Session Drums - What's the Verdict?

[elxicano]

I have my abes library on another drive. If you do this, make sure you are not using a usb connection, since the transfer rate can be very slow. I use an eSata connection for the drive to my laptop, but a firewire connection will work too. Many drives offer multiple ways of connecting, and I wouldn't buy one unless it offered connectivity through usb/firewire/esata, just because it makes sense to remain flexible.

Now back to the discussion...

I have Addictive Drums and Session Drums for "real" sounding drums. I am also a former drummer of many years, so this is what I'm using to judge Session Drums.

Session Drums offers a great sound that is convincingly real sounding, more so than Addictive Drums... however you will still need to EQ and Compress the drums to get your ideal mix. 3rd party compression is suggested for this. EQ8 will work fine for this, but I still use some other 3rd party EQ out of habit.

Session Drums falls short in a major way... ease of use. I still use Addictive Drums to get started and then for many mixes Addictive Drums is still just the way to go, based on what I'm trying to accomplish in a track.

As mentioned before, there is not a demo feature to listen to each drum kit, and using the listen feature for the midi patterns is painfully slow. For this reason I don't usually look for a drum kit from session drums when I'm in that creative zone... trying to find the right session drums kit can kill that creative flow.

Creating your own drum kit is not problematic in any way. You just have to remember that when viewing the instrument library, when there is an arrow next to the name, it means that there are sub categories... this makes the difference between pulling in one cymbal, vs. 8 of them.

Basically, having session drums is an advantage when searching for the "right" sound, but it does require some work to make the sound exactly what you need. I do believe it is worth having installed, but I can't advise on how to make the most of that decision in terms of space and hard drives. I do not use Live to perform, but with my current configuration, I wouldn't suggest it to a live performer, but for home use, I have no problems and feel comfortable suggesting it to another "home" studio musician.

Hope this helps

[jamester]

Follow-up question:

Can you audition midi beats through the Session Drums in the Browser? Or will it still be that retarded sign wave? I think I know the answer, but figured I'd ask anyways...

ultra-nested drums have abysmal hierarchy navigation and so it is tortuous to adjust a particular voice

This is a big negative for me; cool as the Drum Racks concept is, all that hot "rack on rack" action can get far too complicated too quickly.

Personally I use Addictive Drums for my "real" drums.

[elxicano]

You can demo the midi tracks and it will play the actual drumkit that it is associated with... but it takes time to load and its not in sync with the global tempo, the way that audio loops are. I should also add that you need to make sure you don't click on ANYTHING else after you click to preview a midi file/drum kit. The playback will stop immediately if you do. ...not exactly a plus for usability.

True enough... drum racks is not the easiest thing get running if you're starting from scratch, and i wish they would do something about that because it doesn't need to be this complex. With that said, I do like the possibilities it offers, but it still could be made easer since I would think most people don't want to spend more time putting their kits together than playing them.

Again... I believe it is worth having, but maybe it shouldn't be your only drum vst. If space is an issue, the Addictive drums is your best bet because the entire program is only about 2gigs.

[jamester]

Thanks Elxicano, very informative post.

[Pasha]

I have Session Drums coupled with all three MIDI loops library from www.smartloops.com and I'm 100% happy.

- Best
- Pasha

[elxicano]

I have Session Drums coupled with all three MIDI loops library from www.smartloops.com and I'm 100% happy.

- Best
- Pasha

I had forgot all about smartloops... had written that down once before and then forgot about it. Just paid for the 3 Midi loops library... not bad price at all.

Any trouble getting the midi patterns right?

[Pasha]

I have Session Drums coupled with all three MIDI loops library from www.smartloops.com and I'm 100% happy.

- Best
- Pasha

I had forgot all about smartloops... had written that down once before and then forgot about it. Just paid for the 3 Midi loops library... not bad price at all.

Any trouble getting the midi patterns right?

No except when they use a wider set of toms for the drum fills. In that case it's easy with Session Drums to add the desired Tom from the library and tune it as it should be.
Of course percussion loops do not work because Session Drums does not offer a complete GM set but a Drums biased one. The widest Session Drum Set is Cold TightRoom Stick - the one that comes also with the EIC2. See if any notes are missing (flash on a blank pad) and you're just one drag n drop from extreme pleasure. Fill in the blanks, save your kit and enjoy.

- Best
- Pasha

[jamester]

Of course percussion loops do not work because Session Drums does not offer a complete GM set but a Drums biased one.

Slightly OT, but I do like how Groove Monkey makes midi loops tailored specifically for the respective drum vst's. For example, you can get them for either EZD or Addictive Drums mappings, in addition to GM.

I also have the SmartLoops midi, and have found they work for the most part with most of the drum solutions out there; even those which aren't strictly GM still are close enough that you can audition the loops and get an idea of what's going on...

[quandry]

this may not be helpful, but after seriously evaluating all of the software drum libraries/programs to use with my Roland TD-12 edrum kit, I ended up going with BFD2 over Live's session drums, and couldn't be happier with the deep featureset of BFD2. The range of options there is staggering, and the great thing is that you get a full-fledged drum mixing desk as part of BFD2, with groups, sidechains, the whole 9. In comparing the features of session drums vs. BFD2, BFD2 wins imho...

[marcoskohler]

Yeah but BFD2 Is like 400 dollars, Session Drums is much much more affordable I don't have either though :'[

[quandry]

true, but you get what you pay for. I personally feel that the overall package of sounds, the GUI/interface of BFD2, and especially the incredible mic options (two kick mics, three snare mics, overheads, and two sets of stereo room mics), and the incredible selection of drum kit pieces make it a better overall value, even at $400. The best thing is you can have 24+ tracks of drum mics all wrapped up inside of BFD2, so you don't have to blow that many tracks in Abelton, which starts to get a bit unmanagable on-screen (at least compared to BFD2, and certainly better with the group track action in Live . Anyhow, that's my two cents....it's worth doing the research and then deciding for yourself

[Jeff Brown]

If you're only worried about memory constraints, bear in mind that there are two chunks of the Session Drums: the stereo ones and the surround sound ones. The latter are much bigger; if you don't install those, you save a bunch of room. (I can't say how much, because it's on my home computer.)