50% Off ALL XLN Audio products till 11-30-14

[yzf125]

XLN Audio Addictive drums is having 50% off everything they sell through 11-30-14

I just picked up AD 2 with AD pak Black Velvet, couldnt beat the price.

[Espen]

Good choice. Black Velvet is the best ADpak IMO. Snare rimshot is just perfect!
Fairfax 1 & 2 are the following ones.

[kjmo]

I never upgraded to AD 2. Is there a way to use this sale to get upgraded on the cheap? It looks like you could buy the Fairfax bundle, and get AD 2, but I bet that wouldn't get you the upgraded versions of your adpacks. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[yzf125]

Thats what I did, I selected the upgrade + a Free Ad Pak of your choice and it came to $64 !! You cant beat that.

[Anyware]

I've used Superior Drummer 2.x for a couple of years now, but I've always wondered how Addictive Drums would compare. So, today I took advantage of their fantastic deal and picked up Black Velvet and Fairfax Volume 1. At the price, it's worth it just to have more kit options.

I've only played for a few hours today, but I have some initial impressions that might help someone else trying to figure out which software to invest in.

• To start, today's sale makes it almost a no-brainer to give Addictive Drums 2 a try.
• AD2 has a more straightforward interface than Superior Drummer 2.x. I've become used to SD2's interface, so I no longer find it challenging, but if you're comparing the two, AD2 has fewer options and easier controls, in my opinion. Certainly faster to get up-to-speed and start drumming.
• While I like having new sounds to play, AD2's sounds are less realistic to me than SD2's. It may be the number of samples and/or the way the software interprets the MIDI data, but having become used to the way SD2 sounds in my recordings, I'm slightly disappointed by AD2 in this regard.
• Again, related to the number of samples, there doesn't seem to be as many articulations for each piece. This would make sense, as the installer is much smaller than SD2's, probably due to fewer samples to manage.
• AD2 performs better on my MacBook Air. While SD2 can be used, I am limited as to the number of real-time effects I can add before I start having buffer issues. AD2 doesn't appear to have these issues (perhaps due to the more straightforward samples?).
• AD2 doesn't seem to be as customizable as SD2. I wouldn't consider this a positive or a negative, because I think it depends on what you're after. SD2 can be overwhelming at times. I admire AD2's relative simplicity (even though you can still customize a lot of settings).
• It took me a few minutes to figure out how to map some additional heads on my expanded TD-15K, but once I did, it was simple.

Overall, I'm very glad that I have another set of options, especially at the amazing price. Also, I agree with Espen that the snare rimshots sound great.

[kjmo]

Sweet. Thanks, I wasn't sure the half off applied to the upgrade, but I'm upgraded now!