I cut my teeth on EZ2, and had good results with it using the channel outs to individual mixer channels in S1 but hankered for additional control over the preset voices and mixing options but couldn’t bring myself to invest in SD2 because it didn’t have the ‘groove browser’ facilities, which are great. I found nothing in SSD with my initial dabbling to convince me to change my user habits from the Toontrack stable, all I have used is a few of the included midi patterns, which I ported over to SD3 and changed the midi mapping to suit. I am not a power user so my limited user knowledge should be taken into account when considering my views but here goes. I have EZD2, SD3 and SSD5 (free version).
EZ2 has plenty of audio demos on their site to listen to as well as a FREE DEMO.
I would download the FREE SSD5 kit and check it out.
The mixer in SSD5 is more full featured, no question there The limitations are not there in EZ2 once you record down your individual parts and treat them like a regular kit. Sound preference is just that, preference. I have had Slate since before version 4 here. construction window to piece together your track and easily beats Slate in support. EZ2 has lots of expansions, loads of midi patterns, tap to find. SSD5 has more as far as the mixing area and the sound is diff than EZ2. SSD does not have a good history with updates and bug fixes. To use it on my 32bit system I have to load it in it's own project and render the wav files, trying to use it in a project with other VSTi or recorded tracks means I cannot load the full kit, although there are options to lower the amount of velocities/robins to reduce the ram footprint if you don't mind the reduction in detail.EZ2 is a HUGE step up from EZ1 in function and sound quality. Worth mentioning is how large the sample library is, this kit consumes around 1.3GB of ram so that should give an idea of the volume of samples involved. The sound you hear is the 'natural rock' preset, no processing at all. There are some rolls on cymbals, toms etc and then some very dynamic playing from a friend of mine, I captured the MIDI from his performance on an acoustic kit and tweaked some of the velocities to better suit SSD4.0. I'm sure you know this anyway though Anyway, the sample: I can deffinitely hear alternate samples if I program 12 hits in quick succession at the same velocity, all I was trying to say is that even with 100 round robins it wouldn't sound natural because drummers don't play like that. Hey Tod, whipped up a quick sample for you.
If you get a chance go ahead and post something. Of course non of this is important if the library sounds really good and it indeed has good dynamics. I know that with Kontakt scripting this can be done. However it is possible to have it set up with a filter system that can sound different, regardless of whether there are any RRs or not. If you play 8 to 12 snare hits fairly rapidly that are all exactly the same velocity and you can't tell the difference then there are no RRs. Hi Stu, actually based on what Ashley said (the way I understand it) is that instead of round robins they're using either filters and/or possibly envelopes to get differences.
Slate software uses a different approach (anti-machine gun it's called) to accomplish the same thing.
The difference is that they aren't technically 'round robins' because all that term means is that it automatically cycles different samples in a given layer. I assure you, there are several round robins for each velocity layer, just like Ashley said.