Toontrack

Toontrack has hit a homerun and dusted off the old virtual drummer rules. Using it is a real pleasure, and the time gain when setting up an excellent drumset well played with all sorts of playing details is just incredible. Setting up a complex pied is a real child’s play thanks to the TAP2Find and drag’n’drop. And I play fusion jazz – ‘nuff said about how demanding I can be in terms of complexity. The first drums part for my first track made with it must have taken me two hours on an AABACABA pattern! In “Song” mode, the tracks allow for as many different versions as you want: copy, change the content for something else, tweak it as you like! And, it all takes less time than a global company needs to move its assets to a tax haven! However, in case you’d need to modify some patterns (which is my case for some particularly complex parts), SD3’s grid editor is less user-friendly than Cubase’s to my taste. But it may be a question of getting used to it… Another interesting and really great feature is the possibility to load the drumset and effects separately when loading a preset. This allows you to choose the best drumset for a said song, then to load the effect set according to what the song requires. In short, I was an Addictive Drums addict and I’m proude to have gotten over it! The cherry on the cake is the excellent MIDI packs, the last I downloaded is the “shuffle” one inspired by Jeff Porcaro, Steve Gadd and others. Awesome! A small regret : the presence of only four hihats :( , however the four of them sound so good… Addenda from April 2018 : The more i use it, the more i’m amazed by yhis virtual drumset! A tip regarding the Tap2Find feature: I used to enter the HH, SD and BD over the two bars, but since I play fusion jazz with complex rhythmic parts I had little results, so I was disappointed. But now, I’ve understood how to get the best out of it. First: forget your ego and let go of that “ideal” rhythm you got in the spur of a revelation. Second: take the general idea of the groove, e.g. the bass and bass drum are in sheer adequation, here goes the groove! So you just enter the BD and see what comes out of it. And, here comes the magic of SD3: provided you have enough and adequate MIDI files, you get a truckload of rhythm patterns that will make you realize how much progress you still have to make to reach the level of a rhythm genius. The last piece I’ve produced using it is a four-part piece, featuring jazz, metal, jazz-rock and flamenco. Complex bars in 4/4, 7/4, 2/4 and so on! In approximately 8 hours, the drums were done! The cherry on the cake, and maybe I’m going to shock mixing purists, I even used two drumsets on a same track: a jazzy SD3 one featuring a Yamaha set, and a friggin’ metal set right out from the Bob Rock Rock Foundry pack! The result just ROCKS HARD!!! Beware of memory issues though, and take care to avoid using two 3GB sets or you’ll see your 6GB of available memory disappear in a wink, hence limiting your use of plugins while mixing.

This sample library contains multi-sampled drums and cymbals. There are many velocity layers and round-robins available to avoid the 'machine-gun' sampled drum problem. There are also tons of different articulations like rim-shot, center hit, cymbal edge, cymbal bell, etc. This can make for a very realistic sounding drum performance and also helps make playing on eDrums feel more real. The installation of the library takes a long time, and is installed off a set of DVDs. This is because the library takes up a lot of space on a computer hard drive because there are some many samples (velocity layers x articulations x # of instruments, etc). If your machine cannot handle the whole library, you can install a small portion of the library to save space. For instance, you don't have to load all the bleed samples (kick drum bleeding into the tom mics) if you don't want to. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The drum sounds in NY Vol. 2 are best for pop/acoustic kind of music. The samples are very 'raw' and need a lot of processing to sit well in a mix. Some people will like this flexibility, but other people may prefer a library that comes preprocessed and ready for a mix. I typically find that these drums don't really 'hit' hard enough for rock styles of music. I really like the Metal Foundary pack for rock music. The NY Vol. 2 does have some really good drum sounds, and most people will find it adequate for their style of music. The X-drum feature takes a little bit of getting used to. It is not very simple at first if you want to mix and match kit pieces from different Allaire and Hit Factory. Compared to other software libraries (BFD2, Steven Slate Drums 4, Additive Drums), SD2 has the most complicated steps to mix and match kit pieces from different libraries. I guess it is better than Studio Drummer from NI that doesn't allow you to mix and match kit pieces at all without loading up both libraries. OVERALL OPINION New York Studio Vol. 2 SDX is an expansion library for Superior Drummer 2 from Toontrack. It cannot be used without first owning the main SD2 software. The drum samples come from two recording sessions: Allaire Studio and Hit Factory. Each recording session used different drums and cymbals. And there are many choices available with this pack. To my ears, the biggest difference I hear among the recording sessions is the difference in 'Room' or 'Ambient' sounds. These two studios sound very different and unique. They are also significantly different than the stock Avatar library that comes with SD2. I think they all complement each other well. I actually prefer that SD2 has samples recorded in a bunch of different studios. Many times when I am mixing I find myself thinking that I want to change of the drum sounds just based on the room or ambient sounds. This is a great option compared to other libraries like BFD2 where all the drums were recorded in the same studio. The downside of the SD2 option is that it can sound weird if you mix and match drums from different studios.

The Toontrack DFH EZ Drummer is a drum sampler with several type of samples. There weren't any kind of compatibility issues, it works great on Windows XP, Windows 7, Vista, or MAC OS X. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The software work correctly in this configuration THe gear is pretty stable, I haven't found any problems regarding the program. I've been using this now, for about a month. OVERALL OPINION What I really like about it, are the kits, it has plenty of kits that allow to create unique drum patterns. Some of the kits provided with the program: Toontrack EZdrummer EZX Vintage Rock Toontrack EZdrummer EZX Electronic and many other useful packs that can be incorporated in many genres. Another great aspect of this product it's that it's very well designed and compact so it saves the music producers a lot of time in their process. However this product has a couple of issues, one of it, is the sound and the limited amount of effects available for sculpting the sounds and the eq provided by the program. I like the humanize feature that allows to get away from the robotic feel of a certain pattern, the swing options works also as a great advantage. However the quality of the sounds can't match Addictive Drums or BFD that's why I would suggest getting those products if you own the money for them. However analyzing the balance between price and quality, the price is amazingly great for all those features and midi packages included in it. I've tried several models and this one works great if you don't have or don't want to spend much money and still get some variety, but you should consider some higher quality drum samples if you're really serious about it and want to get a more deeper sound, but if you know how to make some good sounding parallel compression you can get away with it.

ToonTrack DFH Superior can run on Windows computers as well as Mac computers. They did discontinue it not long after it came out for some reason but there are other versions of ToonTrack available. I was using DFH Superior back in 2007 before it was discontinued, but I am sure it still can be purchased or downloaded online from somewhere. It came with over 30 gigabytes of data and had some very good snares, kicks , toms, and cymbals all feeling very real and humanized to give a real drummer experience and sound all coming from a VST. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Installing DFH Superior did take a little more time, at the time I was using a Windows XP laptop and it took a few minutes to load all of the sounds because there are a lot of time. The interface of this program was awful to me though because it had so many options and seemed to be so crowded and overdone. But using this program you will get the best “real” drummer sound that you can ever possibly want out of the digital world. The price was only around 200 dollars at the time and that was a very good priced for a software like this back in 2007. OVERALL OPINION With the interface being as complicated and in depth as it is, it was a huge turn off for me and made me not want to work with this program much because there are so many easier software’s that are similar. If the interface was cleaner I would have felt a lot different about this plug in. This program was very CPU heavy and took up a lot of computer space. Just loading in all of the sounds took some time. ToonTrack has come out with other versions of it that are more user friendly and easier to work with. But unfortunately they have changed some of the kits, if they kept some of the same kits and feel that they had with the DFH Superior, the newer versions would be so much better.

The Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 installed on my computer running Windows XP without any problems. It ran very well and never crashed or gave me any sorts of glitches or issues. I have also used it on a Windows 7 and Windows Vista computer and it ran just as fine on those. It can also be used on a Mac too! All of the drum samples are recorded at high quality studios by Pat Thrall and Neil Dorfsman who are well known in this field. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I have used Superior Drummer 2.0 in Logic, FL Studio, Ableton Live and Cubase. It runs pretty much the same in all applications and does not use too much CPU. I can even combine all of my sound libraries from Superior and EZDrummer together no matter which version I have. OVERALL OPINION The sounds are pretty good; the quality of them is amazing I just wish it would have come with some more versatile kits. I also feel like the price of Superior Drummer 2.0 is a little too expensive. Paying this amount of money I expected a lot more from ToonTrack. I have a U control MIDI controller that I use to play the drum samples with through my DAW and it works great. I do love using this program for drum patterns as well because there are some really good ones and I also love the fills that it has with it. I have used other plug ins that are virtually the same as this one. Superior Drummer 2.0 doesn’t stick out to me nor do I think it is better than other drum sample based programs. If it was a little cheaper I would think a lot more highly of it. But all in all, it does have some good sounds and kits that have been very useful for me. I have been using it for months now and so far I am satisfied.

The Classic EZX is a multi-sampled drum library. I have to give Toontrack credit for really increasing the sound quality of the newer EZX packs by using a lot more velocity layers/round-robin samples and also including more kit pieces. Compared to older EZX packs, the new ones are a lot larger and sound much closer to the 'professional' SDX libraries than an 'amateur' EZX library. This EZX pack is also really great to use inside of SD2 rather than EZX. You can control the mic bleed for all the instruments in SD2 if you don't want your cymbals washing in your room mics. You can also layer multiple kit pieces using X-drum in SD2. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I would definitely recommend this EZX for anyone using EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer 2. Compared to the stock EZ Drummer library, the Classic EZX is significantly better in sound quality and versatility. I have several other drum software libraries (BFD2, NI Studio Drummer, SSD4, Addictive Drums) and I find that these Classic drums are perfect for songs if I am going for the 60s/70s thick and dry drum sound. Don't be put off by the fact that these are an EZX and not an SDX, they sound great. I also like that the drums sound great as soon as you load them up without a lot of tweaking. This saves time when I am doing a major session. The library is easy to install, and can be downloaded off the Toontrack webpage. Authorization is really simple for all the Toontrack products. Assuming you are interested in the Classic EZX because you already own EZ Drummer or SD2, everything is pretty much the same getting started with the software. OVERALL OPINION The Classic EZX is an expansion sample library for Toontrack EZ Drummer and can also be used with SD2. This EZX actually appears as two separate EZX libraries inside of EZ Drummer because it comes with two different mic setups. First, all the drums were recorded with the typical mic setup with close mics on every drum and also OH and Room mics. The second mic setup is a 4 mic setup with close mics on the kick and snare with one overhead over the snare and the other overhead next to the ride. The second mic setup is truly old school (ala 4 track tape machine) and goes great with these drums if you are going for the 'Classic' old school sound. Having both options makes the library very versatile from 60s/70s era drum sounds to more modern pop/rock sounds.

If you are not familiar with sampled drum libraries, the idea is to record the drums just as they would be in a typical recording session. In this case, individual drums are recorded with close mics, but also are recorded with overhead mics and room mics. The software used to playback the samples triggers all the different samples (close, OH, Room) at the same time and can be mixed just like a regular drum session. Not only are these drums recorded with the different microphones, but they are recorded at different velocity (soft to loud) levels. The basic premise of recording the drums this way has dramatically increased the realism of sampled drums since the days of the single sample drum wav file. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The Roots SDX works almost the exact same as the regular SD2 library. If you are familiar to SD2, then Roots will be familiar. Installation takes a long time because there are a lot of DVDs to be copied. You can install smaller versions of the software, but it is kind of silly to purchase the Roots SDX, but then install a `lite' version of the software. If you are worried about you CPU being able to handle the full library, just purchase the Jazz SDX instead. It will save you some money, and the samples come from the exact same recording session. But, if you are a 'tweaker', step up to the big time with Roots SDX. This library is perfect of jazz/blues styles of music. As the name suggests, it is also the best SDX library if you want acoustic drums for any kind of 'urban' music. Obviously if you want drums for hard rock or metal, choose a different SDX than Roots. OVERALL OPINION The Toontrack Roots SDX is an expansion library to be used with the main Superior Drummer 2 software. The Roots SDX can be purchased as a 'sticks' only library. a 'brushes' only library, or a combo pack of both. Regardless you need to have SD2 installed to be able to use this SDX because Roots is not a stand-alone software. There aren't a lot of kit pieces available in this SDX, especially compared to other expansion libraries like Custom & Vintage that have tons and tons of different drums and cymbals. Rather the Roots SDX is fewer kit pieces, but tons and tons of mic channels from the session. For instance, rather than a single pair of overhead microphones, there are multiple pairs of Overhead mics. The same goes for the room mics. There are a full range of Room mics from 'close' to 'distant' providing different levels of ambiance. This is how the library becomes extremely versatile. You can get a dry/tight mix going with one drum kit, but also get a huge drum sound with the same kit if you mix in the room mics.

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!

Volume 3 of the Toontrack New York Studio is an expansion pack for anyone who has ToonTrack. It has over 18 GB of sound and is compatible with Mac and PC computers. This expansion was a must have for myself and my group because we have been using ToonTrack for years now and it is always a huge bonus when they come out with these expansion packs because of the quality. Installing this expansion pack was easy due to the fact that you already have the main software installed. It does take a few moments though to load in the 18 plus Gig of sound into your system but it is well worth the wait. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE All of the sounds/presets are set up into categories like they were on volume 1 and volume 2. You can easily scroll through the sounds manually or you can get right to the sound you want to get to by going through the categories. There are also a lot of great fills for your chorus, intro, outro’s, and bridges. The fills have always been one of my favorite aspects of Toontrack because it gives you realistic fills if you are looking to have that authentic drummer sound and feel with your music. OVERALL OPINION All of the sounds that come with Volume 3 are very good just like the previous 2 versions. They are of great quality and recorded in the best possible studio they could be recorded in. This pack works with Superior Drummer 2.0 and EZdrummer (which is what I use). This is the newest pack from Toontrack and it is by far the best New York Studio volume that they have come out with so far. The main creator of this pack is Nir Z, he has been on tour with John Mayer and Jason Mraz. So I knew that it would be great, I love all of the fills and sounds. They really keep my creative juices flowing while giving me realist drums from a pro!

The EZmix 6 pack is a bundle that just recently came out. The wonderful thing about this bundle is they will let you choose 6 different packs that you want. Some of the ones you can choose from are Songwriters Tools, Mastering Pack, Metal Essentials pack, Core Expansion, Electronic, and Mark Needham Pack. I just named those because they were my choice. There are about 8 more or so that you can choose from. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Installing any of these VST’s in the packs that you choose are pretty standard. It does not take any effort at all to install or start using them. If you have ever installed a VST before than you will have no issues installing these, some of them do require more available CPU than other ones do but if you have a decent processor your computer should be able to handle any one of them efficiently. OVERALL OPINION I have been using a lot of ToonTrack plug-ins and VST’s for a while now and I have never been disappointed with their products. They all come with manuals that are easy to follow and learn from. Each one of these packs that you choose will come with a good set of presets to use and they are usually very good. The sound that you can get out of using these packs will take your music to new levels and I highly suggest using them. My overall favorite one out of the bundle is probably the Mastering Pack because it gives me all of the tools that I need to get an overall better master since I do it all myself and rarely have anyone else master my music. I have no complaints with this bundle and I think that it is great that they are letting you pick your 6 pack instead of just giving you 6 ones like most other bundles. The issue with that is you will get a few that you love and a few that you won’t ever use that much.

It's an expansion pack so install shouldn't be and isn't very hard. Just place it where it's supposed to go and load up superior. If you can use Superious you can use this expansion. The first thing that surprised me about Vintage and custom was that sheer amount of kit on tap here. There's about 5 vintage kits in total...so you have a lot of choices. The Slingerland studio king and the gretsch are the ones that instantly stood out to me. The sound and integration of the expansion is flawless and about as trouble free as you could ask. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE My studio does a lot of indie music and if you know the genre, a lot of bands seem to want old style drums on their recordings. The stock superior sounds are just too modern sometimes. A vintage sound is needed. Our clients overwhelming seem to favor the noble and cooley star kit for some reason. It has a cutting yet deep tone to it that sounds really nice on recordings. All the kits and cymbals are great though, and unlike some other packs I've used, there really aren't any throwaways. Everything generally sounds good and usable. You get a lot of kit for your money here. Be warned though, there is no "vintage production" here. Toontrack has recorded these drums are dry as possible and it shows. Just slapping these on a track won't get you the old school sounds you want. It will sound like what it is...a raw miced vintage kit. Unfortunately the sounds people think of when they think of these drums were made mostly by using vintage processing. In other words, you have to use some analog VST's on these kits to get them sounding old on a recording. The upside to this of course, is you can use these kits in a modern context assuming you use the proper vsts's for that too. OVERALL OPINION It does what it says and is a great value. That's what I like about it. Toontrack packed a lot of drums into this expansion and I'm impressed with the variety. Like any superior product they sound great...when used with the right context.

EZMix is a very simple program. And that is where Toon Track has put the appeal. The program works entirely on presets, and if you read many of my other reviews, you will know that I gush over things like this. That's because no matter how experienced anyone is, there is always benefit in jumping 80 to 90% of the way to what you want quickly so you can focus more on the musical elements of your production. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE EZMix is just about the least heavy plugin in the universe. It is very snappy and the workflow is very simple when you just want to play around. The program never becomes to sluggish for your creative juices to flow. OVERALL OPINION EZMix is not a professional tool. The first two words of the program name give that away. However, I think that anyone starting out should give this program a start because the presets will allow anyone inexperienced to get a feel for the mixing process. That is because the plugin presets detail exactly what is going into the mix, and the faders on the program allow the users to essentially turn the individual parts up and down. Considering that most people who buy this program are not familiar with the intricacies of mixing, EZMix becomes a fantastic educational tool. You can also get a rough estimate of what you want very quickly, and reference from there, tweaking along the way. What I like to do is put EZMix into a tracks insets along with plugins that do the same thing. For example, if I had EZMix set to a preset I like that includes a compressor and some sort of reverb, I will have compression and reverb in the track, and alternate between these plugins and EZMix, try to get a similar sound, then tweak them the rest of the way. EZMix is not a tweaking program; it just is not capable of that kind of complexity, but it is a fantastic reference program for those looking to get a sound in a mix so they do not lose track of the vision in the middle of the project.