Best Budget Drums - Steven Slate vs EZ vs KitCore

[381]

Just purchased AD from Musician's Friend for $99, (also picked up a few other bargains) can't beat AD for that price, I'm hoping now that they put the Retro bundle out for that price as well. AD is back-ordered until 4/21 but for that price I'll wait. Although I'm still learning the whole midi drum thing I currently drag and drop the AD midi files into Sonar and proceed to edit the midi track to get what i think I want. AD's sound good to me out of the box, but then i usually tinker with them to make them sound much less real... "note to self : gotta quit that"Craig

[jonathanm]

4/27 was the backorder date on my receipt. Either way, it's worth the wait. I'm using the free demo with SONAR also. I usually drag/drop the pattern to SONAR also, just so I can tweak and also control changes from pattern A to pattern B easier.

[partyofone]

The waiting is the hardest part. I somehow nabbed the very last SSD from Sweetwater and those guys are insane... I literally received a phone call on my cell from the Sweetwater rep within 5 minutes to tell me he got the order. Talk about service!!!

[t4mh]

Apr 15, 2009, 5:32pm, partyofone wrote:The waiting is the hardest part. I somehow nabbed the very last SSD from Sweetwater and those guys are insane... I literally received a phone call on my cell from the Sweetwater rep within 5 minutes to tell me he got the order. Talk about service!!!I've been to the Sweetwater Store! It is awesome. They actually have one of everything running there so you can check it out. From software to PAs to pianos. Everyone there is an actual musician ( several hundred people working there ), they are fanatics about service, very nice and all of them receive product training each week on new products from 1) a mfg rep and 2) some really cool musician who uses the product and can give a user's insight. The sales people have to train for like 4 months before they are allowed to assume the role of a sales person. The building and studio is like the most advanced I've ever seen. And if you go there to purchase something, while your order is being processed they will give you a tour. It is worth the visit if you ever get a chance.Keith

[jonathanm]

Sweetwater has excellent service because they are very personal about it. I've had the same salesman assigned to me for 3 years. He's excellent. He can answer tech questions, give suggestions on equipment based on personal experience, and he calls to check how things are going 2 or 3 times a year. Pretty incredible in this day of impersonal customer service. I try to give them every bit of business I can. (But I did buy AD from musiciansfriend this time...after the Sweetwater guy suggested I buy it because there was no way they could match that price. )

[ceedub]

I bought AD this week for $100. Sounds great, very easy to use, and not terribly CPU intensive. What's not to like? I'm really impressed. None of the online stores had it in stock, but my local music megamart had a few copies in stock.

[jonathanm]

Apr 16, 2009, 2:15pm, ceedub wrote:I bought AD this week for $100.Dude, you got ripped off....paid $0.05 too much!

[ceedub]

Apr 16, 2009, 4:01pm, jmeraz wrote:Apr 16, 2009, 2:15pm, ceedub wrote:I bought AD this week for $100.Dude, you got ripped off....paid $0.05 too much! I bet the kid who works at the music store pocketed the nickel.

[elser]

Well, thanks to this thread I too just went for the AD deal from MF. I got BFD2 a couple of months ago and it's amazing but my G5 just can't handle it, it's tooo F....king Big! And as the wise men like to say, 'you can't have too many options for drums'.

[partyofone]

Yeah I'm excited to get the SSD tomorrow but also a little bummed that I didn't get AD. Always next spring I guess. I would've loved to have the free cocktail kit expansion that came with EZ Drummer also. Sometimes we do web site projects that call for 50s lounge music and that would've been perfect!