Now that everyone has had a chance to give it a thorough going over, I have a couple specific questions, though I'm open to general feedback, too.

Tracker: Is it as good as it looks? (I'm assuming that, if you're attempting to enhance a real drum kit, it's still necessary to manually check each hit for phase coherency.)

Stereo overheads: Is the snare located in the center of the stereo image or skewed to one side as in SD 2?

Tempo Mapping: If I have audio drum tracks that were not recorded to a click, can SD3 generate a tempo map that can be exported to my DAW?

Humanize: Have the humanize functions changed from SD2 or are they essentially the same?

Other: Any features that have blown you away or come up short of your expectations?

Thanks in advance.

Bueller?

I'm taking one last crack at this.
Anyone?

I like it.

LOL. Thanks, David.

Love it. Spent the last few months building up and organizing drum samples from other drum software to use as stacks with SD3. Pretty incredible little known feature that lets you rob samples from other drum programmes and use them with SD3. I have long thought myself quite expert with SD products, but
a year in and no sign of making full use of all the resources Toontrack packed into this production tool. I relegate myself back to an advanced intermediate user.

Just bumping the thread!

Honestly, I use it a often, but rarely touch the depth.

I enjoy the replacement feature a lot.

It sounds excellent.

And many of your questions are things I hadn’t even considered checking for.

I expect this is the case for many users.

Love the sound, havent used ANY of those things you listed

I use it as a writing tool with the long goal being that my drummer will like the tune and we'll record real drums. So I just grab whatever beat fits my riff and try to spend as little time as possible.

That being said, these quick vanilla grooves I assemble and mix with a template sound AMAZING, light years ahead of SD2

Love it. My daughter is the family drummer and I have her bashing away on a hybrid Roland kit (2 kits made into 1 large kit). Works great. Haven't scratched the surface with the features, just know it sounds amazing.

It’s a HUGE improvement over SD2 and one of the most drastic changes I’ve ever seen between software revisions.
Your specific questions are probably better answered on their forum from TT folks.

Toontrack has supplied my go-to drum instruments since Drumkit From Hell some 14 years ago. I still use drum VIs much the same way today: as sampled instruments (as opposed to compositional aids). Like all its predecessors, SD3 for me is just another virtual instrument, albeit with fancy features I may never use. I upgraded last year just for the additional kits and instruments, in particular the (excellent) brush kit.

In that capacity the product certainly doesn't disappoint. It's a great sampled instrument. It meets - and greatly exceeds - my needs. I have no interest in sequencing within the instrument, nor in canned MIDI patterns. Just old-school drum programming coupled with great samples and deep tonal flexibility.

The one exception is that I have used the drum replacement feature that was new in version 3, and it has worked wonderfully. I have other solutions that also work well, and I can't say that SD3's works better than those or is any easier to use. However, having it right there as part of the SD3 UI is handy.

Toontrack's generous upgrade pricing from SD2 is available until the end of 2018. I'm saving my pennies as it seems the upgrade is well worth the money.

On a side note, I'm really wishing that SD3 had a Linux compatible version.

Its much easier to use than BFD3 with the drop in groves on the bottom of the page. As I have the biggest respect for George Massenburg, I stick with his listed drums in Superior. Pearl, Premier and Yamaha is mostly what I use. I also think the drums sound better than the crisper BFD3

Things may have changed but, as I recall from a few years back, the TT forums were pretty quiet.

Ludwigs today. AA's new Veridian on the bus. Epic.

Yes! still using it daily here.

Tracker is great. Ive only had to use it 3 or 4 times but it worked well and was quick replacing (supplementing) kick, snare, and toms for my session. Tracker does the tempo mapping thing.. there are these bars that you move around to find the tempo (much like Ableton from what I remember).

As far as the overheads... I have never checked for this... I do know that George Massenburg recorded it and there is a video of him floating around on youtube talking about how important the center image in the overheads is... so im sure its great... Although I never had a problem with the SD2 library so ymmv... I will say that you can split any instrument out of any channel in SD3 and pan it however you like. I have done this with the ride cymbal before so that I could EQ it differently.

Im not sure about humanize.. I just set SD3 to have infinite layer limits and I have never noticed an issue with it sounding bad or machine gunish.

The features that blew me away are the new plugins in the mixer. They are awesome and I rarely feel the need to multi out anymore.

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

Tesla Coil:

It's nice to know that the tempo map thing works as I use a DAW, Reaper, that does not have an automatic tempo mapping feature.

Also, I watched that vid of George Mass and, you're right, he's taken great pains to get the kick and snare centred in the overhead image. In SD2, the snare is nowhere near the centre of the image. It never bothered me for production styles that rely heavily on close mics, but someone did mention that if you're trying to build a drum sound around the overhead mics, you might have some problems.

There are so many improvements over SD2 that I think I should start counting my pennies and take advantage of the upgrade pricing offer before it expires at the end of the year.

Like others, I love it, but cannot answer your questions. Also, like others, I've been a TT fan since DFH days. I've used SD3 with both Logic Drummer and playing it with a TD-25 kit. It was a stellar upgrade.

Tracker: This is why I purchased it. It is brilliant. I'm in love with it.

Stereo overheads: Skewed in some libraries still. I prefer it this way personally.

Tempo Mapping: Yes.

Humanize: Unknown, I did not known SD3. I don't use the humanize functions since I don't program on a grid.

Other: Tracker is amazing, the sound is amazing. The included effects are surprisingly excellent. It loads quickly.

I paid full price for sd3 and I'm very happy with the value. This is the first time I've felt that way about a drum library. BF3 was sufficient, but SD3 is brilliant.

I will add that I think the tape emulation plugin in S3 is the best I've heard. Unfortunately the standalone one available from Overloud isn't the same and doesn't sound as good to me. Seems like they've over complicated it. I'd LOVE for them to release the S3 tape plugin exactly how it is so I can use it elsewhere.

The Humanize function is not limited to only affecting playback on a grid or to loops. Utilising this major asset of SD3 enables you to maximise your experience both as a drum production tool and in Tracker. This feature enhances the function of the kit itself you have loaded up and that you are triggering via Tracker. Say you load a very dynamic snare with many different hard and several soft variations of a center or mid hit, increasing the amount of different velocity layers possible means your Tracker load will be even more precise/nuanced when converted to midi and then back to audio
Highly recommend you explore it, your already great natural sounding hits will sound infinitely more natural, particularly snare rides and f/toms.
Tracker is handy as isn't it?

Completely agree. If I do all my drum prod work in SD3 mixer, the tape Em is often the only plugin I'll have on the stereo out. The better I get with SD3, the less often I am multi out and just balancing the kit inside it's mixer with just a ST out and it sounds really great. Their Tape Emulation really enables this as far as I'm concerned.
Their hall verbs aren't bad either for shells send, very nice sounding when I use it.

I think that says a lot.

Compared to a general forum like here, of course it is quiet.

Scott, the resident TT forum guru has always answered my questions within 24 hours. That means great support via their forum, therefore no need for emails, support tickets, and the "please update your...." as the generic solution that fixes everything according to support.

As far as SD3, I have used Toontrack since the Superior Drumkit from Hell. I then purchased EZD, then EZD2 and many extensions. The upgrade price for DFH to SD2 was $50. The upgrade price from SD2 to SD3 was $200. My thoughts a year ago was that it was too expensive and Toontrack would most likely discount it by Black Friday. There was no BF discount. So I upgraded, and now I'm very impressed. George Massenburg doesn't work for peanuts. The improvements over SD2 are huge and IMO for what I do, worth the $200.

Also, be advised that there is a deadline to upgrade, and some people don't like deadlines.

Toontrack SD2 to SD3 strange upgrade policy - KVR Audio

Overall, after a year I'm very glad I upgraded.

Greg:

Thanks for linking to that KVR thread.

I must admit that I feel the same way as most of those folks, though maybe not to the same degree. The limited time offer on the update is one of the reasons I'm asking questions now as I'm exploring my options and trying to decide if I really need to upgrade. Of course, I'd love to upgrade, but, unfortunately, money is somewhat of an issue.

I was pretty sure there'd be no Black Friday bargain last year what with the product being so new but maybe this year....

You are welcome. I doubt there will be any BF discounts on EZD2 or SD3. But maybe discounts on bundles that include EZD2 or SD3. IMO, Toontrack has really pushed their non-drums products hard this past year without very much EZD2 or SD3 promotions. So my conclusion is their drum products are doing fine, but not so much the other stuff. This is why they can risk ending the SD2 to SD3 upgrade. I could be totally wrong! I hope I am actually.

If there are no discounts, you may wish to take advantage of a Guitar Center "Everything in store 15% off" type discount. In the past they have not excluded Toontrack from that.

New poster here, so forgive me if this is in the complete wrong place. Guys, I'm diggin' this software. It's killer in all regards, and is taking my projects to the next level. But there is one thing that is killing me, and that is the cymbal choke or "mute tail." I can't get it to sound less abrupt. Even in fast paced rock tracks, the mute tail is so quick, even the drummer commented on it. That's when you know it's bad.

So my question is this: how do I manipulate the cymbal choke in SD3? The sample itself is very natural in isolation, but comes off as a hard fade in the mix. Not sure if this is user error (probably is), or if there is a way to get that "grabbed" sound to ring out longer. End rant. Thanks!

Highlight the hats, and adjust the envelope on the right side?