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Custom and vintage themed sample expansion pack for Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0, suitable for a wide range of genres and styles

Review: The Custom and Vintage SDX is an expansion pack for the award winning Toontrack Music Superior Drummer 2.0 drum sampler. It features extensive stick and brush recordings of a unique collection of drums and cymbals.

The SDX gives everyone from top producers down access to the cream of custom and vintage drums, built by craftsmen from the 1920s right up to the exceptional instrument makers of today, like Johnny Craviotto.

Most of these highly prized instruments (like a 1920s Ludwig Black Beauty, or Craviotto Timeless Timber) can only be found in the collections of top studio drummers or hired from rental facilities in the major music centres of the world.

Recorded at 2KHz Studio in London using an EMI TG desk used for many legendary recordings of the early seventies including The Beatles Abbey Road and Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon. It is considered one of the best sounding desks ever made.

The Custom and Vintage SDX was played by Chris Whitten, the drummer on classic hits like What I Am by Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians and The Whole Of The Moon by The Waterboys.

Whitten was hailed as a world class drummer, playing on Paul McCartney's Flowers In The Dirt album and subsequent record breaking world tour, and Dire Straits 18 month On Every Street tour. Chris has also recorded with such varied artists as Johnny Cash, Julian Cope, World Party and The Pretenders.

The Custom and Vintage SDX was produced by Peter Henderson who started his career at Air Studios where he trained and worked with Beatles recording engineer Geoff Emerick (Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road etc). as well as with the legendary George Martin.

Henderson produced Supertramp's 20 million selling Breakfast In America, for which he won a Grammy. He has also worked with Paul McCartney, Rush, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Tina Turner and Ringo Starr.

Jazz influenced sample expansion pack for Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0, suitable for a wide range of genres and styles

Review: We could mention that we set out to record the best Jazz drum library ever made but ended up with something far bigger; drums that transcend the narrow confines of a genre and rather define an era - an age of music spanning from Jazz, Blues to Hip Hop and Rock.

We could mention Blackbird Studio's stock of 1400 microphones, 35 channels of Pultec EQ, 24 channels of Fairchild compression and hundreds of outboard mic/pre channels including Telefunken, Neve, API, RCA and Chandler. Or how this studio not only is the natural choice for the who's who of the music industry but that it is known to lend a documented bit of magic to every project to ever enter and exit its doors.

We could even go as far as rant about how drummer and world musician Roy "Futureman" Wooten heard every single hit and swirl recorded as part of a larger whole, as part of a musical sequence rather than as a solitary, monotonous hit and that the result permeates every sample with an intensity and force unheard of. Or we could mention how these sounds incarnate the past, embody the present and at the same time how they will help you shape the sound of tomorrow through Superior Drummer's endless possibilities.

We could even boldly proclaim that this library of drums is the most comprehensive ever made, recorded through signal chains of outboard and microphones that would leave even the most seasoned veterans in utter awe.

But we think the drum sounds speak for themselves.