And the resultant snare sounds 'tick tock' as it alternates between those 2 samples. V=105, you're basically getting just 2 snare samples for your money. So if, like me, you're generally working on simple rock / pop music with a back-beat and using a snare centred on e.g. But there is a cost.Īnd the cost is - for most pre-EZd2 expansions, there are only two (yes, just 2) different samples per velocity layer. This results in less sample variance, so your snare (and kick etc.) sound more consistent. There are 2 ways to fix this: a) compression / distortion or similar 'smoothing', or b) switch (in Superior Drummer) to 'Random' only sample selection, which means the samples are only selected from the programmed midi layer. The result is that your snare is rather variable in level and timbre, and fades into and out of the mix somewhat - much more so than a real drummer. The trouble is, the sample engine doesn't adjust properly for the different volumes, and even if it did the timbre of these different velocity hits is very different. I'm not sure where the breakpoints are in the sample layers, but working a little bit over V=100 as your central point, you get 'hard' hits of maximum velocity as well as softer 'gradient' hits. So, for example, with a back-beat snare programmed at a constant, say, V=105, you'll get V=105 hits but also some louder hits and some softer hits. The way the sample engine works in default mode is that it randomly pulls samples from the programmed midi velocity layer and layers '2 up and 2 down'. What this means is it's tough to 'build' the sound of the kit from the overheads and/or the room mics.Ģ. When I say 'not centred' the dynamic range (peak minus RMS level) can be wildly different as between the left and right hand channels, so a simple tweak of the balance control doesn't work. The kick and snare are generally not centred in either the overheads or the room mics. There are a several major problems with SD and EZd.ġ.

I hope this helps other readers - I just spent the best part of a year figuring the below out!

Ezdrummer vs superior drummer reddit