Toontrack The Jazz Sessions SDX

Toontracks’ SD3 Expansion has drum sounds suitable for almost any jazz project you can imagine.

While Toontrack have certainly ventured into jazz drum sounds in the past, their latest expansion library for Superior Drummer 3, The Jazz Sessions, is undoubtedly their most ambitious project aimed at that genre. Recorded in collaboration with James Farber — whose recording credits read like a Who’s Who? of jazz greats from the last 40 years — the expansion features seven kits selected to span the history of jazz drum sounds and styles. These were recorded in four different rooms within New York’s Power Station, James’ studio of choice. A full range of performance articulations are provided, and the library includes options for sticks, brushes, rods, mallets and hands. The full library comes in at 161GB, but you can opt for a more compact install by forgoing some mic options (for example, the surround mics).

Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold

Once installed, SD3 divides the kits based upon the four rooms used for the recording. Each of these offers a distinct acoustic space, with the production team making kit selections for each room based upon the type of sound they were seeking. The kits themselves were chosen to span multiple eras, from the big band sounds of the 1920s to the jazz fusion sounds of the 1970s. That means that the available kits include both large and smaller kick drums, simple and more complex tom setups, and both darker and brighter cymbal choices.

For those more familiar with using SD3 for pop or rock drums, prepare yourself for some new mixing situations, as once these kits are triggered, there are some big kicks and splashy cymbals to manage. That’s in no way a criticism, though; the sounds are big, beautiful, detailed and totally in keeping with the genre. There are a huge range of sounds available across the seven kits and an impressive collection of presets created by both James Farber and the Toontrack team that ably show off the breadth and depth of the sounds. James comments on Toontrack’s website that the room mics are where he really starts when recording jazz drums, with the spot mics being used to simply reinforce elements as needed. It’s therefore interesting to solo the overhead mics in the presets as these present the kits beautifully within their respective acoustic spaces.

As ever, the SDX includes a dedicated MIDI grooves collection, all played by Toontrack’s Norman Garschke. These cover all the main eras of jazz and provide straight and swung options in both 4/4 and 3/4 and across a range of tempos. They also include specific performances with the various tools including sticks, brushes (these sound very cool), mallets, rods and hands. I’d be surprised if additional drum MIDI packs aimed directly at The Jazz Sessions SDX were not on the horizon but, during testing, some of Toontrack’s older jazz‑themed MIDI drum grooves also worked very well with these kits. If your own jazz drumming chops are still a work in progress, the supplied MIDI content is a valuable element within the overall package.

If you happen to also be an EZkeys and EZbass (and perhaps the Upright EBX) user, SD3 and The Jazz Sessions is an ideal source of drum sounds to round out your virtual jazz trio. Indeed, writing this review took me way longer that it should have done because I got suitably distracted with this experiment myself. It’s pretty amazing how quickly you can flesh out an idea when these three virtual musicians talk to each other via their respective Bandmate and Tracker options.

If you need to drop some world class drums into your next jazz composition, then look no further.

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Hats off to James Farber and the Toontrack team — The Jazz Sessions SDX is a bit of a triumph. It offers an impressive range of jazz drum flavours and gives you a huge amount of control over how you craft the sounds into your mix. The detailed nature of the sounds makes them super convincing. If you need to drop some world‑class drums into your next jazz composition, then look no further: The Jazz Sessions SDX is the perfect choice.