Toontrack The Drum Factory SDX

Industry legend Sylvia Massy brings her expertise and creativity to Tootrack’s latest Superior Drummer expansion.

Whether from the core library, or the wide range of add‑on SDX expansions that are available, Superior Drummer users really can’t complain about either the quantity or quality of the drum sounds SD3 can put at their disposal. That’s not going to stop Toontrack putting temptation into your path though, and the latest SDX release — The Drum Factory — is a prime example. Created with Sylvia Massy (whose recording credits span artists as diverse as Tool, Prince, Johnny Cash and Jason Isbell), and recorded in four different acoustic spaces at La Fabrique, SW France (a regular stop for the Mix With The Masters seminars), The Drum Factory promises to be something special.

All The Right Kit

Let’s deal with the basics. A total of seven full kits (Sonor, Brady, DW, Tama, Ayotte and two from Trixon), alongside a goodly collection of additional snares, toms and cymbals, were recorded using a comprehensive array of close and room mics. The individual kits were each recorded in one of the studio’s four different spaces; the massive stone‑built Dark Room (it has no windows), the wood‑lined Library (big but warm), the huge Arcades and the Mill (the studio is built in a converted silk mill and this room is also stone, but with a darker ambience).

The core drum sound could grace any recording and would work across multiple musical genres.

The SDX is divided into four sub‑sections based on these different rooms and, if you pull up any of the presets and focus on the overhead and ambience mics, the different characters are clear, obvious and... well, just plain fabulous. The core drum sound could grace any recording and would work across multiple musical genres.

Sonic Experiments

For many potential users, that might be more than enough, but the SDX also gives you a peek inside the creative mind of Sylvia Massy. Sitting alongside the more conventional close/room mic options are a number of more experimental microphone choices. These include a microphone attached to a garden hose, another held within a large plastic (and partly filled) water container, a mic built from an old telephone and a mic integrated with an old children’s cassette recorder.

Various combinations of these alternative sound sources are integrated into the preset collection and available within the SD3 mixer to blend with the more usual mic options. If you want to dial in some lo‑fi vibes, or just add some unique character to your drum mix, these options let you do it. It’s weird but wonderful, and it undoubtedly lets you take these beautifully recorded acoustic kits into some more experimental/alternative musical directions. There is a brilliant video on Toontrack’s website that walks through both the conventional and less‑than‑conventional mic choices; it’s well worth a watch.

Kind Of A Chameleon

As ever, the SDX includes an excellent crop of MIDI grooves to explore and these span a range of tempos, both 4/4 and 6/8 time and straight and swung feels. They could work in a wide range of musical contexts and, as such, they are a perfect foil for the sound library itself. Whether mixing, producing or engineering, Sylvia’s credits span an amazingly diverse range of musical artists and styles.

That diversity is reflected in The Drum Factory SDX and, as a result, the user gets options that could work in almost any musical genre, be that extreme and experimental rock/metal, modern pop or electronic music, lo‑fi indie or the most delicate singer/songwriter styles. Sonically, this is a real chameleon of a drum library and, no matter how many drum options you currently have access to, I’ll hazard a guess they don’t include drums recorded by gaffer‑taping a mic into the end of a garden hose. The Drum Factory sounds outstanding and is well worth auditioning.