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tarrtime « The 'Blank Canvas' of Sampled Drums »
Published on 12/11/12 at 11:12The 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.
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.