SD2 is great, don't get me wrong, but all the EZD2 updates and functions kind of make it obsolete in quite a few areas now.

 

Wouldn't call it obsolete by a long stretch
Is probably still considered the flagship product or one of the best bit's of drum software around. Quite possibly "the best" around but that's subjective I guess.
Sure there are different features in EZD2 and the interface is more appealing etc but that's only because it's developed\updated much more recently.
There's still a load of stuff you can do in SD2 that you can't do with EZD2 and they are mostly pretty important areas.
Also the two products compliment each other pretty nicely and having one does not necessarily negate using both in conjunction with one another.
Example would be you can use EZD2 and to build your midi track and audition sounds as it's real easy that way and then use SD2 to play actually play the track where you have much tighter controls and options over FX-inserts\Busses\Mic positions\locations\Bleed levels and much more.
Is a simplistic example but still relevant i guess.
Also remember that there are limitations and the coding involved with something like SD2 will be absolutely massive.
Re-coding adding new features is also a huge undertaking and you always have to consider whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. There's also the inertia aspect of if it ain't broke don't fix it
At the end of the day Toontrack primarily a business and if they decide that SD2 not making enough returns to warrant further development and pay staff the line will be discontinued. Simple as that really.

My own personal guess is that they are probably re-coding, adding new features as we speak and i'm also pretty sure it will be a fantastic bit of kit when and if it arrives
Just about everything they put out is really cool and useful for many individuals

 

I tried superior drmr 2 from here but couldnt find any library despite its 30gig dl or somethin ,and the actual library dl only doesnt seem to exist...
So i tried out addictive drums 2 instead
Different to the vids id seen bout superior, but still a very good and capable acoustic drum machine with ultra levels of editing availiable ,and ive been quite happy with that now ive taken the time to program my own kits "sorry i digress"
My point i guess is im always seemming to ask/wonder if i should be runnin superior 2 instead but never could test it .
"believe me it wasnt for the lack of trying"..
So if 3 ever hits us id be very exited indeed to get to test the next version out instead..
id always thiought FXP,S Bfd3 as the granddaddy though?

 

Yeah BFD3 is good. In fact would probably say that sound wise in terms of acoustic drums it's unmatched really.
Some of the Platinum Samples packs are really great sounding
However they do have drawbacks. The rotating samples\256 velocity levels etc take up massive amounts of disk space and you need a really powerful machine to run the library & expansions real smooth. They have reduced the size recently I think but your still gonna need a lot of disc space with quick access speeds etc to run them well.
Big dedicated drive the way to go there most probably.
My own personal experience with BFD3 was that the GUI\Interface was pretty bad and that the software itself had loads of bugs and crashed a lot. Making a midi track etc could be a real pain also and in general it wasn't overly user friendly or that great.
Their authorisation system sucked big time also.
I've had the same problems with a lot of FXPansion stuff. Can be great sounding\quality but sometimes pretty hit & miss and often buggy as hell.
Also thought it pretty expensive and a bit overpriced at the time.
However that was just my own experience and things may have changed since then
Don't think i'd ever go back to it though unless the sound difference etc was huge.
Think quite a few of the superior libraries are available if you have a look around. Install is real easy and you just go 2 settings and point drummer itself in direction of library install if you having problems.
Installing on external drive real easy and works well also. Used to b like the software itself unlocked and could just accept expansions and were different installs but not sure how it stands now that way. Addictive drums also great and a different sound.
All about personal preference I guess but would highly recommend giving it a go should you get the opportunity

 

I just never liked the X-drum setup, so much easier to swap out kit pieces in every other drum program out there. and I like BFD3 as well, but I agree with kloud, it's not very intuitive and it can take quite some time to figure out. the other issue is the mapping is slightly off from toontrack, and I have a massive amount of midi I like to jam to, I even tore heavyocity damage apart for the same reason. I have no drum pad atm so that's another issue to consider... how ready to go is a program for each situation?

 

I have tried Addictive Drums 2, BFD3, EZ Drummer 2 and finally Superior Drummer 2. Well, I never looked back, for me SD2 was the clear winner from this bunch.

Hopefully there will be a v3 one day.

 

Tried them all and own Superior2 (with 2 exps), BFD 3 (2 exps) and Addictive2 as well. I may use Addictive at home but not much in the studio, it's my wife's fav though (Yes we 're both musicians). To my ears BFD has the most realistic cymbals of all. But Superior wins the overall battle for its deep programming and flexibility, especially for pro use in the studio. You guys never mentioned Drumcore 4 like its not out there, probably because v4 hasn't been cracked hehehe. A good friend of mine owns the big version and i got to play with it recently, out of the box it sounds close to Addictive if not better and has a big kit variety but it's not as deep as Superior, hell it seems even less than EZ drummer when it comes to tweaking. Its biggest strength imho is the terrific midi files included which have been played by really legendary drummers. And the 600+ euro price tag is a lot even when it comes on an usb3 120gb ssd.
As for Superior, coding new features is not really a big thing as Kloud mentioned. Unless those features contradict with or "cancel" already existing fundamental ones, where then huge chunks of code have to be removed and re-written for the new features/functions to be implemented. I am certain Superior 3 will happen, Tooontrack is getting bigger and bigger and now they have many more products to attend to, so the delay is understandable. Cheers guys

 

Msg below in responce to task forces take on Addictive drms2 btw soz for any confusion

 

Last edited: Jan 4, 2017

outta curiosity "and sorry for not selecting the reference to addictive drums only i always seem to have issues when quoting others"
But is the Addic drm2 yourself n your better half run the updated latest version or thge older v 1 somethin?
I ask because the updated vertion just released to us all here very kindly by r2r is an enormous improvement to the original version id been runnin for a while now "orders of magnitude better" just curious mate??
I personally wish i could run bfg but my meager laptop wont allow it he he..
Anyway i was truly blown away with the difference and if it was the old version you and your missus run i strongly suggest the upgrade to the latest os ,for me its epic
As i said in the initial comments secion that its now truly a one stop shop for any genre a man/woman could ask for ,but of course its upto preference and coz with superior drummer i kept gettin error after error tr5yin to install what seemed to be a non existent library placer/exe i stopped obssessing over it and tried out Addictive
With this newest version, i truly appreciate the machine and efforts made to improve from version 2 v1.....

 

Last edited: Jan 4, 2017

I was never a huge fan of the Avatar kit (even with the Producers' Presets), but I've never tried any of SD2's expansions. The Producers' Presets do show how much tweaking is actually possible with SD2, however. I mainly use SD2 to play my old EZX's back at 64-bit, and I've put together one X-kit comprised of a Steven Slate Producer Preset snare, tambourines from the Latin Percussion EZX with an EZX Drumkit From Hell kit. I'd almost rather get into BFD, since I don't really play back patterns (I have MIDI loops for drums that I can pretty much apply to any MIDI drum VI) or record it live (I like recording kits in pieces and mixing them inside the DAW) and I'd like the ability to piece together a kit without having to create new X-kits. If you're a tweaker, though, you can really go deep with SD2, probably a lot deeper than you can with EZD or Addictive Drums. You can also play EZX2 kits inside Superior Drummer, if you don't want to mess with EZD2.

There is one feature in Superior Drummer 2 that nobody on here has mentioned and that I'm positive no other drum VI has (and you won't know about unless you read the manual): you can automatically record your entire kit in pieces inside the VI itself. It's a little difficult to set up (again, read the manual), but this feature allows you simply run the MIDI tracks through one time in your DAW. When you stop playback, SD2 automatically creates a .wav file for your snare, kick, hats, toms, overheads and room tracks without any patching or setting up record tracks inside your DAW. You can then just import these files into your DAW and place them wherever you want. Once you figure out how to do it, it can be a little bit of a time saver, and it's a lot more efficient than track freezing.

 

All about personal preference I guess but would highly recommend giving it a go should you get the opportunity[/QUOTE]
Yeah quite right mate ,I loved bfd 3 and it was based on the overall/tone/ sound and levels of editing availiable,and the kits,but alas wasnt at all stable and i had to forget about it.
"that and the 80% usage of cpu that would occur when really givin it some"
So i got rid, a
And did try all i knew off to get sup 2 up n runnin ,the plug ive got/the library however is a myth he he
Anyway initially i didnt think to much of addictive drums "not to do with sound but more to do with no re3levant kits for styles i program that i wouldnt have to sit there for a day just to program a full dnb kit etc etc....
But with the update i was amazed by the difference not only in /sound/tone but the libraries are more comprehensive,that midifile droppin features such a time saver its unreal "yes i think ikts fair to say i love Add2 v2"
But yeah sup3 id love to try....

 

I think we still run Addictive Drums 2.03, it runs just fine on our i7/16gb desktop machine, this version should be around summer '14. My wife mostly experiments with sequencing as its a relatively new world for her. She's a classical violinist specializing in the Baroque Era. But she likes her rock and funk/soul/jazz as well, so she finds Addictive very cool. Superior looks like a beast to her lol. We never bothered upgrading since it ran smoothly so far. Making music is so much more important to us than any kind of upgrade, i wouldn't care less if i stopped at what i have so far and never ever upgraded again really. I own more than i need plus the world is full of instruments i can't play (yet that is hehehe) ,if you know what i mean. Happy new year mates

 

As far as tapping out or recording midi on individual kit pieces its a lot easier to do on ezdrummer, hell... I can hit record in ezdrummer, then you hit record in the daw and just start clickin if ya want. I just cannot for the life of me deal with the X-drum setup in SD2, major pain in the ass. I want this kick...but the 1 I don't want still has to stay there. its just gross. I feel like if they implemented all the updates EZD has into superior... they know nobody or a lot less people would buy EZD. I think they dig having the 2 products.

 

I actually play Superior Drummer 2, with a custom Roland kit. It's for us drummers, not drum programmers. Sure EZdrummer is just that, EZ for programmers. The opposite of all these comments is true for an edrummer. EZdrummer is maddening to try to use with an actual drum kit. The only way I use an EZdrummer EZX is loading it into Superior 2 and running from there. The X-drum feature is one of Superiors BEST features. If you don't know how to use it properly, that's your fault, not the software's. Short of updating the GUI for an updated wow factor, which I find unneccessary, for me, it is the perfect virtual drumming software. Hard to imagine what a "Superior 3" could add, as I can tweak just about everything. I've tried most all of the others, SS Drums, Addictive, etc. and they pale in comparison, for actually playing the drums. BFD is passable, but still didn't compare to S2.

 

I am a programmer. But drums was my first instrument. I started playing in about 77 and took a turn to guitar in 81-82. The mid 80s found me turning to electronics/programming and synthesizers. Around 90-91 interest for drumming got back to me and attended the Agostini school where i took a couple of years worth of classes. The truth should be that unless you can think like a drummer and also have understanding of at least basic midi programming, you cannot program realistic sounding drums. A few years back i produced a whole punk rock album where i only saw the drummer in the final mixing stage. Up until then he was mailing me midi files of his drumming and we were both on Superior 2. He admitted at the end that my corrections were on the spot and he didn't want to change a thing. Corrections were, fine tuning of drums, some clever quantizing to keep tracks tight but still human, and in 2-3 cases some radical changes of kick or snare or both. My truth is that you can be more than just a guitarist or a keyboardist or a drummer in this life. Don't go far. Just look at Stevie Wonder, Prince, etc. There's many multi talented persons out there that luck or bad career decisions haven't made them well known to the vast public,this doesn't mean they were/are not worth it. I thank God i have had the priviledge to work with some charismatic people both live and in the studio. So please keep an open mind about other people's abilities.
Socrates said "i only know one thing, that i don't know anything"
Happy new year

 

taskforce that was just snobby bullshit, don't take it seriously. crap drummers don't like drum programmers, because drum programmers make them look more miserable than they already are.

 

Im not complaining about not being able to play or program, Im saying throwing a custom kit together in SD2 is a pain in the ass and kind of cluttered. If I want a specific kick... why does the 1 I don't want have to still be on screen and loaded? why does the only kick I want have to be loaded into x-drum? I know how it works, I use it all the time, I just don't like it and I don't understand the why behind it. no other program has done that as far as I know. it's a waste of resources to have to keep the other kick open that Im not using. Im not talking about MIDI at all, im talking about building a kit.

 

Not sure where I said anything about others abilities. You are also assuming that I am solely a drummer. Actually, guitar is my first and main instrument. I took up drums 20 years later. And I play many other instruments as well. I was merely stating that in an actual playing environment, SD2 is leaps and bounds above EZdrummer. It was mentioned "why the need for two products," and I gave my perception of why. EZdrummer works great for programming drums, while Superior is great for playing with a kit. No more, no less. If anyone took my comments as being negative towards programming drums, that's in their head, and tells you how they feel about their musical abilities, and are more or less self conscious about it. I actually program drums all the time for rough demo's. But in the end, if I can't play it, I don't record it. As far as the not knowing how to use the software comment goes...that was in reference to not using the original kick drum and loading an X-drum. You can most certainly unload those original samples, thus not wasting resources. There are instances. however, where you want the original drum, and the X-Drum as well. Many other programs just replace the original kick. Using midi-nodes, you can stack the kick drums to get a customized kick sound. Or you can add a separate and different kick drum altogether. But if your end goal is to just replace the original kick drum, all you do is unload those original kick drum samples.

 

I agree with you on X-drum, it's pretty awkward, but it seems to me I was able to take an EZX DKFH kit and replace the snare with a Producer Preset Avatar snare from SD2 (and also add tambourines from Latin Percussion on the side), then save it as its own custom kit inside SD2. The only time I play any sort of MIDI drum loop in a DAW project is when I'm recording something and I need a 4/4 or 3/4 beat to play to (I like drum beats over clicks). Ultimately, if you're trying to put together an ideal kit for recording, you can either pick and choose from multiple instances of EZD or SD2, or you can use something like BFD, which is more about recording individual pieces that playing back a MIDI track as a whole kit.

 

I own several drum sequencers legit. I think it comes down to which is the best workflow for the user. for example my BFD3 is awesome as a live playable instrument. I like to load the grooves as a set and just jam like mad on my controller. but then i crash it like a mad man . its too involved to sequence with in a daw though. so for song ideas, I scratch pad drums with my daws tool. (sonar Session drummer, FL fpc..) then ship my idea off to my drummer friend to take a look at.

knowing a live drummer, should get an honorable mention here

sd and ad are a whole lot faster to lay something down with than bfd is. imo. unless its dropping those bfd grooves on a track. those are cool. but all three have premade midis. its all good if you like it
(sorry if my comments go past the sd3 topic)

 

Last edited: Jan 5, 2017