In Summary

Stories SDX is an expansion pack for Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3. Recorded at Power Station, New England by multi-award-winning producer/engineer/mixer Frank Filipetti, the expansion features six kits sampled with sticks plus rods and mallets on one. A full percussion set and new MIDI for all instruments rounds up this latest SDX.

Going Deeper

What Is SDX?

Most who are familiar with drum VIs will be familiar with Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3 (SD3). This virtual instrument expands upon the company’s EZdrummer 3 in several ways, although the quality of the sounds between the two can be comparable. SD3’s expanded mixing functions, sample replacement chops, and immersive-ready sounds are some of the things that take Toontrack’s drum VI range further.

On top of the sounds and MIDI that come with SD3, Toontrack also offers a number of expansion packs for SD3 known as SDX. These add to the core sounds with extra genre-specific kits and expanded MIDI with extra beats, licks, tricks, and fills.

Toontrack Stories SDX Overview

With a career spanning five decades, Frank Filipetti’s recording credits cover everything from platinum-selling 80’s anthems to music for both stage and screen blockbusters. Providing rhythmic foundations on which to build the narrative of the song is Stories SDX. Recorded in the US at the legendary Power Station studio, six drum kits appear in a choice of spaces to expand the sounds from composers wielding Superior Drummer 3. Unlike some other SDX’s, alternative tools such as rods and mallets are available on some kits, also featuring other real-world options such as snares on or off.

Toontrack Stories SDX Features

• Six kits and a comprehensive collection of percussion instruments.

• Recorded at Power Station New England by multi-award-winning producer/engineer/mixer Frank Filipetti.

• Drum and tuning technician: Artie Smith.

• Three different ambiences (main room and two isolation booths).

• All kits/percussion captured with an additional five room microphones for mixing in stereo up to 5.0 surround.

• One of the included kits sampled with both drumsticks (wires on/off) as well as rods and mallets.

• A broad selection of mix-ready presets.

• Includes MIDI grooves and patterns for the drum kits, additional tools and percussion.

Toontrack Stories SDX Sound

Expert Panel - Hit or Miss?

In every Expert review we ask three of our team of contributors to give their first impressions of the product. We ask them to give the product a hit or miss, based on factors such as originality, innovation, usefulness, quality and value for money. For each hit the products gets an Expert Award. One hit and it gets our bronze award, two hits gets silver and for a hit from all three of the panel it gets a coveted gold award. Of course if there’s three misses, there’s no award.

Ronan MacDonald On Toontrack Stories SDX

Based on six beautifully recorded kits, representing every decade of Frank Filipetti’s illustrious career from the ’80s onwards, as well as the ’60s and ’30s, plus a sizeable array of additional kicks and snares, Stories SDX provides the pop, rock or soundtrack producer with a spectacularly colourful diversity of drum and cymbal sounds, full kit mixes and MIDI grooves.

Steeped in the highly controlled ambiences of The Power Station’s historic recording spaces, the multisampled drums themselves can only have benefited from the involvement of the revered Artie Smith, drum tech for a who’s-who of drumming legends including Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro, Ginger Baker and Tony Williams. While the DW (with Slingerland snare) and Gretsch (tight and funky!) kits are my favourites, every one has its own distinct character, and all are hugely enjoyable and productive to program and play. Filipetti’s extensive experience with Broadway original cast albums comes to the fore, too, not only in the shape of the fabulous ’30s Slingerland kit (coming in ‘sticks’, ‘mallets’, ‘rods’ and ‘snare wires off’ versions) and the ‘Musical Theater’ MIDI grooves that accompany it, but also the Percussion kit, which takes in timpani (struck with rods and sticks), gongs, woodblocks and a concert bass drum, alongside many of the Latin staples – congas, bongos, cabasa, etc. All useful stuff, no matter what your cultural/aesthetic stance on musicals.

For those who prefer to design their own kits from the ground up, the raw percussive materials at the heart of Stories SDX offer a near-endless sandbox of possibilities; while the time-pressed producer in need of instant but authentic drum tracks will find plenty to love in the preset library’s panoply of high-gloss, mix-ready starting points. HIT.

Luke Goddard On Toontrack Stories SDX

Having tried quite a few SDXs I must say I was wondering what Stories SDX could add. It’s safe to say that this particular SDX would be exceptionally well recorded and played, so for me this one was all about the things that it could bring to the party that the others couldn't.

Frank Filipetti’s drum recordings shine through in this SDX, with his trademark musical and song-led approach to drum recording (I was unfamiliar with Frank’s work until I read his catalogue!). That means perhaps one of the widest range of acoustic sounds yet for SDX that crosses musical disciplines and goes beyond some other expansions’ studio staples.

Where the familiar servings of kits and small hand-percussion are both there in fine SDX form, also present are timpani, congas, and other orchestra pit flavours. All land with MIDI specific to them to ensure authenticity; sometimes the kit drummer can be to percussion what the guitarist can be to bass playing - they can do it but it doesn’t mean they always should!

The mix presets in stories SDX are also some of the most diverse that I have heard in the library. Highly processed sounds also rub shoulders with some pretty organic and ambient sounds to boot, making this one of the most genre-busting SDXs sonically. All sounds are enveloped in three warm, woody ambiences helped along by the now-familiar SDX choice of big, classic analogue signal paths. On that subject, Toontrack’s excellent making-of video is well worth a watch.

Landing in the same form factor of Toontrack’s other SDXs, this expansion has the Superior DNA by the truckload; its only problem was was always going to be the “Why?”. Anyone with the core library and perhaps a smattering of machine sounds could justifiably consider themselves already covered. Luckily for Stories SDX, it brings a new palette of percussion and some of the most diverse mix presets yet. For me those are the things that make Stories SDX truly useful as an addition to the Superior Drummer 3 family. HIT.

Russ Hughes On Toontrack Stories SDX

The acid test of any music making tool, be that a grand piano or a synth plugin, is do they make you want to make music? I was short of time when I came to open up this latest Superior Drummer expansion, opening it was a big mistake. Before I knew it I’d lost a lot of time exploring the kits, the mixes and the grooves, all of them are stunning. Soon I was imagining riffs and ideas to play over them, like I had a drummer in the room egging me on to jam with them!

It should come as no surprise when it’s been conceived, curated and recorded by Frank Filipetti, there’s something magic in those cigars!

With everything from floor shaking rock kits, intimate dry kits, snare off and mallet kits, plus a veritable supply of exquisitely recorded percussion instruments, complete with gong, this pack has it all. But don’t think this is quantity over quality, both are supplied by the truck load. I defy anyone to find a bad sound or groove in this SDX - I keep saying this one is my favourite. But this one is!

I am a huge fan of musical theatre, one area of our industry which is often maligned. Go see a few shows like Matilda, Frozen, or The Book of Mormon. The talent from the acting, the musicianship, and the tech will show you just how brilliant you need to be to create a show like this. Frank has drawn from his experience in creating top shows, he has seven Grammy Awards and ten nominations for his work on The Color Purple, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, Monty Python's Spamalot and Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida and lovingly included it into this SDX and it’s better for him doing so.

Toontrack and Frank Filipetti have given us a bountiful supply of content to create our own stories with this pack. HIT.

Toontrack Stories SDX gets the Experts’ Gold Award.

A Word About This Article

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