Anyone use Session Drummer 2 ?

[lasagne]

Hey

I'm just dabbling back in home recording after a long time out. I don't know if I'll stick at it so I don't want to spend bundles of cash just yet. I'm torn between buying EZ Drummer which is only about £90 here in the UK or taking a punt on Session Drummer 2 which is available for £10 at the moment.

I've used EZ Drummer in the past and liked it, but I was just wondering if any of you have used Session Drummer 2 and could give me a heads up on it.

Thanks

[the all new rob]

I just grabbed the download, so I've been a SD2 user for all of about 24 hours. What did you want to know? The download page describes it pretty accurately. You get a few dozen "progs" that are combinations of kits and patterns. There's maybe 8 groups of progs that are sort of organized around styles, like swing/shuffle/rock. You can use the kits without the patterns if you have your own midi, you can use the midi patterns with your own kits, you can load the wavs into your own sampler, kinda whatever you prefer. I personally didn't find the patterns hugely useful. I wouldn't say they suck, but I prefer to record my own parts.

One weird thing is that there are these 8 buttons on the UI that trigger different patterns, so you can load up a prog and and get 2-3 groove patterns that are fairly long loops, and a few fills that are fairly short ones. I haven't found a good way to automate those buttons, can't find them in the control lists.

Worth the ten bucks for sure. Perhaps not worth a lot more. I haven't used it long enough to really give opinions about the sound--you can hear demos on the product description page.

[lasagne]

Thanks for that. I listened to the demos, but they didn't sound too good - although admittedly that's on my laptop speakers.

I remember EZ Drummer to be really easy and the sounds were pretty good, and easy to manipulate. I don't want to spend ages learning a new program - I've only just downloaded Reaper and that's a bit of a learning curve for me.

I know in EZ Drummer you can just drag and drop the midi samples into the program and they're easy to mess around with in the editor. I suppose I'm hoping that Session Drummer is just as easy and the sounds are just as good.

[awol9000]

Originally Posted by the all new rob

I haven't found a good way to automate those buttons, can't find them in the control lists.

"The following table outlines the MIDI note number assignments of the Pattern Pads. Pattern Pad / MIDI Note Numbers
Stop playback - 24
A 27 (C2)
B 28 (D2)
C 29 (E2)
D 30 (F2)
E 31 (G2)
F 32 (A2)
G 33 (F#2)
H 34 (G#2) "

[jamieskeen]

If you can find the free download of the GSCW drums and map them for session drummer do it. It sounds way better than any of the kits that come with SD2. For 10 bucks its not a bad buy IMO. But take a few hours and build some custom kits with free samples from around the web. I can send you the sfz files and the .kit file for SD2. Send a PM if you want.

[lasagne]

Thanks for the offer, but I've got a feeling that I'd wind up throwing my pc out of the window. I wouldn't know where to start with mapping and loading kits and all the other things that people talk about !

I really need drums that are reasonably realistic sounding and very simple to use. EZ Drummer suited me well before - I was just hoping that Session Drummer 2 would be just as easy and realistic sounding, but for a very low cost.

[lasagne]

jamieskeen - I've sent you a pm