Toontrack The Metal Foundry SDX

The Metal Foundry SDX is made by Toontrack and it is the metal expansion pack that our group was looking for. We have been through a lot of different expansion packs but none of them had that metal feel. We heard about The Metal Foundry after spending hours online researching for metal packs. We had a chance to check out some of the sounds that come with this pack before purchasing it.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Some of the kicks that made us want this pack so bad were the Ludwig Amber Vistalite and the DW Collectors Series kicks. All of the samples are really good though; those were just the ones we had the chance to try out before we made the purchase. After hearing some of the snares like the Tomas Haake Engineering 7x13 snare and the Pearl Free Floating 5x14 there was no question we were going to spend the money and get this pack right away.

OVERALL OPINION

Installing the Foundry SDX was not that quick though; for some reason all of these drum samples take a long time to load into the computer. But it was well worth the wait because now we have every single drum sound that we need to have for our style of music.
I really like all of the grooves are very good and the fills too, you can play around and switch the drums up to give it a different feel. It comes with your complete drum sounds from kicks and snares to toms and cymbals/hats. There is nothing that you do not get with this pack. If you need metal or rock drums this is the pack to get. This is by far the best metal drum kit you will find online or in a store. If you need to hear some of the samples just check on the website to hear how great the drums are. You will be hooked after the demo!

The Metal Foundry SDX is an expansion library for Toontrack Superior Drummer 2. It comes on a set of DVDs to install. It takes a while to install because the sample library is huge, and the drums truly are deeply sampled. There are tons of velocity layers, and a ridiculous amount of 'bleed' samples. In practice I hardly ever use a lot of the 'bleed' samples, but I know a lot of people that use sampled drums that say the realism in sampled drums comes from things like mic 'bleed'. All this to say, you can install only the main portion of the library if you don't have much use for a lot of 'bleed' samples.
This expansion library requires the SD2 main software. If you have any experience with SD2, then using the MF SDX is exactly the same. There really is no extra learning curve involved.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

These drum samples sound amazing. I am not a metal drummer, and I don't record any music that resembles metal. However, these drums sound so natural, they can be used for any style with the right post-processing, assuming you pick kit pieces to use that make sense. And yes, they sound great for metal too.
Although I don't play metal music, I can definitely appreciate that metalheads are the most detail-oriented, technical, and perfection-obsessed musicians. I knew when I was purchasing this SDX, that if the drums were sampled by metalheads, every aspect of the sampling process would be agonized over with pain-staking detail. Sure enough, my expectations were confirmed. Well done Toontrack.

OVERALL OPINION

This is the cleanest, unprocessed, natural sounding drum library available. So many other libraries include basic eq/compression, or the samples or were deliberately recorded to tape prior to digitization. The raw samples in this library are definitely perceived as 'raw'. I own the other SDX libraries from Toontrack, and even a few EZX libraries. I own BFD2, Addictive Drums, NI Studio Drummer, Steven Slate Drums 4. This library sounds the most like standing in a studio room with a live drummer, with the drums sounding in their 'naked' form. I place this drum library on the opposite end of the spectrum of Steven Slate Drums, which comes plenty of 'radio-ready' drum samples available with a single mouse click. Metal Foundry is the exact opposite, drums in their purest form. This leaves the user with the complete control to shape the sound as they desire.

Bank's large enough but ... who knows adj recorded the drums in the place takes on a DD.


ADQUATION / PERFORMANCE

As usual Superior since version 1, is impeccable. These are super batteries, stores in major studios, with top gear, with its large Eng.

The cymbals are known, the fts too. Heavy. But still no DW since version 1 (Grrr)

NOTICE GLOBAL

To record a quality of its proposs like this addon, you must get up trstt. It sounds fabulous and the large number of microphones track contained in this kit is a pure rgal for mixing. The ambiences microphones are excellent !!!

Apart from the EZ collection, I find that really Toontrack offers a high-end quality. MIDI management is childish. I dare not imagine the mess with electro battery high quality.

As a drummer, I prfrerai always play on a "real" battery, but to get a sound quality that you will have to spit ...