Which drum program to buy?

[brianjanthony]

I use Addictive Drums. The interface is great. It can remap to any major brand (or however you say it). Very real for me. And REALLY bug free. It doesn't take a big RTAS hit.

I like the interface because it is simple. You CAN dive deeper into the sounds if you like, but you do not have to. It might not be as deep as some others, but for writing, I find it totally indispensable.

And their add on kits (esp the Vistalite) are amazing. There are TONS of beats out there already for it, even though its one of the newer modules.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by relaxo

No way. Next to sound quality, the number one feature of Superior 1 was a feature that no one talks about but it's HUGELY important. On the original S1 keyboard mapping, most of the 88 keys have different types of hits on them (see chaotic copy/paste at bottom from Superior 1.5 manual pdf.) There are so many more different types of hits in the original superior mapping (which everyone should use…or at least one of equal power.) This allows you the freedom to really express yourself.

Nothing there you can't do with BFD2. The key-mapping is insanely easy, and many kit pieces like hi-hats have 12+ different articulations, with up to 127 velocity layers. My guess is you really didn't spend much time with BFD2, because it's just as powerful, if not moreso than SD2. The only real difference is that you have to do a lot more of the mixing yourself (which I prefer).

[Julia B]

I've been using Addictive Drums for two years. Recently they did an update to the "Adrenaline Pack 1.5.1" and this was free. The interface is great. You can use the program two ways: plug and play, drop and drag; or you can delve into the depths and find out exactly how much went into this thing. It is as in depth a program as is out there. You can do pretty much anything with it. The kits sound realistic. You can easily adjust the volume of each piece in the kit. You can tune each piece of the kit. You can move mics on most pieces of the kit. And you can do this without getting into the tedious midi velocity editing.

The software does a sort of randomization of velocities so playing the midi track back and you get that one you really like it won't do it again exactly the same -- just like a real drummer. But what I usually do is lay out a scratch drum track, record the rest my bass and rhythm, then tweak the drum track to where I want it for the near final. Then I bus the midi and record a stereo audio track from it. Then I make the Addictive Drums track inactive. This way if I want to do any last minute changes i can go back to the AD track and do it and re-record the drum track.

I'd highly recommend the Retro Pak, and they've got $12 midi paks for various styles, including a "sloppy pak". I also recently picked up the Jazz Sticks Pak. The Jazz Brush Pak is also something I want in the future.

I give the program a 9.5/10. The .5 is that they don't have a Latin Pak ... yet, but I hear they're working on one. It's kind of moot for me now since I'm using Reason with Redrum for that at the moment. Redrum cannot compare on the drum kits though.

[cqd]

Ive used ezdrummer quite a bit and bfd, but i bought strike recently, and it unbelievable..i'd seriously recommend it for anyone using pt..it really has to be considered..