Best Budget Drums - Steven Slate vs EZ vs KitCore

[mazz]

Apr 20, 2009, 10:36am, andreh wrote:Hey All-I just picked up a copy of Addictive Drums from the local Guitar Center. I like it a lot for its flexibility and built-in effects (minus internal sidechain options ), and its sounds are nice too...very well-balanced.However, I find its cymbals to be somewhat harsh-sounding (but with more presence) than those in EZ drummer. EZ also has a tighter, punchier, and somewhat more convincing sound to my ears, but offers little in the way of variety - unless you pop for the expansion kits which are supposed to sound great. I'd love to have the EZ kits inside AD's plug-in!I have Superior Drummer 2.0 on the way; looking forward to putting it through its paces.I listened to the Steve Slate demo's (all 40 kits) and they do sound more "radio-ready" than the other options on the table...they'd be great for super-produced pop or rock tracks. However, it might be difficult (or impossible) to get a more relaxed, less produced sound out of them since the samples themselves have been pre-processed AFAIK. This could limit them in many styles...jazz, light rock, indie rock/pop, reggae, etc. Anyone have the Steve Slate drums who can comment?AndréYou're gonna love Superior Drummer!! The kit that comes with it, plus the extra mics and more flexible mixer are just really great.Plus it will load the EZ drummer expansion packs!!Drums, baby!!Mazz

[allends]

Apr 20, 2009, 12:31pm, andreh wrote:Hi Allen-If you like to use existing midi grooves (which there's nothing wrong with except it may limit your musical flexibility to a certain extent), this seems like an awesome buy.I'm with you, André... I'm so acustomed to building my drum tracks from stratch that I practically rebuild the canned tracks when I do use them. They're a great place to start because they take me places I wouldn't have gone on my own.Allen

[partyofone]

Hey guys just got the SSD this week... have barely got to mess with it but install went smoothly and the sounds are really great. As Andreh mentioned above they are radio-ready which will work for probably 80% of what I do but I did have a concern regarding some of the web game music I do in other genres like jazz. For that I suspect I may need something else. FWIW Steven mentioned there are you room sounds you can tweak between. One is more processed with compression, EQ, etc and one is a raw unprocessed sound. The plug-in itself is not as slick or all-inclusive as EZ and AD but it has some nice features like switching between the NRG studio room and the SSD room and also turning overheads off/on. For me consideringA) I'm not a great drum mixer B) I write mostly pop/rock I decided the trade off of getting the radio-ready sound for somewhat less flexibility was worth it. However I'm starting to believe what Chuck said about not having too many drum options. I see another VSTi in my future but this seems like it will work wonders for my pop/rock demos. I'll report back once I've put it through the paces on some mixes.

[timmcallister]

Apr 20, 2009, 11:15am, lyle wrote:I wondered the same thing as Andreh...they appear to be geared toward very particular sounds, like John Bonham's for example, but I haven't read if it's possible to pull back all the effects.I've owned Addictive for a few years, and really like them. It comes with only "three kits" but dozens and dozens and dozens of presets twisting and contorting them into all sorts of rock, pop, low-fi and electronic kits. I also have the retro pak, and will certainly get the just announced jazz pak when it is available. A lot of the presets are "processed" with compression, eq, reverb, etc. I have a tendency to start with a preset and tweak it to my liking, which usually means I back off on some of the compression. You can also roll your own kits starting with the raw samples.It is a fantastic sounding, very stable plug. Best of all it loads lighting fast. Oh and it comes with thousands of midi files. Some really nice stuff in there.I bought Steven Slate Platinum (40 kits) last week. As a few have pointed out, Steven has provided pre-processed samples. Everything has been recorded to 2" tape, and compressed and eq'ed ready to drop in a mix. It definitely has a sound and what it does, it really excels at. It's strength, is also it's weakness, as it may not lend itself to the "lighter side". It doesn't come with many midi files, so if that's important to you...Both are great products, just different. Between these two, I have more than enough (almost too many) choices. Biggest problem with having multiple products is if they have different key mappings. Everyone has "the best approach" to key mappings, and of course, few play nicely with each other. I bought EZPlayer Pro which is supposed to be able seamlessly translate between key mappings. We'll see how it goes. I also have kitcore, but never really dug it. Maybe I'll give version 3 a try.peace out

[partyofone]

OK so getting down to some programming with SSD on new demos... one thing I'm not liking is the lack of built in file browser. Auditioning fills and such is cumbersome at best. I'm hoping the results in my mix will make it all worth it!

[partyofone]

OK took the plunge and bought EZPlayer Pro for $50.. (instant download on ToonTrack site). The demo video impressed me and the inability to preview midi in my DAW has always annoyed me. I will say you have to lower you sound card latency as low as possible to avoid serious timing issues when previewing the loops but it's a cool little program so we'll see how it goes.

[mojobone]

You might try EZPlayer Free, if it's still available; it has a built-in file browser, drag and drop MIDI support and limited format conversion.

[partyofone]

Hey mojo.. yeah saw that mentioned on other sites but couldn't find download so I went ahead and dropped $50. For the price I think it's a good value.

[mojobone]

Addictive arrived today-first impressions-sound quality is excellent, knew that from hearing the demo. Was a little disappointed that more presets weren't included, only about a half dozen, but bunches of high quality user generated presets are available as a free download from the website, which must be accessed to authorize the program-authorization quick, painless and over with, I availed away. While there's a limited set of samples, the quality is top-notch, and there's quite a bit of flexibility displayed in the aforementioned user presets. The snares are different enough from each other to really change the character of the kits, so there should be a little sumpm-sumpm for everybody, if not a lot. The midi beats aren't as comprehensive as I'd hoped for-lots of variations on basic beats, (a good thing) but relatively few fills, compared to Drumcore/Kitcore. (rats!) The interface is easy and intuitive with excellent visual feedback, though there's no immediately apparent way to tune the drums; a perusal of the manual is in order, perhaps-I can't believe they'd leave that out. AD doesn't support GM and electronic kits out-of-the-box, but keymaps are available on the website. The program loads quickly and doesn't seem to be much of a resource hog; it barely moved the CPU meter in Tracktion 3 when added to a twenty-eight track mix with about a dozen FX plugins running. Too soon to tell about stability, but the program has a rock-solid reputation in that department. There are some very handy control features such as mouse wheel support for parameter editing and a cool cymbal choke implementation-yesss! On the whole, it's well worth the asking price, and very addictive indeed!*update: yes, drums are tunable with pitch envelopes and offsets for the overhead mics-nice!

[elser]

May 8, 2009, 9:40am, mojobone wrote:The midi beats aren't as comprehensive as I'd hoped for-lots of variations on basic beats, (a good thing) but relatively few fills, compared to Drumcore/Kitcore. (rats!) The interface is easy and intuitive with excellent visual feedback, though there's no immediately apparent way to tune the drums; a perusal of the manual is in order, perhaps-I can't believe they'd leave that out. AD doesn't support GM and electronic kits out-of-the-box, but keymaps are available on the website.I agree with you, and there's an especially limited amount of 4/4 beats, which is kinda lame. Even though I usually end up tweaking the stock beats anyway, I find them especially useful for hi hat and ride patterns and for the more complicated fills that use ghost notes and 16th note triplets and all that drummery stuff.I'm thinking about adding some Groove Monkee beats, I wonder if anyone here has used those and what they think?