the best drum sounds

[Talisker]

what do you think, is the best available set of drum samples on the market ? Doesn't have to come with a sampler, unless it is a really useful one. This refers to live drum sounds.

thnx

[LesPaul2550]

Don't know what style you need but I've had good luck with Steven Slate Drums. They sound good and don't need a whole lot of work to fit in a mix.

EZDrummer samples are only 16bit which is a little 20th century for me. I DO like the MIDI groove collection in EZDrummer and it has a nice User Interface to try them out. Problem is the snares in EZD are awful. I use EZD and SSD simultaneously - EZD as more of a MIDI beat library and SSD to actually make the sounds.

Downside to SSD: They were supposed to have version 4.0 released in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2011. It just entered beta last month so if you can wait, you'll get a bigger collection. Also, SSD 3.5 uses the Kontakt player which doesn't support VDrums cymbol choking (key aftertouch). You have to actually play a different note to choke them in SSD. Hopefully 4.0 will solve that since they have written their own player and will no longer require the Kontakt player. Also, the Kontakt player is a bit buggy. If I play a simple beat in a loop from within Sonar or Pro Tools so I can jam along with it like a drum machine, it will eventually crash. Hate to say it but never had that with ezdrummer's player. Who knows what problems their own player will have or cause but I'm hopeful!!!

BTW, I use SSD mainly for rock, metal and country. I haven't had to do any hip hop, pop, rap or any other disposable forms of music like those.

[Stig Eliassen]

Superior Drummer from Toontrack.

[TOM@METRO]

BFD2 and Slate.

[nexis]

I use anything from Toontrack and the Steven Slate Drums. If you have these, you have just about everything you'll need to produce some truly GREAT drum tracks

nexis

[Hercules]

real drums... played by a real drummer and recorded on your rig - can't get any more live than that - and after you've recorded them they are samples

[Culhane]

Originally Posted by Hercules

real drums... played by a real drummer and recorded on your rig - can't get any more live than that - and after you've recorded them they are samples

yeah, MAYBE, if you have great drums, really well tuned and precisely dampened, with carefully developed mic placement (NO SM57 on the snare please).
Drums can be a lot of work to get well set up for excellent recording sound.
Then some engineers will get heavy handed with compression and EQ, essentially creating a manageable drum sound, which is one way to deal with the drummers less than optimum kit as is.

The big advantage of real drums is real live, breathing music, on the spur of the moment, which can be a LOT of work to try program, though some people do a pretty good job at it. Of course the style of music, and client, has a lot to do with what may be best.

(just responding to the real drums comment, which as a drummer, I sympathize with.
I know that was not the question.)

[Talisker]

thanx for the info guys, I will think about it

[zedhed]

I bought a 'Discrete Drums' sample collection about ten years ago and still use them today. 16 & 24Bit, Dry & ambient, loops and single hits samples.

Worth checking out;
http://www.sonomawireworks.com/discretedrums/

http://www.harmonycentral.com/docs/DOC-1216

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/...SAMPLE-LIBRARY

[brianjanthony]

I'm generalizing but....

Slate- metal, modern hard rock, for a guy who hits very few ghosties. All thwack all the time. Not great for quiet ballads where you want it to sound like an acoustic kit, or you want less attack on the kiks esp.

Superior - Nashville kit - modern country (and my favorite snare sample of all time currently); Avatar - modern pop Dave Matthews alt pop; Metal Foundry (- classic Accept and Dio style metal, some European power metal. their stuff goes on sale almost every year around now...

Addictive Drums- easiest to set up for me, the Bonham kit is fun, and the electronic kits are lights out for sure. love the brushes. Great for 80s style stuff. The hi hats are the most real to me in playing.... but the overall sounds are not as punchy as the above brands. I very often use Slate hits with AD and Superior room sounds.

I use them all inside of VE Pro. Mixed in with the live take, you can feed the best of all of them into the mix. If you're programming without a live take, I like to program in AD and then replace or augment sounds with the others...using the hand played AD track as my drum "take". Then I split the channels into individual tracks so it looks more like a typical session....