I always stick to Superior Drummer until now but was wondering how Slate Drums is compared to SD: Any of you has experience with both packages?

If yes, I would be more than happy to hear your opinion: Which one is best for you and why? Pluses and Minuses?

Any other package worth considering beside these twos? If yes, why?

 

Addictive Drums 2 for me. Also a mention for MDrummer, as it can search through your entire computer for samples to add to kits which you can make up yourself.

Slate Drums.. I found very buggy and needed a lot of processing in certain areas.

I've never tried superior or easy drummer, so cannot comment on those.

 

I've been using a combination of SD & EZD for years, tried Slate drums when it appeared *over there* and didn't like it, didn't like the interface, or the sounds particularly, though admittedly I never went in-depth. I deleted it after a couple of days. What the world needs is Superior Drummer 3.

 

My vote is for Superior for the all around Drum sampler over Slate... Im Just not a big Fan of anything in the Slate line sept the kicks and snares. So I may use in combination the 2 . My most used Samplers Are Battery 4, Superior 2 ,Kontakt ,BFD 3, and SSD4. If its an already recorded project then i just give it what it need or the sound that fits the song an maybe us trigger. If im playin round trying to build a kit then i use the sounds i like and build the song around the drums . Altho somtimes after i get all instruments in the track an its not working ill swap sounds from one sampler or another to get it inline with the vision ;)

 

When You look for drums in the perspective of a drummer, Superior is absolutely Your first choice, round-robin´, dynamic stacking is really fabulous. Slate isn´t bad, but too much trebbles, poor cymbals and a priority to very hard hits make my decision easy for Toontrack.
Karl

 

Superior Drummer. Steven Slate drums is not okay at all, to say the least. I bought SSD4 and the Terry Date expansion cause I wanted that "White Pony" snare and the snare LITERALLY doesn't have any samples at low velocities, and I love ghost notes on snare.
Superior Drumer is in another league, the differences are way more than the one I mentioned, but the lack of enough velocities is bad enough for me.
I really don't know what they were thinking. The stock kits are a little better

 

Last edited: Oct 7, 2016

Yeah thats what i dont like bout SSD4 is the Cymbals??? an its target is Radio Rock where the kick and snare Are triggered from a one shot full velocity Slam ;) Oh yeah an not to overlook the Toms that sound as if they where in a vice while struck could get a better sound From a 5 Gallon Bucket

 

Last edited: Oct 7, 2016

Slate drums are production ready, if you are after the commercial pop/rock sound. (I'm talking about the old Kontakt version, I've never used the new version or the expansions).
Superior, AD and so on are for the tweakers...
I can recommend
https://www.analoguedrums.com/
super cheap drum kits and great sound.

 

Both

 

Any reason for not considering Fxpansions BFD3 ?

 

I simply didn't think about this one.
Besides the fact that it has more expansions, how does it compare to Superior Drummer?

 

Lots of choices for drum samplers, but IMHO, Superior has the edge, I've used Toontrack stuff for about 7-8 years...

I just started using BFD3, & even their older libraries are really good, like the Andy Johns expansion...I'm not sure I'll be sticking with it or not, seems pretty buggy & crashes Reaper quite often...But, this could be user error too, I've only been using it for a week or so...

I have almost every Toontrack drum library out there, there's 2 or 3 I don't have...yet.... It's always been pretty solid, & is very easy to learn...

Slate drums are definitely usable, but they're not the end all/be all, Superior is a lot more versatile IMO...

 

+1 for Analogue drums they are very organic to the sound... I have most Their packs good stuff I have to say tho one of my Favorite's is Ocean Way Drums... This is one of the most underrated best sounding organic drum library to date...Velocity Heaven ,an wen you put them in a mix is the tell it all ,cause they just work. Its one those wen i do a demo/pre production with em i get asked who played the drums not what sampler i used

 

Seriously guys? I think Slate Drums sound amazing! I Like SD too.. Never tried BFD3.. But for that in you face sound the Slate is way to go! I`ve been using a mix of Slate (Kick,Snare,Toms) and SD (Cymbals) and you can get a really interesting results with both! They seem to cut better in the mix than the SD ones.. But in the end is all about taste.. Dont forget about Drumforge by JST! They are kick ass too! ;)

 

Toontrack rules. I tried bfd3, ssd , melda, etc. Easy drummer is amazing sometimes superior drummer fills the bill better.

 

I don't like superior drummer cymbals, they sound like 16 bits 44.
bfd2 they lack of velocities in my opinion and they are not compressed at all.
whats the best cymbals? 24 96 with good velocities? ty

 

Superior drummer without question. You basically answered your own question. It's called "Superior" drummer because it is in fact superior. Steven Slate drums is an overpriced piece of garbage that has an annoyingly unprofessional GUI (looks like I'm playing a video game rather than producing music). Superior drummer also has more options for sounds. SSD4 doesn't have a lot of electronic stuff. But Superior drummer has you covered on all sides of the table. It simply brings more to the party than SSD4 does. SSD4 vs Superior Drummer is like a Fisher Price toy xylophone for toddlers vs a Roland Jupiter 80.
Don't get me wrong, SSD4 has got some awesome sounds to it. But they are easily obtainable in Superior drummer. Look at your options - Toontrack just came out with an EZX expansion that made me drool - "Dream Pop". It sounds amazing. They also got about 30 other expansions for it. Like the new Post Rock EZX which was awesome. They got numerous electronic stuff too. They give you many ways to tweak the sounds to fit your needs. The amount of potential sounds is amazing. SSD4 has got probably like 6-10 expansions & there isn't too much to be offered for my personal taste.
Something else you will find if you do some digging, is that some of the sounds/kits in Superior Drummer were produced by Steven Slate himself, & are therefore similar sounding to some of those in SSD4. So if you go with Superior drummer, you're technically getting both. Whereas if you just get SSD4, you're just getting SSD4. Lol
And if you play Steven Slate's introduction videos backwards, you can hear satan anally molesting an elderly couple & 280 children simultaneously. Or even more harrowing/horrifying, if you play it forward you hear Steven Slate talking. Lol

Take it from me, you will be impressed more by Superior drummer. It's called superior for a reason. Steven Slate isn't called "Superior drummer" for a good reason - because it's simply not superior at all.
What do you call it when Steven Slate takes a shower? A clean slate. So maybe he just needs to take a good long shower. LOL

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 7, 2016

From someone who uses both use both. There are snares that I love in slate and will use over sdx/edx snares sometimes the high hats to a few kicks I mean 80% of my kits are sdx but Slate does have some specific awesomeness that can be used for making an even better drum kit. But I'm also the guy who spends 8-10 hours accurately recreating drum kits from albums of rock and metal bands to perfection. Don't be afraid to have more than 1 drum resource open. If you want to see the snare in SD2 play but use a different snare turn the volume off on it so it still plays but doesn't make sound.

Example, the snare on the all american kit on slate is freaking awesome, but the cymbals from Metal Foundry are amazing but I want the toms from edx metal! and a kick from the avatar kit. Don't be afraid. There are times just my drum load is over 4 gigs of memory.

 

And honestly the only "high grade" drum library I would dis is addictive drums. Fakest sounding drums in the world regardless of velocity tweaks or midi hacks.

 

Stick with Superior. I've tried almost all the others at one point or another, and always go back to Superior. I play drums, and the only one worth dealing with is Superior. It is by far the most tweakable. If you are using a edrum kit like I am, and not just your standard kit, setting up any of the other VSTs is a bit cumbersome. I can easily map out a kit in Superior to match my customized Roland kit. I didn't like Slate Drums at all. Recently I tried Addictive Drums 2, since I've always heard people raving about it. At first I was kind of impressed. Managed to map out a kit to match my Roland kit, sounded pretty good...through headphones. Decided to play same kit through my QSC PA...horrifying. Sounded beyond flat, and couldn't hold a candle to even the worst sounding EZDrummer ezx kit. Uninstalled it. I've tried Oceanway Drums, BFD2 and 3, many Kontact libraries, Slate Drums, Addictive 2, etc. I keep saying to myself just stop wasting your time trying the others out, but I keep thinking someone might out-do Toontrack. It hasn't happened yet. Perhaps it will take Superior 3 to knock out Superior 2.