First. What's your favourite Toontrack library and why?? Which one seems the most well done?

Second. Do you find that off the bat, Metal Foundry has quite a boxy sound to it compared with the other libraries?

I'll add that I own Avatar, obviously, Custom and Vintage and Metal Foundry.
C and V blows the other two away in my books.
How are the NY Vol 2 and Music City expansions??

I find the snares pretty underwhelming in MF. And I find Avatars kicks to be thin.

I like everything about C&V.

I also find it's the most realistic and most sympathetic to programming input.

What are your thoughts?
Please keep it to just Superior and the Toontrack libraries.

I tend to use C&V the most. But I really like the music city SDX. It is very very well recorded. It's got a lot of guts.

Basically for a big drum sound I use music city, for smaller I use C&V. I rarely use the avatar.

I recently bought roots. I haven't used it enough to really comment though. So far I am mixed.

I also use the Americana ezdrummer expansion in Superior 2. I really like it a lot.

I actually think there all good it depends on the context but if I had to choose 1 add on it'd be Evil Drums from Platinum Samples it's just absolutely stunning! ;-)
I wish they'd port more libraries for Superior it's really an amazing library.
btw did I say I like it? Come on Rail gives some more love for SD2.

Really like the Americana too for more laid back rock stuff it's great. Recently got the Twisted kit very cheap and it's great for more offbeat stuff, sounds great scattered through a track for percussive accents.

I have almost everything and I think overall Music City is the best sounding set. But it does depend on what you like. I'm digging Americana's softer side.
I use the percussion set a lot as well.
L.

Got to throw my hat in for Allaire. I love the sound of vintage Ludwig drums in a big room (Zeppelin!). To me, this set has the most "vibe" and is the one I can typically get the best sounding drums from if I'm programming the whole kit. Not always the greatest library when I use Superior as a drum replacement tool with an actual recorded kit since it can sound very "unmatched" to a modern drumkit recording to my ears. Still love it though.

FWIW, I own Avatar (obviously), NY Studios, Music City and Metal Foundry. Like them all for different things. Hit Factory being my least favorite if i had to pick one.

I've gotta go with C&V, Evil Drums, and the two that I don't own, but want(Music city and Classic). I am looking for natural, well-recorded drum sounds. I really like the character and small rooms of C&V. I probably would have bought classic if it was 24bit and had the options and specs. of an SDX. I would love to have some 4 mic kits from the same room/studio as the C&V kits. Also, I'd like some more kits tracked to tape, like Evil drums, which sound great, but I usually want small room sounds.

I like nashville. I think it sounds the most real
I use it for hard rock and metal mostly not even country or close to it

I have their metal lib but I only like the toms. The allair hitfacory and powerstation lack in the cymbals features they just don't sound real especially the hihats, they are awful

More nonsense from the anonymous hater known as RS.

Disregard his opinion on every subject.

What's your favourite Toontrack library and why?? - Metal Foundry. I like the rawness of the whole library. And it's way more versatile than the name suggests.

Which one seems the most well done? - I would say the Nashville (Music City) library sounds almost too good. I like it....I use it. But damn it almosts sounds too good.

Do you find that off the bat, Metal Foundry has quite a boxy sound to it compared with the other libraries? - Not me. It's definitely "raw" but I rally like that about the library.

nashville is the best one.........

I use MF for all the heavy metalstuff. My own Gretschkit made in C&V when it's more retropop/rock - and music city has exquisite hatsound.

Knowing how much you like the C&V pack, I would check out "The Classic" (also recorded by Peter Henderson and Chris Whitten, who worked on C&V together) and "Americana". Both are nice, realistic, unadorned kits. They sound like real kits played in real rooms and not overly EQd or bombastic.

I also have (and like) Evil Drums, but the toms are a bit too boomy for my taste. They just take up more sonic real estate than I typically want my toms to take up. But you may really dig that, and it may fit your aesthetic well.

I don't have Music City or The Roots, so I can't speak to those in any intelligent way, but if you like C&V, then I would start by looking at The Classic, Americana, and Evil Drums. I know the EZXes are like $40 this month, yeah? Unbelievable deal, IMO. Don't be scared by the 16-bit vs. 24-bit thing. They're drums. Transients. You won't notice they're 16-bit. They're recorded as 24-bit anyway, as far as I can tell.

My current favorite is the Metal Machine EZX. That thing is just the ticket for any hard rock, punk, powerpop, and of course metal. I can hardly believe how good that thing is for the price (especially if you can score it for under 60 bucks). For lighter rock stuff, Americana and the Classic pretty much cover that. I own Superior Drummer, but their EZX packs just keep getting better and I just end up using EZdrummer most of the time, and routing out to my DAW for additional tweaking.

My favorite SDX up till this point has been Metal Foundry, again good for all things rock, not just metal. But after trying Metal Machine, it really gets me to a place I always worked to get myself in Metal Foundry.

I'm very curious about Music City USA, but honestly, between the last few EZX packs, I'm finding it hard to really need/want any other drum libraries. I also own Steven Slate Drums 4.0 Platinum. Which, again, I haven't really touched since getting Metal Machine.

I have also owned NY Studios Vol 2, and Custom & Vintage. Though I wouldn't say either is bad by any means, I liked them, I ended up selling them. I just had too many drum libraries. More than anyone could possibly make use of. And again, Toontrack's EZX packs keep getting better and better.

X Drums are my favorite feature. I rarely stick to one sdx, but C&V is a usual starting point. The kiks from evil drums are sick. On some brighter pop, a snare from the hit factory might suffice. Cymbels from music city a lot. SD 2 is an awesome drum interface.

Where are the deals this month on the EZXs?

TH

I bought a couple ezdrummers libs on amazon.com really cheap. But for you Tom, the NI libraries abbey road series are definitely what you should look at, really good overall. The hihats need work but I trigger some joe kramer sample in tandem with the drums. The abbey road rooms just sound killer, better than the superior drummers stuff. The only usable snare drum from Superior series' is in the Nashville kit. There are 1 or 2 kick drums that are not bad but overall . With the exception of toms, the superior series drums were not tuned properly, they are all tuned way too high and the snares are border line automatic weaponry when you do fast rolls. Still not as bad as platinum samples though, those are really unnatural. The Superior kick drums need a little work. You have to shave off some low mid cardboard from 240 to like 400hz and also they need a little girth induced around 100hz to sound right. But not any worse than a real drum kit I guess

Hey thanks Robert...yeah I know what you mean. I use Superior ...just the basic set that comes with it...and sometimes it's just the ticket, often it's not. The bass drums....incredibly paper like and weak. Don't sound like anything on any record I have to cover for the karaoke and sound alike clients I have.
I use Slate drums too, and I like some of his kicks a lot, still not nuts about the cymbals and hats, or toms really. Snares and kicks from that library.

Will probably get the Music City SDX and then move on to the Abbey Road stuff. What I've heard sounds great, I've only delayed getting it because I have to cover so much "today" stuff I thought it might not work unless I was doing retro stuff. BUT...a lot today's stuff sounds retro so will probably help me anyway.

Thanks will check out Amazon...

TH

There were some $39 deals on EZX's recently. Sorry, can't remember where.
If you like C&V, I too would recommend The Classic (apologies for personal plug).
I really like Evil Drums too. It's been discontinued in SDX format, so if you can find a dealer with stock it's a good time to grab it before there are no more to be had.

It's a shame, I wish Platinum had been more successful porting their libraries to the Superior format, I love Evil and would have bought more of their delicious libraries if things had turned out differently.
:-(

If this is your experience, something is wrong with your monitors, your methods or your ears. This statement is complete and utter nonsense.

Seriously.

Especially since - and pls correct me if I'm wrong - Nashville is part of the EZ-series, not the SD series.

I use Allaire for big rock stuff and C&V for smaller stuff with bags of vibe. Have just used Metal Foundry for the Vistalite kit which worked great for the track...

Close to pulling trigger and buying this. I've got some folky/Americana projects coming up and need some great real sounding drums.

Is Superior Drummer the way to go? Was looking at EZ but it appears SD will play all the sample packs?

Music City USA is SD............

music city USA is an alias for Nashville , Tennessee
I think that's where they got the name from
They have a huge music scene there

what makes you say something like that?

I don't know what makes him say something like that. I'm not sure how productive it is. But I imagine he may have felt offended by the way you chose to frame your opinion as if it were fact regarding the usefulness (or lack thereof) of Superior Drummer.

It seems to me that it makes more sense to say, "I find the only snare drum I like in the Toontrack line to be snare x", rather than saying that snare x "is the only usable snare from Superior series". Especially when many people disagree with that statement.

I think it's the way you chose to express what is clearly your opinion that probably rankled Mike P. I'm not defending his comeback, but I imagine others may also be frustrated by the way you chose to express yourself.

I own every Toontrack SDX (save Music City) and every Toontrack EZX. I've used them in hundreds of tracks that are currently in use in film and television. And while every snare and every kick isn't suitable, due to stylistic reasons, for every song, to state that only ONE snare out of hundreds is usable is pure and utter nonsense.

How are you using Superior? Are you using presets or creating your own kits? Are you adjusting the bleed and do you tune the drums to your song or tune them in general? Are you processing within Superior using the Sonalksis plugins or using 3rd party in your DAW?

Personally, I remove all the bleeds from each kit, then put all the faders in the Mix windows at zero. I use the Phase switch on the Kick mics and Overheads, then dial in each kit to taste with tuning, mic bleed and envelopes. I group the tracks as I would a "Live" drum kit with Kick, Snare, Hats, Toms, Overheads and Room mics bussed to a group. From there, I apply any EQ and compression. Just as I would with a "Live" kit.

I've never once encountered "thin, papery" kick drums and snares. I've never had issues with something sounding "non-organic". Some of the kits, like The Classic and Evil Drums, couldn't sound more organic. They sound amazing and natural, IMO.

So once again, if you're having issues creating realistic and "organic" sounding kits, it's pilot error.

I know Sweetwater and AudioMIDI are both running the specials. Some others probably are, too.

yeah maybe it comes down to my lack of talent.

thanks for your help, Maybe I'll take a course at a community college or something in drum programming