If you are in need of realistic drum samples (or want an amazing platform for your electronic sounds such in Electronic EZX which we used in the upcoming Toontrack Mixing Wars: Techno contest) I think Superior Drummer 2.0 is THE way to go.

The only thing is, I always thought it was a $300-400 sample set. It appears now that you can snag it for a measly $149! That's crazy!

Superior Drummer For $149

On top of that, a crossgrade from competitors gets you into Superior Drummer 2.0 for only $99!

Check out the crossgrade.

Brandon

We still have a few days left for an exciting contest that will definitely help you improve your metal mixing chops, give you more perspective of what goes into metal recording and production on the tracking side, and get feedback from us Gestapo Committee members here at Recording Review on specifically how to improve your mix.

All the while, you'll have a chance to win a mega package from Toontrack! The winner will be snagging Superior Drummer 2.0 , Drum Kit From Hell, and Metal Foundry.

Metal recording and mixing has a handful of specialized tactics (particularly on kick drum mixing) that most of genres don't have to deal with. By jumping in and going to town on a mix that all of the Gestapo Committee members have already got their faders on, we can help in ways that actually crush that of Bash This Recording, which WAS my go to method for improving the sound of your recordings.

When you download the big ol' zip file you'll get all drum tracks (exported from Metal Foundry), one bass DI, 5 guitar tracks, and a vocal track. So this contest is a great way to hone your metal mixing chops on guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. (Technically, they are all part of the same thing) but for beginners there can be huge value in breaking them up just a bit.

For those of you new to compressor and equalizer techniques, you'll be able find out what techniques are working for you and what mixing tactics aren't working. There couldn't be a better "how to mix" guide.

You'll also hear problems and flaws in my tracking that need to be sorted out at mix time. By seeing how the best sounding mixes turned out and asking those Recording Review members for help on specifically how they did it, you can acquire a ton of knowledge right off the bat. This is an opportunity that doesn't come around much so make sure you hop on it as soon as possible.

Head here for Rules, Downloads, and Prizes.

The last day to enter the contest is Sunday, Jan 3, 2010.

Also keep an eye out for Toontrack Mixing Wars: Country in January and Toontrack Mixing Wars: Techno in February.

If you have any questions or comments about Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal feel free to post on the forum or contact me personally.

Make sure to check out other entries in the Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal contest so you can see how others approached mixing the heavy metal song and you can gain perspective and ideas as to how to handle your own mix. In the contest category you'll see that I've included the MIDI files so you can run your kick, snares, toms through other drum samples. I've also included the DI guitar files so you can reamp the guitars or use your favorite guitar emulator plugin

Brandon

I've had a chance to play heavily with Toontrack's Metal Foundry the past few weeks so now let me tell if you this thing is really worth a damn.

Boring Background Info
Toontrack has been making robo real drum samples for years. They started with Drum Kit From Hell and have created various revolutionary products such as DFH Superior 1.0, EZ Drummer, and Superior Drummer 2.0. The latter is their flagship model and I think it's one of the best products I've ever touched in recording land. (Hell, I guess I should review it some year!)

bla bla bla

To cut to the chase, Metal Foundry is an expansion pack thingy for Superior Drummer 2.0. You've got to have Superior Drummer 2.0 to even think about using it. (Now is a GREAT time because the thing is priced somewhere in the ridiculously low ballpark. Check it out here.)

Installation and Authorization
I tossed the Metal Foundry DVD #1 into my D: drive, told it where I wanted to put the samples, and swapped DVDs every few minutes. It's so simple my mom would complain how easy it is and she still looks awkward using a mouse.

The authorization process worked perfectly the first time, too. I'd guess it took me 45 seconds to pull this off. (Don't tell anyone, but I hooked internet to my recording computer. Yes, I know this is scarier than a coke addiction. I live on the edge. What can I say?)

When a company can actually get their shit together on the installation and authorization side, I commend them. Seamless and trouble-free install and authorization is about as rare as living out those multiple simultaneous female fantasies all you dirty guys seem to have (and possibly even more satisfying). Let's just say that if I smoked, I'd need a cigarette after experiencing a process that normally reminds me of a bloody Ed Norton scene in American History X.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Reliability
The thing I like about Superior Drummer 2.0 is it loads samples FAST. I mean REALLY FAST! It runs about as reliably as you can get on a sampler. I have other drum sample gadgets. They usually work. Superior Drummer 2.0 always works. I found The Metal Foundry to be just as reliable.

I did notice I had a few Cubase shutdowns when I loaded up a robo RAM drum kit. However, I must have screwed up my RAM settings in Windows.

Control Panels > System > Advanced > Performance Options > Advanced > Memory Usage

When I went here and changed this to “System Cache” I had no problems.

I've got 4GB of RAM on a Quad Core Intel PC. (The best $400 I've ever spent on a computter). For those of you who are using a computer from back when the Iraq police action seemed like a good idea to conservatives, the cache button is a life saver. Basically, it only loads the samples that you use in the file. The downside is it doesn't load a sample until you play it, but I didn't find this to be all that bad of deal. Just don't forget that one stupid China cymbal at the end of the bridge because if you render without loading it, it will not exist.

Rating: 10 out of 10

The Sound
This gets interesting (and longwinded) but hear me out. I was working on the mix for Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal song, Bearing Teeth . Before the Toontrack bozos (in a good way, ) got me Metal Foundry I was using good ol' Superior Drummer 2.0. I personally feel that the stock samples in Superior Drummer 2.0 as badass for just about everything. I love the “scooped” drum sound with plenty of crack in the snare and attack in the kick. I feel this works for metal, country, and just about everything in between.

When tweaking the “pre-mix” of Bearing Teeth, I basically turned on Superior Drummer 2.0, added some beater on the kick drum and called it day. I MAY have used parallel compression on the kick and snare. Okay, I'm almost positive I did, but other than that, I didn't even think about it. I didn't have to.

I was excited when I first pulled up Metal Foundry because I was ready to leap into the next level. Being the kind of guy that I am I didn't bother saving hours by using the presets. I jumped in and started mixing the damn thing. In fact, I went ahead and rendered the wav files with full bleed and went to town. This was a mistake. The samples within Metal Foundry are unprocessed to my ears (this has been semi confirmed with hearsay). They are super smooth and most of you turn them on for the first time are going cuss in a way reminiscent of the first time your old Playboy mags turned up missing from between the mattress. (Why does EVERYONE think this is a good hiding spot? My kids will some day joke about everyone putting their naughty crap in C:/Misc/3255/ .) The unprocessed drums are NOT what you hear on your favorite metal records!

The Never-Heard-Real-Drums Crowd
Let me go ahead and pigeonhole you bastards who are going to get your panties in a wad over these samples (at first). There are many of you who've never had the joy of recording a real drummer and therefor you've never had the joy of pulling your hair out. You learn how to deal with the round thing smashers over time, but let's just say there is a WHOLE bunch of processing and mixing that needs to take place to turn a couple of room mics, overheads, kick, snare, and toms into what you hear on a Dragonforce record.

A huge part of the sound of real drums is what the drummer is giving you. For beginners, it is often difficult to tell if the “cheap” (natural) sound is caused by the drummer, the drums, the room, the gear or the lack of processing. The cool thing about Metal Foundry is it was done with world class drummers, playing world class drum kits, in a world class studio room. That pretty much narrows it down. You've got to mix these stupid things! In other words, you get to be creative. Let me rephrase that, if you skip the presets you HAVE to be creative. (Remember, this CAN be fun if you are nerdy enough!)

If a multi-stringed wooden thing is more your creative weapon of choice than a compressor or EQ this can be a bit daunting. In fact, with full bleed on (as you get with a real drum recording), I had a HARD time matching the sound I was hearing on Superior Drummer 2.0. In fact, I spent 15 hours mixing the damn song and didn't come up with one damn mix I liked. I was struggling.....and cussing.

Then it occurred to me. When it comes to the fake ass metal drums I like so much (Clayman from In Flames is a mega fun one) I gave up on getting this sound naturally a long time ago. When you crush your snare with compression and then EQ it to get robo crack and robo meat, you've effectively trashed out your hi-hat, your ride sounds like it was recorded with something Behringer wouldn't even sell, and your kick drum has more crappy boom than the garage band down the street. A gate helps, but it's not enough. You need a snare track with zero bleed if you want to get stupid with your processing (aka modern metal).

Enter the world of samples. You see, this is a bit confusing because Metal Foundry (and pretty much all Toontrack products) have designed their samples to sound real. In fact, I guess I'm bitching that if used in such a fashion, they can sound too real for my tastes. This is a hell of an achievement and it's nice to have the option of being too real, but that option can lead one to underestimate the giga powers of Metal Foundry. So if you want to rock out to killer, modern, and over the top drum sounds, turn off the bleed. It ain't gonna help you.

When I turned all (or most ) of the bleed crap off, Metal Foundry made sense. In fact, it came alive. It was like getting hit in the head with a frying pan. (In a good way!) It no longer took 15 hours to get something that sucked. In 5-10 minutes I had a pretty damn smashing drum sound that reacted well to extreme compression on both the drums and the 2bus. Impressive!

Non-Engineer Types
For you guys who just want palm mute and shred, just click on one of the presets. This is where Toontrack is WAY ahead of the game. By including a full blown mixer with all necessary plugins they've been able to include mixing presets that pretty much sound unbelievably good, mega over the top, and still natural all at the same time. This is awesome for a few reasons. First off, if you aren't more familiar with compressors than you are your girlfriend's body (for the 2% of you metal 'tards who have girlfriends ) , you would have your work cut out for you. Now you can click twice, wait 30 seconds and have drum sounds that used to cost $5k per day and required a non-idiot drummer (never met one).

The thing I LOVE about these presets is you can reverse engineer what Mr. Mix It was up to. It's pretty damn awesome. The value of this for us engineer nerd types (with 3% girlfriend's and basically infinite one-time "encounters") is out standing. This lesson alone is worth the price of admission.

The more I play with Metal Foundry, the more I see why they elected to not to process the samples right off the bat. If you take Pantera, In Flames, Slipknot, and Metallica you end up with four wildly different drum sounds. It just makes sense to let the user decide what they want and then give them preset mixing options to more or less nail these sounds instantly. I guess you could make the argument that Fleetwood Mac, Toby Keith, and Joan Osborne also require infinitely different drum sounds (when speaking of Superior Drummer 2.0) but I'm not going there.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Conclusion
The Metal Foundry is bad ass. Superior Drummer 2.0 is amazing. The two of them together makes you feel like you can do anything (not to mention the other Toontrack expansions I'll be writing reviews for). While Superior Drummer 2.0 is pretty damn versatile, it's not so easy to dial in such a broad range of metal drum sounds. With Metal Foundry they've really taken a hard ass look at metal drums and given you a pallet which few of us are ever going to outgrow. When you factor in the mixing presets and the ability to tweak those mixes or to start with mixes from scratch, the flexibility of this thing is stupid. Skip three or four dates with Rosie Palmer and buy it!

Rating: 10 out of 10. Home Run!

P.S. If you ever have to deal with the Toontrack guys, you'll see that most of them have Viking names. That's an automatic 10 point bonus right off the bat.

The drums sound outstanding right out of the box, the room sounds are incredible, and the system is so damn flexible that pretty much every genre is covered. One thing I love about Superior Drummer 2.0 is the fact that it's extremely reliable. It doesn't suffer near the hiccups of other sample drum libraries do. It loads RAM incredibly quickly and I've found the included MIDI loops to be way more useful than I had ever expected.

In fact, I really can't think of anything negative to say about Superior Drummer 2.0. (Something I'm usually exceptionally skilled at.) The Toontrack guys got it right.

And now they are have Superior Drummer 2.0 on a ROBO sale. If you've been tempted to snag Superior Drummer in the past, it's STUPID cheap right now. Check it out!

The Metal Foundry SDX™ is an all-new recording with Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake, featuring seven massive drum kits, spanning 300,000 sound files of raw, single hit drum recordings in the vein of Drumkit From Hell and dfh Superior, covering Hard Rock to Metal, from the early Blues tinged sound of the late 60s to the fragmentation of today's music, from Power through Thrash, Death and Progressive Metal.

The Metal Foundry SDX™ celebrates the Toontrack® Music Hard Rock and Heavy Metal legacy of the first Drumkit From Hell, on which the company has built its following. This in turn has spawned such groundbreaking products as dfh Superior, EZdrummer® and Superior Drummer® 2.0.

The Metal Foundry SDX™ was recorded and produced at Atlantis Studios in December 2008 by the original Drumkit From Hell recording team, Mattias Eklund (Toontrack® Music), Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah), Daniel Bergstrand (Dug Out Studios) and Tomas Haake (Meshuggah).

The Metal Foundry SDX™ features presets by:
Devin Townsend (Devin Townsend, Strapping Young Lad, Steve Vai)
Daniel Bergstrand from Dug Out Studio (Meshuggah, In Flames, Dark Funeral, Behemoth)
Pelle Gunnerfeldt from Gröndahl Studio (The Hives, Moneybrother, Fireside, The International Noise Conspiracy)
Pelle Henricsson, Eskil Lövstrand and Magnus Lindberg from Tonteknik Studio (Refused, Meshuggah, Cult Of Luna, Khoma, Hell Is For Heroes)
Mattias Eklund from Toontrack (Nocturnal Rites, Naglfar, Guillotine, Galneryus, Lambretta)
Jocke Skog (Clawfinger)
Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah)

The Metal Foundry SDX™ features custom MIDI by:
Gene Hoglan (Dark Angel, Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsend, Testament)
Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork, Warrel Dane, Scarve, Aborted)

The Metal Foundry SDX will be available world wide
July 1st 2009.

You follow the standards and rules as stated in Contest Shootout Rules.

RecordingReview.com members vote on their favorite shootouts. The highest rated shootout when the contest is over will win a copy of Superior Drummer 2.0.

The top 3 runners up will receive a copy of SPL Transient Designer plugin.

Make sure you read the rules before entering because I have fairly strict guidelines in order to ensure make this contest as effective as possible.

If you have any questions just ask on the Contest Shootout Rules thread.

Brandon

Then along comes Kitcore. Kitcore isn't really intended to be as comprehensive as Superior Drummer 2.0 and it's price reflects it's simplicity ($99 @ Musicians Friend ). How does Kitcore, costing a fraction of the price, stack up?

Installation
The install for Kitcore went extremely well. It was as simple as clicking on their installer, choosing a custom location for the samples, and off we were. The install went perfectly.

Ease Of Use
Like most of you, I don't consult the manual until I feel a real need to. While I'm hardcore about pushing beginners to utilize the manuals for their recording software, everything was so simple in Kitcore that I didn't ever feel the need top open the manual while using it. Since I'm reviewing Kitcore I decided to take a look and I have to admit that I really didn't learn anything new. Of course, I am very familiar with my own recording software, MIDI, and several other drum sample packages.

Using Kitcore was simple. You load up a drum kit. If you want to use a loop, you click on a loop. You hit the “Play” button to hear what that loop sounds like. If you like it, you drag it into your recording software making sure to route the output of your MIDI track to Kitcore. Done. It really was that easy! Kitcore automatically adjusted to the tempo with my recording software, so that made life easy too.

Big Name Loops
Kitcore comes with loops played by drummers that I knew the name of and I don't know too many names of drummers. I was given access to a few expansion packs and being the kind of guy I am, I installed them all at once. So I really can't say for sure what comes in the basic package and what doesn't. Regardless, it was cool knowing that I was listening to high energy tracks by rock drummers like Matt Sorum, Matt Cameron, and John Tempesta. There were other dudes in there that I've heard of as well.

Then again, any idiot can get permission to use somebody's name. Fortunately, even though I'm not a big loop guy I found these drum loops to be highly usable. Scratch that. They were FUN to use! There were zillions of loops. I don't like trying out 10,000,000,000 loops and never actually achieving anything. However, I found these loops to be a great way to stimulate creativity. The cool part is all I had to do what drag them into Cubase and I could manipulate them, if I so choose (which I didn't). I could even run the loops to other drum samples if I chose to.

While I could program loops if I so choose, it was nice already having the groove already figured out. I didn't have to worry about pushing or pulling the snare and all the boring busy work that comes with making MIDI drums sound natural.

I think they did a great job selecting the loops / performances. You had your basic kick, snare, kick, snare (which I naturally gravitate towards) and there were loops where I said “What the hell is this???”. There were plenty of loops in between.

Routing
While Kitcore does not deal with bleed in any way and it doesn't have a fancy mixer like Superior Drummer 2.0, it does allow you to route each drum to it's own output. This is great because it allows processing of individual tracks within Cubase which I'd be lost without. So for the beginner, this may be preferred. If you don't want to do deal with all sorts of crazy mixing techniques to squeeze sounds out of samples, don't. Just use Kitcore.

The Sounds

What I like about Kitcore is it sounds big in that big-without-much-ambiance kind of way. The Kitcore tracks sound like they would chew up a big spectrum in a mix which I would expect would allow them to cut through a dense mix with ease. They don't sound overly hi-fi or overly pretty, but they sound good in a mix. I've heard people complain that Superior Drummer 2.0 is hard to get right in a mix. I can't say that I've ever had that problem. I think it's more of an issue that Superior Drummer 2.0 is meant to be hi-fi mid scooped right off the bat while Kitcore is meant to be chunky. I believe that some guys will prefer the sound of Kitcore.

I found that Kitcore had a meat and potatoes kind of sound to it when I first fired it up. It was good meat and good potatoes, but it wasn't anything too flashy. The more tracks I added to Kitcore, the more I liked it. I don't think I would be happy if this was my only drum sampler simply because I like the mid-scooped big room sound way too much. However, not everyone is into that sound nearly as much as I am. I can say that since I already have Superior Drummer 2.0 and Steven Slate drums, the Kitcore sounds are a VERY welcome addition that would be get their fair share of us.

In terms of tone, the kicks and snares remind me more of what I often hear with the BFD2 stuff. The BFD2 stuff has a big-without-ambiance kind of sound in it's midrange for its kicks, snares, and toms. The BFD2 stuff is known for its outstandingly pretty sounding cymbals which I don't think that Kitcore quite matches, but the vibe I get is the overall sound of Kitcore was intended to be more in line wtih the BFD2 stuff. Not bad for 1/4 the price!

I did find that some drums did have plenty of ambiance on them. The Matt Sorum Kit had a gigantic sounding snare that would work very well in a Guns N Roses style tune. The ambiance didn't strike me as being as “rich” or natural as what I'm used to with Superior Drummer 2.0, but regardless of how it was achieved I could see it getting the job done for sure.

I get the vibe (and my experience shows this) that Kitcore was designed to work within a mix. The drums were tracked to sound great within the context of a mix and aren't quite as impressive when you hear just the drums. In the end, the sound of the drums in the mix is the only thing that matters, so I'm not complaining. Job well done!

Sound Examples
Here are few little pieces of ruckus I threw together using Kitcore.

Acrylic Drums - Basic Rock HOHH Groove
I used a bit of SPL's Transient Designer to increase sustain on the snare. I applied basic 2bus processing of compression and a bit of high shelf followed by a Waves L2 brickwall limiter
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/004.mp3]

John Tempesta 007 Drums - John Tempesta JT Brx Groove
I used a URS 1980 Compressor 0.1ms attack, 76ms release, 10:1 ration, 12dB or reduction max as parallel compression for the kick and snare followed by the usual 2bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/007.mp3]

Matt Cameron MC Rock 01 BOR Rd 02
No drum processing, just the usual drum bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/011.mp3]

Conclusion
For $99, Kitcore gives you a ton of drum sounds and a ton of loops that can get you going in no time. The program installed perfectly and was super simple to use. While the sounds are a bit drier than I generally prefer they worked extremely well in a mix. I could see myself layering the snare from Kitcore with my other sample libraries for more midrange chunk.

I highly recommend anyone in the market, for a low-cost, good sounding drum sample package with loops to check out Kitcore.

Users who aren't so experienced at MIDI Sequencing and drum programming will love the loops!

In the default setup, Superior Drummer 2.0 actually comes with it's own mixing software with EQ, compression, transient designer, and a handful of other things. All of these combine within Superior 2.0 and are ran into a single stereo track within Cubase, but can be routed to individual inputs in your recording software.

At first I was a bit concerned that this mixer wouldn't do what I wanted. I thought I would be stuck with so-so plugins, less control, and basically be less happy than with the methods used on DFH Superior 1.0 where each drum track was routed to an individual track in Cubase.

The Plugins Are Great
First I must say that I've been very happy with the EQ, compression, and other effects built into the mixer. The way that Superior Drummer 2.0 tracked and the way the busses are setup in the mixer, the possibilities are enormous.

Actually Usable Presets
I've not been shy about my disdain for presets. Presets can take the attention away from tweaking to find the sound to scrolling through endless menus. Presets can take the emphasis away from listening and put you in some dumbed down state.

In DFH Superior 1.0, I have to admit that I seldom thought the stock sound was exactly what a given song called for. In fact, it only happened a few times. I was always going for something else. It takes a while to play with EQ, compression, levels, etc to squeeze new sounds out of drums. It was very possible to do with took quite a bit of time. This was time I did not have when I wanted to create. Superior Drummer 2.0 has solved all that.

The new mixer has allowed Toontrack to create drum samples that are very natural and neutral if you want them to be or very processed. The cool part is they can do the processing for you if you choose to use their available presets. In more primitive sample libraries, you were stuck with either natural sounds or the processed sounds in the library. If these processed sounds weren't ideal for the song, you had to compromise.

Take A Listen
Here's the default kit in Superior Drummer 2.0 (which sounds GREAT!) where I've went through and simply selected a mixer preset. It needs to be said that all I've done is used different mixer presets and nothing else. The raw audio from the triggered samples is exactly the same. You still have numerous options with the drum kit (different kicks, snares, toms, cymbals, etc). Of course, no one says you can't tweak. I like the idea of selecting “X” preset that gives me very close to the sound I'm looking for and then tweaking from there.

Check out this sound clip on the Home Recording forum Superior Drummer 2.0 Mixer Soundclips.

Educational Benefits Of These Mixer Presets
The beginning dude in the world of audio engineering may not be comfortable with parallel compression and various advanced mixing techniques. That person will be very happy with the mixer presets in Superior Drummer 2.0. I think it's cool that when the person is willing to dig a little deeper, they can see exactly what the Toontrack engineers came up with to get a sound this way or that way. “How did they add so much attack and crack to X sound”. Now you can simply solo individual busses until you find the bus with the tremendous attack. Take a look at what they did and you instantly learn a huge audio engineering lesson.

The guys had Toontrack have taken care of the big room sounds and just about everything else I would want in a drum sample package. The video from the NAMM show looked very exciting! It's possible that this may even be the very last drum sample package I need to buy. (Yeah right!)

Upgrades
While Superior Drummer 2.0 costs $350, an upgrade from DFH Superior only cost me a $130. An upgrade from EZ Drummer costs $250. With the low price of the upgrade there is no way I could have waited. I had to jump on this immediately.