Beware Of SD3 Smoothing

[monospace]

smoothingbox.png (7.67 KiB) Viewed 6038 times

Something I've been messing with the past couple of weeks: Smoothing inside Superior Drummer 3.
It's advertised as a feature that makes doing cymbal swells easier, and it does indeed work fine for that.
But you may not be aware that on many presets, even the default, it's enabled on snares and toms as well.
In those cases, it's a negative smoothing, meaning, your rolls get more pronounced.
And I suppose, with certain drum modules, this can be a good thing.
But in fact, it also seriously messes with your ghost notes.
Now if you're a hard hitter, this may not concern you.
Given how eDRUMin allows you to play with incredible dynamics, it's worthwhile investigating that feature to see how it affects the response from your triggers. It is, in fact, quite dramatic. I ended up turning it off and I feel I'm getting a much more natural response.

[monospace]

(I was going to post this in Tips & Tricks, but that subforum doesn't allow attachments. Feel free to move it there though.)

[Mylo]

Thanks for the tip. I’ll be looking into this.

[MWJT42]

smoothingbox.png

Something I've been messing with the past couple of weeks: Smoothing inside Superior Drummer 3.
It's advertised as a feature that makes doing cymbal swells easier, and it does indeed work fine for that.
But you may not be aware that on many presets, even the default, it's enabled on snares and toms as well.
In those cases, it's a negative smoothing, meaning, your rolls get more pronounced.
And I suppose, with certain drum modules, this can be a good thing.
But in fact, it also seriously messes with your ghost notes.
Now if you're a hard hitter, this may not concern you.
Given how eDRUMin allows you to play with incredible dynamics, it's worthwhile investigating that feature to see how it affects the response from your triggers. It is, in fact, quite dramatic. I ended up turning it off and I feel I'm getting a much more natural response.

Can you explain a little more why it helps with cymbal swells please? I don't really understand what the smoothing actually does.

[monospace]

from the SD3 manual:

Smoothing (previously known as Multiple Hits Emulation) ensures that the attack of the stick is appropriately blended in when repeatedly hitting a cymbal (as it is in real life when you strike a cymbal multiple times in a row).

The manual also claims that it is “Off” for drums by default, but that’s not true.

[monospace]

(Rob, I see this is now moved to Midi Expression” Tips & Tricks instead of eDrumIn.)