I’ve been playing guitar since the age of 7, but song production is something i only began to pursue when i was in college and Toontrack drums have been with me since that point.
I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to record live acoustic drums on many occasions and this has given me a great knowledge and understanding of the importance of microphone placement, drum tuning and the standard of the drummer. Unfortunately, as a home studio owner i don’t always have the facility to record real drums and neither do some of the clients I work with, but there was no reason for this to hinder my creativity and stop me releasing high quality mixes.
Enter Toontrack drums. I started off with EZ Drummer (Pop/Rock) with multiple choices on snare, kick, toms, hi hat, two crash cymbals and a ride cymbal. It was great to have such high quality sounding samples and be able to program them into a piano-roll or play them from a midi controller. This improved my productivity and also gave me a massive confidence boost when writing and producing songs because i knew i didn’t have to worry about the sound of the drums.
It wasn’t long before i upgraded to Superior Drummer 2.0 and from that point on, i have never looked back.
It was quite overwhelming at first because the amount of choice on the drums and cymbals is incredible and that’s before even looking at the configuration options in the built-in mixer. I’d like to mention that i have used this software from different angles – choosing drums, tweaking sounds and adding layers and sticking with a preset and simply programming drum patterns for a song. Spending time sculpting the drum sound was time well spent because I got to know the software, how to add layers (X-Drums), how to use the tune dial, how to adjust the ADSR, how to adjust the bleed on individual tracks and how to use the velocities to trigger different samples at different numeric values. Equally, time spent programming drum patterns to create a song was time well spent because I developed my ability to compose and nothing has improved this more than simply writing songs.
I spent a couple of weeks experimenting with Superior Drummer 2.0 before i started work on another song because i wanted to learn the software and create my own preset so that i could produce my own songs with ‘mix ready’ drums. Once i had this, my productivity increased to a level that i did not expect because i was able to focus on composing without leaving my studio and i was able to listen to a mix by the end of a session. Aside from programmed drums being a great convenience, it always gave me a sound that i could be proud of because i knew i could put out a mix without people questioning the quality of the drumming or the sound.
I’m not an official endorser of Toontrack but, i can’t speak highly enough of them because their products have given me a palette of endless high quality drums to chose from, all on a platform that encourages productivity and creativity, not to mention the inspiration it gives me when i’m starting something new.
If you haven’t used Toontrack software before or you are currently making up your mind, I strongly suggest you invest in either EZ Drummer 2 or Superior Drummer 2.0. If you are a home studio owner and a composer, Toontrack products are simply the best value in terms of the amount of drums you get for your money. As well as this, take into consideration the experience of the engineers that recorded all the samples using the highest quality microphones, preamps and mixing consoles all in some of the greatest sounding live rooms in the recording studio world. I can’t personally put a price on any of that.
Even if you aren’t interested in all of the drums sounds that are available, it could still be an invaluable tool in your home studio because it gives you a drum kit ready to go immediately in your DAW. It’s simply one less thing to worry about and you can just focus on doing what you love, creating music.
Overall, Toontrack have been one of the greatest benefits to me as a home studio owner and artist because they have given me quality drum sounds with a user friendly interface and endless configurability options enabling me to make music in the height of creativity. They also enable me to offer the same standards to clients that are also limited with their drum writing or recording facilities.
If you haven’t already done so, check them out at www.toontrack.com/drums
If you’re interested in editing, mixing or mastering services, head over to www.jwaudioproductions.co.uk and get in touch via the contact page.
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