I reckon Ive tried them all. You name it, Ive tried it. Almost without fail they are over-processed and over-roomed. Sure, they sound great when you pull them up on their own but place them in a mix and....wtf? The new Luke Holland library is a good example - zero transients, all compression. Fat? Sure, but utterly useless to anyone that wants to finesse a kit into "sitting" in the mix.

IMHO there is but ONE exception. That is the GGD Modern and Massive library. You can place that sucker in a rock mix and it kicks. Add a little bit of UAD Fatso and you have power - no apparent transient loss.

BFD and Superior are ok for some things but for pure rock, GGD is a clear outlier.

Interested in anyone else's thoughts on this earth-shattering topic.

 

And what about mixosaurus?

 

Hmm. Not tried them The demos sound a bit flat, but that could ultimately prove to be a good thing. Thanks for the tip.

 

Just to add if you consider to try Mixosaurus, you might try and use it thru the Groove Agent, because Steinberg acquired Mixosaurus and it is named THE KIT in the Groove Agent. And it is far better and easier for routing and mixing within Groove Agent than in Kontakt Player , but one more advantage that Mixosaurus have is that, i think it have maybe a couple of kit pieces more.... Or maybe that is just different kitpieces mix and maybe my bad observation... But it should be the same in DEFAULT KIT, didn't used Mixo long time ago... But try Groove Agent you will not regret at all... It sounds natural and dynamic, cymbals are the best, i mean, all kit pieces sounds just amazaing.

Second, Drumasonic was the cool instrument for Kontakt, very natural and dynamic also but ia really hard to find a full version anywhere. I dont know if they integrated their samples with Native Instruments in some library since they are long time partners. But Drumasonic 2.0 was very nice.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2022

MixWave?

 

How do you know that? Is it the "kit A" from mixosaurus?
I deleted GA some days ago coz the license not found issue, but I can give it another chance (just to try that mixosaurus kit) ...I saw the new R2R version.

 

When it comes to Rock, if you can't find what you need from Toontrack and all those expansions, then you are probably too finnicky for your own good. Nothing beats Toontrack today at least for Rock.

 

Compressed and mushy.

Good for jingles.

 

I like the GGD P IV Matt Halpern Signature Pack, and of course SUPERIOR DRUMMER 3 The Rock Foundry&Legacy of Rock.

 

Try enabling all bleed in Superior Drummer. I mostly use Legacy of Rock and Death & Darkness (especially Darkness for rock music). You can get a much more natural sound this way. The kits usually use about 8-9GB of RAM with all bleed enabled, but it shouldn't be a problem if you have at least 16-32GB of RAM in your machine. I usually leave out, or decrease the volume, of the worst bleed offenders like the hi-hat in the snare top mics and the snare in the kick out mic. Route all of the mics out into your DAW and mix them the same way you would mix regular drum tracks.

 

Yep, you can read that on Mixosaurus page that they have been sold to Big DAW company but never mentioned to whom, for some reason it was a secret.
But sound is so recognizable , because those brilliant hihats and toms, fat snare in the face, no library have so far no one.
But like i have said for some reason that is a secret.
Mixosaurus have sold The Kit A and the KIT B which was never officially released, but i guess Steinberg have mixed samples in THE KIT VSTsound or will do an update soon for Groove Agent 6.

BTW, you can see under instruments e.g. Snare and Kick, have same articulations as Mixosaurus KIT

Quote from Gearspace:

Hi there,
I can confirm Steinberg has bought the kit b awhile go.ive spoken to the previous owner now of Mixosaurus and he confirmed steinberg will be releasing kit b soon but he doesn't know when.i a kit a owner and couldn't wait for kit b.unfortunity oesnt look like we will see it out anytime soon.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2022

Well let's try... The kit A specifically fits perfect in any mix not only ROCK, but routing it in kontakt is a pia as you said.

 

That's an absurd statement. Start with any of the raw kits in Superior and any compression and mushiness you encounter from then on is your own fault. Rooms of Hanza, Legacy of Rock, the New York kits, there's many good starting points. I happen to also like GGD but to me they are the ones preprocessed to only be any good for certain types of mixes and they lack velocity details In the hats and cymbals.

 

GetGood Drums One Kit Wonder series,
sure it's processed, but some of those not as much,
Modern Fusion is my fav, and Classic Rock probably does what you seek

 

Yeah, Mixosaurus Drums cuts thru the mix and fit very well in any genre... It sounds so natural and clean. Routing in Groove Agent is the best, especially if you use Cubase or Nuendo as a DAW, every single channel is well labeled i mean i love it!
In my acoustic drums setup I MIX never just one VST, but for me the best mix is between SD3 and The KIT

 

Point.

I was specifically referring to the EZ Drummer series. Superior is....well, superior.