The Grooves tab lets you access SD3’s MIDI drum patterns, filtered by genre (for example, Metal), then playing style (Blastbeat), type (Beat), signature (4/4), and the more mysterious Power Hand (Hi-Hat Open) – which refers to the dominant/leading instrument in the groove.

SD3 supports Surround in either 5.1 or 11.1, but if you’re not planning to use Surround, you can save download time and disk space by not installing the separate Surround content, which comes to around 94GB, and you can employ the Surround channels as extra stereo-ambience channels. At the right are controls to edit the currently selected instrument, and at the bottom are macro controls, the MIDI editor, and the Song Creator.įor each instrument, you can take mic bleed from the rest of the kit, or one specific source, even if the track is muted.

SD3’s interface is logically laid out, the centre occupied by a graphic of the kit, where each instrument animates when triggered via MIDI or mouse click. There’s no need to drag the library over to clog up your computer, it runs fine off the SSD – this convenience meant I could do much of the review on a humble MacBook Air.

SD3 is available as a download, but if the download size scares you, for an additional €189, Toontrack ships an SSD with the library pre-installed, which is how it arrived here for review. Beyond the kits themselves, SD3 features a built-in MIDI editor, MIDI beats ready to use in the form of ‘grooves’, a full-featured mixer with effects, macro controls, and audio-to-MIDI conversion. The kits are from Gretsch, Ayotte, Pearl, Yamaha, and Premier, and the core library includes 230GB of 44.1kHz/24-bit samples, with an additional 350 or so drum-machine sounds. It’s built around recordings of seven acoustic kits recorded at Galaxy Studios in Belgium (“the most quiet recording space of this size in the world”), by renowned engineer George Massenburg. SD3 runs standalone, or as an AU/VST/AAX plug-in.

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