I finally got a chance to set up Superior Drummer with Reaper. It's relatively easy and the samples are incredible. What I really like most about it so far is that you can record your MIDI in Reaper (or whatever DAW), and set the outputs from SD3 to map with tracks in Reaper. It only outputs the sound, doesn't record audio to track (unless you want to). You can add whatever plugins you want to your Reaper tracks and send htem all to a drum buss, and then render your song. Which means you can keep your MIDI available to modify, while being able to process your audio however you'd like in your DAW. Of course, you can do all of this strait in SD3 as a standalone app, too.

The routing options are pretty amazing. There's so many options, it was hard to decide what was going ot work for me. Considering that you don't need to print the audio in order to process it in the DAW, it feels right (for me anyway) to blend the mic channels and output as single tracks: For example, the three mics for the kick; the top and bottom snare mics; the condenser and dynamic overhead mics; the three ambient mic positions. You can blend the levels as you'd like in the plugin into a single stereo track in the DAW, which seems reasonable to go back to and adjust to taste.

Setting this up is super easy. In SD3, you can click a button and it sets up the audio routing from mic tracks to output tracks. You can decide to customize that if you'd like. From Reaper, you can just click a button and it automatically sets up the routing from SD3 to your audio tracks. There's only 16 stereo tracks to work with max from SD3, but that almost feels like too many. And if you're Neil Pert's ghost, you can get creative if that isn't enough for you by bussing things creatively, just like with any console.

There seems to be a lot of flexibility to make a workflow that works for you. And that's just the beginning of it. The bleed control is really interesting. I have several studios, which include more than enough drum kits and different mic options. I'm looking forward to using this more.

After mixing tracks recorded in a real studio, I kinda wish we did it with SD3. I feel like there's a hell of a lot more control, especially with bleed, where you don't need to worry about gates, and also you can fix flubs much easier.

cakes wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 5:03 pm I finally got a chance to set up Superior Drummer with Reaper. It's relatively easy and the samples are incredible. What I really like most about it so far is that you can record your MIDI in Reaper (or whatever DAW), and set the outputs from SD3 to map with tracks in Reaper. It only outputs the sound, doesn't record audio to track (unless you want to). You can add whatever plugins you want to your Reaper tracks and send htem all to a drum buss, and then render your song. Which means you can keep your MIDI available to modify, while being able to process your audio however you'd like in your DAW. Of course, you can do all of this strait in SD3 as a standalone app, too.

My favorite way to map a Drum Sampler in Reaper is to have a Multi Track Lane in the TCP, with all the channels of the drums in a single Audio/Midi item, and break that out to individual tracks in the MCP so I only see one track for all the drums in the editor view, but have faders for each drum in the Mixer view. Every track in Reaper can handle 128 channels of Audio/Midi. It's kinda nuts.

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 6:10 pm
Every track in Reaper can handle 128 channels of Audio/Midi. It's kinda nuts.

It truly is bonkers. Once it dawned on me that every track is basically it's own 64/128-track tape machine the workflow/routing and everything made way more sense to me.

mdc wrote: Wed Oct 08, 2025 7:57 am

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 07, 2025 6:10 pm
Every track in Reaper can handle 128 channels of Audio/Midi. It's kinda nuts.

It truly is bonkers. Once it dawned on me that every track is basically it's own 64/128-track tape machine the workflow/routing and everything made way more sense to me.

You can go pretty nuts with routing, especially if your start using the pin outs in the plugin chain to do weird parallel stuff. Reaper is a lot to get your mind around but once you get it I can't imagine going back to anything else. Pro Tools feels like a endless series of speed bumps and sand bags to me now.

The TOMO Lisa from Plugin Alliance is $10 for a short period of time. It's an EQ with dynamics available in each band. I ended up picking it up, I had been interested in it for awhile, but it seemed a little overly complex and probably unnecessary. But for the price, I thought it was worth it.

I put it on a drum bus and it just made the drums come alive in a way that I hadn't expected. I started with a preset and just tweaked it. I noticed the transients in the toms and the snare were just more pronounced in the overall mix. It works really well to push the transients in the overheads as well.

I then put it on the master bus. I was toying around between a mid/side and stereo bus EQ preset, but ended up really liking the mid/side. However, what I thought was amazing was how much muddiness it removed, it really brought the clarity in the mix. You don't even need much from it, you can add just a subtle amount and it makes a real difference. The guitars felt better separated from left and right, the mids weren't as muddy and overall the track had more punch to it. I have it placed after another EQ in the master. Both EQs are doing very small, subtle things. I didn't like pulling one out over the other. The other EQ has more bands to work with, so they are just doing very basic, small tweaking.

I also put it on vocals. There's a preset for vocal smoothing. It does a really nice job taming the higher frequencies. I have another EQ before, an air band EQ. The vocals were already sitting pretty well in the mix, but the Lisa just gave it that last bit of oomph.

The Lisa is hard to understand at first, but the presets really help. Just find one that works and tweak it to taste. This is a dangerous plugin because it feels like you can really ruin a track if you go overboard. But if you keep things subtle, it can do some really interesting things.

I'd be curious to know how the Lisa compares to other dynamic EQs, or EQs with dynamic options, like Pro-Q. I have Neutron, which has a similar EQ to Pro-Q, but I kinda prefer the Lisa because it's a lot simpler to use. It has a limited number of bands and a more focused purpose.

cakes wrote: Mon Oct 13, 2025 1:03 pm I'd be curious to know how the Lisa compares to other dynamic EQs, or EQs with dynamic options, like Pro-Q. I have Neutron, which has a similar EQ to Pro-Q, but I kinda prefer the Lisa because it's a lot simpler to use. It has a limited number of bands and a more focused purpose.

Looks cool but I prefer the ability to put dynamic bands in my regular EQ interface like in Fab. Single plugin is just faster, and I kinda hate skeuomorphic interfaces. Still, this looks useful if you don't have Fab, Ozone, Nova, etc. Fab and Ozone are spendy too, Though I think if you just buy all the Fab or Ozone you kinda don't need anything else for a mix other than special fx stuff Like Wahflaphasors and whammdelays.

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:13 am

cakes wrote: Mon Oct 13, 2025 1:03 pm I'd be curious to know how the Lisa compares to other dynamic EQs, or EQs with dynamic options, like Pro-Q. I have Neutron, which has a similar EQ to Pro-Q, but I kinda prefer the Lisa because it's a lot simpler to use. It has a limited number of bands and a more focused purpose.

Looks cool but I prefer the ability to put dynamic bands in my regular EQ interface like in Fab. Single plugin is just faster, and I kinda hate skeuomorphic interfaces. Still, this looks useful if you don't have Fab, Ozone, Nova, etc. Fab and Ozone are spendy too, Though I think if you just buy all the Fab or Ozone you kinda don't need anything else for a mix other than special fx stuff Like Wahflaphasors and whammdelays.

If I could go back in time, I'd just get Kiive, Pulsar and either Fab or ThreeBody plugins and that would be most of what you'd need. Might not be as fun, but how many compressors, EQs and saturators do you really need?

cakes wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:31 am

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:13 am

cakes wrote: Mon Oct 13, 2025 1:03 pm I'd be curious to know how the Lisa compares to other dynamic EQs, or EQs with dynamic options, like Pro-Q. I have Neutron, which has a similar EQ to Pro-Q, but I kinda prefer the Lisa because it's a lot simpler to use. It has a limited number of bands and a more focused purpose.

Looks cool but I prefer the ability to put dynamic bands in my regular EQ interface like in Fab. Single plugin is just faster, and I kinda hate skeuomorphic interfaces. Still, this looks useful if you don't have Fab, Ozone, Nova, etc. Fab and Ozone are spendy too, Though I think if you just buy all the Fab or Ozone you kinda don't need anything else for a mix other than special fx stuff Like Wahflaphasors and whammdelays.

If I could go back in time, I'd just get Kiive, Pulsar and either Fab or ThreeBody plugins and that would be most of what you'd need. Might not be as fun, but how many compressors, EQs and saturators do you really need?

The strongest argument for outboard gear is the pile of money I've spent on plugins I never use and can't recoup. Turns out I need 3 compressors. A bland one that does almost anything, A good 1176 that actually saturates well, and a fairchild clone. EQ? One. I need either Ozone or Fab. No real reason to use anything else if you have one of those, or something like it. Saturation is easy, you can use anything.

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 1:55 pm

cakes wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:31 am

Kniferide wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 9:13 am

Looks cool but I prefer the ability to put dynamic bands in my regular EQ interface like in Fab. Single plugin is just faster, and I kinda hate skeuomorphic interfaces. Still, this looks useful if you don't have Fab, Ozone, Nova, etc. Fab and Ozone are spendy too, Though I think if you just buy all the Fab or Ozone you kinda don't need anything else for a mix other than special fx stuff Like Wahflaphasors and whammdelays.

If I could go back in time, I'd just get Kiive, Pulsar and either Fab or ThreeBody plugins and that would be most of what you'd need. Might not be as fun, but how many compressors, EQs and saturators do you really need?

The strongest argument for outboard gear is the pile of money I've spent on plugins I never use and can't recoup. Turns out I need 3 compressors. A bland one that does almost anything, A good 1176 that actually saturates well, and a fairchild clone. EQ? One. I need either Ozone or Fab. No real reason to use anything else if you have one of those, or something like it. Saturation is easy, you can use anything.

You're right, you only need a few plugins. It's just fun to have different toys. No more fun!

But seriously, sometimes it's about the interface more than anything. What's important I think is how quickly and intuitively you can achieve something. I think Pro-Q is cool, but it's kind of a powerful tool that you can absolutely destroy a mix with. On the flip side, I love something like the Trident EQ, because you can play with it and discover an EQ that you like and it's really hard to ruin a track or a mix with it.

Having used the Lisa now on a bunch of mixes, I find it to be more intuitive and approachable then the dynamic section in the Neutron EQ, though I probably wouldn't use one over the other. I like the Lisa right now for it's ability to de-muddify a mix, and who doesn't like a tiny bit of compression in the right place? It's magical in that sense (but you could easily destroy a mix with it). I generally stay away from the Neutron EQ unless I need to surgically correct something, and even then I question if that's needed. I usually reach for the Trident or a Pultec.

Then there's the evolution of plugins that make you consider them. That new Pulsar IPA 25 compressor looks really desirable. I already have the API bus compressor, which is one of my go-tos, but the IPA 25 has some nice extra features, it could probably replace 4 or 5 plugins and has a built-in side chain. But then I already have tools that do most of this, some in less intuitive ways.

Ugh...

cakes wrote: Tue Oct 14, 2025 3:53 pm You're right, you only need a few plugins. It's just fun to have different toys. No more fun!
...
Ugh...

I hear ya. I succumbed to Plug In overwhelm about 2 years ago when I looked at the library and it was a mile long and I had like 14 different 1176 emulations and 12 SSL EQ's etc. The last big reinstall I did I just didn't include like 80% of my plugins. It was a bummer because that is money gone that now just isn't installed and not used but enough was enough. I try to keep my main stuff down to a hand full of very useful tools and use the same usual culprits across all the projects, with the acception of stupid synth and drum plugs and stuff, because that is still a total nightmare. I DO love a trident eq and used to use the Analog Obsessions one a lot, because it was so dead simple and small. I use the TDR Slick in the same way. I have never done a single project where a Pultec has ended up in the end mix. I think Digital Pultecs are a scam and everything you can do with them can be done with pretty much any other EQ plugin, plus have some midrange control.