than just using samples! Beats it by a long shot!

BFD2-Pros: Kit choices, mixer, excellent ambience sound, presets, simple to buss individually out to host sequencer, loads fast. Expansion are great.
Cons: Interface could be a little simpler

Addictive Drums:-Pros: Probably the most user-friendly on the market. Drag a drop preset midi pattern into host. Sync to tempo feature is simple. Kit choices. Loads faster than BFD. cpu friendly. bussing out to host is very simple.
Cons: Expansions could be better

Abbey Roads Drums (60, 70, 80, Modern) Pros: Awesome sound, simple interface, abbey road room sound
Cons: loading time. not as much kit choices, very very difficult to buss out separately to host, not sure if its possible. l

same here for me, bro

Toontrack SU2.0 (or EZDR) + all their shit, or nothing.

i really couldn't get along with bfd2... its.. well "something" isnt there .. and addictive is just a joke.

ToonTrack products all the way for me and The N.i. drums from time to time. And for those of you complaining about N.i.'s drums taking to long to load then I suggest you take the time out to learn your software. Kontakt has been revised to reduce loading times all you have to do is batch re-save.It's called background loading.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/pr
oducer/kontakt-4/?content=1227

BATCH RE-SAVE.....Thanks Mykal.... was wondering `bout that... so drum sampler goes like this... addictive = abit synthetic but nice... Superior Drummer 2.0 = title says it all ( realistic drums ) ... BFD = big lag behind SD2.0... NI Abbey = superior realistic sound, but limited options... compared to.... uguessed it... SD2.0...

BFD is nice for that lo-fi, indie sound, Superior Drummer for everything else. I've only got Evil Drums, Custom Vintage, Metal Foundry, Metalheads, and Classic but Evil Drums sound the best for general purpose rock stuff. Any advice on what other BFD libraries sound great?

hey guys...nice to see that Ive begun a topic of interest.
Its good to see varying views as there isnt meant to be a right or wrong approach...just personal opinions, I guess.
As for the dudes comment about using MP3's in songs? well...um....actually I wont even comment on that....lol

A while back I posted some 'presets' that I made for the Abbey kits which enabled seperate routing to the DAW and also individual kit piece loading...I dunno what became of em...maybe theyre around somewhere.

As to what kind of music I make? the easy answer is that I generally make music that requires reaslitc drums....of course there are certain genres where any old drum sound would do...in the right context I would be happy to use an XLN preset if a song needed that sound....I have respect for XLN but as i said, the drums are more like a drum machine sound (imo)....perhaps the simplest test is to compare a particular snare from XLN to the same snare from other products and you will see what I mean (perhaps).

Realistic drums arent only in the quality of drums being used....but also (geez I hate this word) - the 'programming'...making it sound real - and there is no reason at all why programmed drums cant compete with a real drummer so long as you know what you are doing and what is actually possible when drumming (Im not a 'drummer' as you may think but a jack-of-all-trades).

To answer one question, I use all of the Abbey kits depending on what Im after for each song....the rides, cyms, hats are top quality - yet they tend to be the easiest of any drum software to replicate so that may not be saying so much....but the toms are by far the best that I have come across and the kicks and snares are great...the Early 60s Kick may seem a little misleading but I assure you that its great in any rock song today....one thing I will say (and this may be a common thought) is that a lot of the kits sound sorta ok but not great when you load them up....but its what you can do to them that makes them the best (imo)....if you can route them seperately (read above) then you can fuck with the direct mics individually...I mainly only use subtractive eq and save my own presets within Studio One....I may do further enhancements late in my primary DAW to add comp or any further eq.

I agree with the comment from gtrash re: BFD that 'something isnt there'....there seems to be a 'softness'(?) that I dont care for....and yeah, something that I just cant put my finger on...which is a shame....and YES I have tried....oh how I've tried!!!

to be continued......

As far as I know, that only applies if u reload the drums after loading them the first time... If u open a new project.... they load slow as hell....

Correct me If i am wrong... I'd love to be wrong.

Edit: I was wrong.. however having to batch-resave 150 gigs of samples seems a bit extreme, they need to have this done when the product is installed.

Also... it takes bloody ages, on somerthing like Abbey Road, or Electri6ity.

I'm not big on Abbey... Sounds amazing but not versatile at all. I just can't see myself using it for every song I use with drums. BFD(2) on the other hand, I'll never run out of options! When I get bored with BFD, I'll use Superior Drummer. If I had to rank them...
1. BFD2
2. Superior Drummer
3. Abbey Road
4. Addictive Drums
5. MicroTonic :)

The following is all in my humble opinion as a producer who has tried all the drum libraries available on this site (besides BFD)... I make hip hop, orchestral, and pop music... on Mac Pro 12 Core (16GB), via Apogee Symphony System.

Ocean Way Drums (OWD) in my opinion are superior to everything mentioned above. Clear and direct sounding kits that allow you the producer to add as much or as little processing as you prefer. The CA12 mic presets are absolutely refreshing to the ear, as compared to the overused Shure Beta 57 Direct mic presets. It all depends on the user. The problem with OWD is that they don't cooperate well with my Roland TD12 module, so...

I go with Superior Drummer 2.0, running Custom and Vintage, the next best sounding sampler, and the sampler that works well enough with my e-kit, and still sounds pretty amazing. Toontrack's products may not have that top of the crop LA Studio sound that OWD provides, but at least I can play them on my e-kit (still trouble with the hi hat however). Toontrack samples always come across as boxed in (mid-eq heavy) compared to OWD. They don't have the high end clarity that OWD provides.

Addictive Drums plays nicely with the TD12, however, I don't record much rock or metal, which seems to be the niche that AD continues to explore most heavily. Over compressed and the high end bite is a bit too much.

Abbey Road Drums. Great sounds, but very processor intensive, via Kontakt. I was very shocked at how long the samples take to load and how poorly it triggered from my e-kit. It is too bad because I do really enjoy Abbey Road Drums (60s). To be completely honest, I would love to see a video of someone routing the Abbey Kit as mentioned above.

From one user to another, good luck with your endeavors.

Interesting points! I enjoy reading others opinions/how2 info on apps like these because I'm an idiot and have a hard time getting myself to Read the Manual!

Thanks
Mike