A snare that has the perfect amount of shimmer, the cymbals and rides sound like magic, mainly it's about the drummer and the groove. For me, it's usually a bass drum that has punch. After you get it in the mix it doesn't sound right. In how many major label recordings do you listen for the type of bass drum, snare, cymbals? It is possible to have a killer drum mix that detracts from the total tune. I think the main idea is to know what you want to do and have that workflow streamlined and not get caught up in too many details. If you don't think so then ask yourself what you will need to reach that level. You can probably do what you need to do with what you have already. My point being that deep drum editing isn't always necessary especially in basic rock/pop mixes. Others have used things I couldn't imagine would have yielded the kind of results they had. I have heard good convincing mixes done using the old drummer in Cakewalk. Some just want to build a serviceable drum track quickly and then move on to the fun stuff, whether that's playing your guitar or singing or programming synthesizers. Although I fall into that category, I realize that not everyone does. Bottom line is I'd say SD3 is for people who are really serious about their sequenced drums, who take their time tweaking sounds, and want no limitations. It has gobs of effects, many of which I've never used. It has a great drum-replacement feature that I've used only a handful of times. It has its own sequencer, but I've never used it.

I do not run it from an SSD, and it can take quite awhile to load. As noted above, SD3 is HUGE, by far the biggest sample library I have. SD3 has lots of expansions but they are more expensive than BFD's. SD3 is more configurable than anything else out there, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your style of usage (if you want to get up and running and sounding good fast with minimal effort, check out Steven Slate Drums). However, I don't automatically recommend it to everyone. I am a longtime Superior Drummer user, going all the way back to Drumkit from Hell, its distant ancestor. Not a BFD user here, but after watching others use it, BFD seems a little quicker and less fussy to set up and tweak to a good sound.

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