A guide for Superior Drummer 2.0

[Variant]

The point in 'multiout' feature is to send all the tracks in the Superior Drummer 2 to separate tracks in you DAW. After that... you have all the power to make ANYTHING, I mean ANYTHING to them. Activating the 'multiout' feature differs from what DAW you're using, but there are many guides to that, so I'm not typing it out.

Honestly, this is THE most important thing, IMHO, that one needs to do with S2.0. While transient designers, cutoffs, etc. can be applied in the Toontrack mixer, sub-bus your groups (kick, snare, toms, ride, crash, overheads, room) to your DAW, and handle them there, and even bus them down to more pertinent buses (like verb, and group compression) before going to the master.

 

[Leec]

Using X-drums:

First off, make sure you're looking at the Construct window in Superior. In the almost-top right corner you should see a a small dropdown menu with 'X-drum' written in it. Click this and choose New.
A kick drum should appear to the right of your kit. Hopefully there should be a blue glow around this new kick drum, but if not, right-click on it. This will allow you to change the drum, set its output, etc.

Ok, to the right of the new kickdrum you should see X-drum control window. The top line should say 'X-drum 1'. Beneath that is a drop down allowing you to choose the library you're getting your new X-drum from. In my case, I own many Toontrack products, so I can choose to get the X-drums from EZD, EZD DFH, DFHS, NY Avatar or TMF. So I'll go ahead and choose the Avatar library.

Beneath this is the Microphone Assignment button. This section allows you to specify which mics will pick up the new drum. I'd recommend leaving this for now. Come back to mess with it later if you feel like it, but it's not important to getting the X-drums working.

Next we see the Tools, Kick and Midi dropdowns. Kick is the most important, but here's a quick look at what the others do:

Tools allows you to change the beater type (if you're adding a new kick), stick type (if you're adding a new snare, cymbal or tom), and turn the snare wires on or off on the (if you've added a snare).
Midi gives you the option to trigger this new X-drum through its default key or secondary key notes. Don't really need to worry about this as we'll cover it in Mapping. Suffice to say, this dropdown gives you some quick options.

Now the Kick dropdown is where you get to choose what type of drum you're adding. Clicking it should show you every type of drum available in the library you chose. Try changing it from Kick to Snare. You'll notice the kick (the one with the blue glow) to the right of your kit now changes to a snare.
Ok, so no we've added a snare, we want to choose a particular snare. The snare with the blue glow will behave just like all the other kit parts in the construct window. You should see a little arrow on it that lists all the snares available in that library. Choose the one you want, and that's it for this bit. If you just wanted to add an extra kit piece, you've done it. You just need to assign it to an empty note. Just look through your drum map to find either an empty note or a duplicated note (there are usually several notes assigned to each articulation, so you should run out). In the bottom right corner should be the section labelled Instrument. The field Key should be empty. Just type in the note you want to assign this articulation to and hit Enter, and you're done.

Read on if you want to have multiple snares (or any drum for that matter) firing at once.

Mapping multiple drums to notes:

Ok, now we've added the type of X-drum we want, and we've chosen a specific snare. Now we want to layer that snare, so that when a normal snare hit occurs, both the main kit's snare and this new X-drum snare sound out. Click the Mapping tab near the top of S2.0.

First off, let's find out which note my main kit's 'center snare hit' is mapped to. To do this, right-click on the main snare. The keyboard diagram at the bottom will show you which notes are associated with the snare drum. On the far right should be a list of articulations for that drum (in my case, centre, edge, rimshot, sidestick, rim-only, muted, etc.). The currently selected articulation (the center hit) will be shown in orange, and the others in blue. The coloured keys on the keyboard diagram correspond to this. So I can now see that my center articulation on the snare is mapped to D1 on the keyboard.

Now I to get the main kit's center hit AND my new X-drum's center hit triggered by hitting D1. Right-click on your X-drum. On the far right in the list of articulations, using the left mouse button, grab the Center articulation and drag that onto D1 on the keyboard diagram. You'll now get a warning telling you that the note you selected is already assigned to another drum. It will give you three options: cancel, replace, join. Since we want to keep the original snare hit, we'll click 'join'.

And that's it! You've layered up two snare center hits on to one note. Go ahead and hit D1 on the keyboard diagram to hear the results. Clicking on the individual X-drum or main kit snare in the contruction window won't allow you to hear both together, so don't panic if that happens. To hear them both, you have to press D1 (either on the keyboard diagram, on your real MIDI keyboard if you're using one, or on D1 in the piano roll).

Whew! I think that just about covers it. I hope this makes sense. I've just started messing around with layering drums and I'm really enjoying it. I was considering buying SSD for the snares, but I think I'll get by quite nicely by layering up drums this way

I'll post another time and cover how to set it so that notes below a certain threshold come from one snare, and hits above a certain threshold come from another. But for now, this should get you started on layering up goodness.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Awesome... truly awesome!

No-one forgets to add a biiiiig + to Leecs reputation!

Thank you.

 

[bleed2510]

Hey, man. The kick sounds kind of flabby. I don't really know much about eq, but I usually boost some bass frequencies, and add a few db in the 8-10k range for a nice click. I also take out some mids, depending on the mix. Try recording some guitar parts, and even a bass part if you can, and you'll have a really good template to practice mixing.

One you do that, then set the eq to flat and boost one frequency at a time, and set it back to flat. Once you know what each frequency does to the sound, change two bands and see how it sounds. Continue this with more bands until you like the way it sounds

Yeah man. Will try it out soon . Appreciate the tip.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

I'd suggest to compress the overheads. The cymbals sound too far away.

 

[Kairos]

Yeah man. Will try it out soon . Appreciate the tip.

No problem. Also try what Kurkk said with the compression, the cymbals are at a good level, but they sound a bit distant. I would change the snare a bit, but that's personal preference. A fantastic plugin for snare is CamelPhat,CamelCrusher - Distortion, Compressor, Filter - Free VST plugin & Audio Unit, the free version is to the right of the page. It works great for me

 

[harmoniousjim]

thanks for this man! it really helped me as i just got superior and needed a starting point for mixing with it

 

[ShreddingDragon]

Thanks for the guide, Kurkku!

Something that has been bothering me for a good while:

1) What should I do to make the ride bell sound more prominent, louder, harder? I've tried moving the midi notes around, looking for a better sample, but there really aren't any in either NY Avatar nor Drumkit From Hell that I've found.

2) Any good hi-hat mixing tips? Something to make them less hissy and abrasive, and to have longer sustain on opened hits, like they naturally have. I happen to love the hat sound on the Liquid Tension Experiment albums, for example (Also, the ride is pretty good for my taste on those too)

 

[Leper]

*bump*

Any tips regarding ShreddingDragon's questions?

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Thanks for the guide, Kurkku!

Something that has been bothering me for a good while:

1) What should I do to make the ride bell sound more prominent, louder, harder? I've tried moving the midi notes around, looking for a better sample, but there really aren't any in either NY Avatar nor Drumkit From Hell that I've found.

2) Any good hi-hat mixing tips? Something to make them less hissy and abrasive, and to have longer sustain on opened hits, like they naturally have. I happen to love the hat sound on the Liquid Tension Experiment albums, for example (Also, the ride is pretty good for my taste on those too)

Oh yea I typed the answer for this someday, but for some reason it didn't get to the board...

1) Try Sabian HHX Dry Ride for loud and dry bell. I myself also pitched the bell just a little (0:00.5) to pop it up a little. Rest is just compression and remember that you can use the 12dB headroom in its entirety, the sound won't change from that. (I'm ofcourse speaking of the ride cymbal individual level meter) A little boost on the very high end of the overheads may have a huge impact on the sound.

2) Remember to use the "Open 4" or "Open 5" samples from the library.

I personally like the 13 inch hat the most as it has this tamed high-end you speak of. If you want LTE sound, you should use it, or the 14 inch one.

Don't be afraid of slamming hi-hats with compression. Use your ears. I'm no compression expert, but I've personally gotten best results with high amount of compressing. However, in DT or LTE the drums are not that compressed afterall, so you might want to be careful with that.

 

[Hzanco]

I've been tinkering with SD2 for a bit, and haven't yet found out how to create midi maps with a MIDI keyboard, or a virtual MIDI keyboard like the one that comes with Reaper.

Is it possible to create a midi map in SD2 or Reaper? Or do I have to use an external program (and what would that program be)? Either way, I'd really like to be able to record drum tracks by playing the keys on my computer keyboard.

Anyone who can help...

 

[in-pursuit]

you can make a midi map in reaper by selecting the track clicking the insert tab at the top of the screen and selecting "new midi item".

I have a question regarding the post on the previous page about triggering multiple kit articulations with a single midi note. I tried to change the trigger key of my snare center to the same as the rimshot but when I do it automatically changes it to a different key without asking me anything. Is there a way around this?

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

I've been tinkering with SD2 for a bit, and haven't yet found out how to create midi maps with a MIDI keyboard, or a virtual MIDI keyboard like the one that comes with Reaper.

Is it possible to create a midi map in SD2 or Reaper? Or do I have to use an external program (and what would that program be)? Either way, I'd really like to be able to record drum tracks by playing the keys on my computer keyboard.

Anyone who can help...

It's not about reaper, but about SD2. You can change your midi keys in SD2.0 so that you can play with a midi keyboard.

you can make a midi map in reaper by selecting the track clicking the insert tab at the top of the screen and selecting "new midi item".

I have a question regarding the post on the previous page about triggering multiple kit articulations with a single midi note. I tried to change the trigger key of my snare center to the same as the rimshot but when I do it automatically changes it to a different key without asking me anything. Is there a way around this?

I have not found a way to do this, I'm not sure if SD2.0 has this feature. I'm thinking that you could do this internally in your DAW by setting MIDI so, that you're playing two separate notes when you press one key. It's just up to DAW if that is possible or not.

 

[isispelican]

how do i send all the tracks in Superior Drummer to separate tracks in cubase 5? thanks

 

[fleshwoodsteel]

^ This is exactly what I'm researching now as well. Here's where I'm stuck:
1. I opened the VST Instrument panel and found the button (the open box looking icon just to the right of the "e" symbol) and armed every output available.
2. These "outputs" showed up in the Cubase session and in SD2.0
3. I selected the multiple-out in the routing from the mixer view
4. The drums all were sent to different outputs, and I could see them in the SD2.0 mixer view
5. I could not hear them, and could not figure out how to assign the "outs" in SD2.0 to the appropriate track in Cubase. For example, the kicks were routed to out1, as this is the normal stereo out that all the drums are routed to as a default, and I could still hear them, but none of the others.

I've spent 3 days trying to figure this out in the studio and online. Help!

 

[fps]

Read through this and couldn't help thinking "wow, so this is rock and roll now"

Still needs must, great info for when I shut myself up from all humans and try and create something totally by myself.

 

[niffnoff]

^ This is exactly what I'm researching now as well. Here's where I'm stuck:
1. I opened the VST Instrument panel and found the button (the open box looking icon just to the right of the "e" symbol) and armed every output available.
2. These "outputs" showed up in the Cubase session and in SD2.0
3. I selected the multiple-out in the routing from the mixer view
4. The drums all were sent to different outputs, and I could see them in the SD2.0 mixer view
5. I could not hear them, and could not figure out how to assign the "outs" in SD2.0 to the appropriate track in Cubase. For example, the kicks were routed to out1, as this is the normal stereo out that all the drums are routed to as a default, and I could still hear them, but none of the others.

I've spent 3 days trying to figure this out in the studio and online. Help!

You may of figured by now but in cubase if you go to "Devices" > Vst Programs, there is an icon like this [-> next to the name of the VST instrument activate all outputs. LE DUN!

 

[isispelican]

You may of figured by now but in cubase if you go to "Devices" > Vst Programs, there is an icon like this [-> next to the name of the VST instrument activate all outputs. LE DUN!

thanks so much!

 

[fleshwoodsteel]

I appreciate the help. This may not be the right answer, but what I did was to insert a MIDI track, copied and pasted the MIDI from the SD track, and then route the MIDI output to the now multiout SD track. Now each of the groups I assigned in SD and routed to the different outs actually play in those channels. That's a pretty crappy explanation, I know, but that's how I got it to work.

 

[USMarine75]

But now I won't have a reason for my music to suck... oh wait, nope, still do.