But Superior Drummer simply has that extra “something” that makes their kit so vivid and snappy. If you are a good producer, skilled in drum programming, then you can get excellent, realistic-sounding results with all the brand-name packs, with almost everything else being a matter of taste. All the brand-name companies offer top-notch drum samples, but doing this part of the job always starts at the recording stage where you have “drummers” or you have “Drummers,” then comes everything else like natural ambiance, good-quality microphones, a good recording engineer and so on. Producing realistic sounds is merely a matter of input quality. I’ve noticed that all other packs sound very realistic, but Superior Drummer has that “I’m happy that I’m drumming” vivid feeling which I presume is a consequence of a good programming, making all velocity curves fit right with the velocity-layered rank of drum hits for every separate part of the kit. The band is usually as good as the drummer is good.

I presume it may be merely a matter of taste, but the truth is that Superior Drummer somehow sounds a bit more snappy, so maybe that’s the reason why they sit so well in a mix. I can’t tell much about those other packs as I’ve only listened to demo clips for all of those and read various manuals and explanations. What is so special that most of the people on the net advise Superior Drummer as the best real-drum substitute? After all, we all know that there are a few big competitors out there: FXpansion BFD 3, Addictive drums, Steven Slate drums and probably even more of them. So, one “Dear Sir/Madam” letter later, I’ve got my Superior Drummer packed in a neat blue box.

Five minutes later I got a winner mentioned on a few of the various forums: Superior Drummer 2,3. You know the procedure: “best vst sampled drum.” Or I wrote “real” instead of “sampled,” I can’t remember precisely.

Some time ago I needed real drums for one of my projects, and I simply googled what should fit me the best. Our reviewer thinks that Superior Drummer 2.3 has that “I’m happy that I’m drumming” vivid feeling and that Toontrack’s offering has that “something extra” that gives it an edge.

Addictive drums vs superior drummer 2