Yes, lowcutting the drums from the reverb behavior on the drumbus is important.

And yes, with widening, reverb is the best method for "glueing" the instruments together. Eq and compression can not compete in the slightest there.

Some very important things are getting told here.

 

At least for the genres I'm producing, which are vintage strands of prog-rock, reggae and funk, I think it sounds as real as a real drummer. I get MIDI tracks played on pads, that could be the reason... Also, these bands are not using click tracks. I don't know how it would sound for jazz, for instance.

But I sincerely wonder what would make you dispute that, especially considering that so many live drum tracks nowadays are quantized, layered and even looped.

 

I don't like the processed sound of Addictive Drums. I've been a Superior fanboy pretty much from the beginning; I can make them sound exactly how I want any way I want. And in the better libraries the responsiveness is just not equaled by anything else I've tried. I do a lot of Prog Rock, funk, soul and even Stoner/ Doom. Now for metal all bets are off, there's a lot of really great options out there.


(Edit, lots of typos)

 

Last edited: Nov 19, 2024 at 7:52 PM

Not even close. I'm a real drummer and have some experience with the drum sound, and I think I can tell you what's wrong, by ear at least, with AD.
First, it sounds as if whoever recorded it messed up the phase between the microphones slightly. With no processing whatsoever, the transients are somerimes smeared, the body of the sound is slightly combed in weird ways. Some sounds have more mis-highs than they should, some don't have enough, some really only have the sub intact compared to the real thing.
Second, on top of that, they sound like they're low resolution, muffled and flat.
Third, and the weirdest one, the sounds are not nuanced enough. Maybe XLN edited out all the imperfections, and picked only the samples that sound alike, so it's predictable, but it's kinda mechanistic.
I would not have put it that way a few years back, but nowadays I can say that AD kinda sounds like a high quality neural network's impression of a drum kit.