Superior Drummer is Toontrack's flagship drum sampler software. Its extensive library of sounds include highly sought after instruments and kits recorded in the finest studios all over the world. But the great drum sounds in SD2 are only a part of what you need to do to make great sounding drum parts. Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 SDX Core Basic Sound Library. Building on the legacy of its predecessor, Superior Drummer 3 was redesigned from the ground up to introduce a completely new and improved workflow, countless added features and an unequalled amount of raw sound material. With Superior Drummer 3, you are in total control. Download Superior Drummer 3 Manual. Share & Embed 'Superior Drummer 3 Manual' Please copy and paste this embed script to where you want to embed. Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3 is a marvel of a plugin. It does everything that Superior 2 did, and they’ve added a gaggle of incredible new features that make getting the perfect drum sound even easier. The one we’re going to take a look at today is the ability to import your own custom or third-party samples into SD3.

Superior Drummer 3 User Manual
Downloadable Manual Superior Drummer 3
Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 Manual Pdf
Superior Drummer 3 Manual Pdf

Our product installers will automatically copy the files into your 'User Libraries' folder for both EZdrummer and Superior. But here's a better method for installing MIDI into Superior 3 by Toontrack.

Since it's easier to manager 3rd party MIDI updates with this method, this is now our recommended installation procedure.

Install Procedure

Copy the folder(s) inside our “Other MIDI MappingsToontrack” folder
Open the 'Grooves' tab in Superior 3
Right click on 'User MIDI' (see image below)
Select 'Open in Explorer' (or “Open in Finder” on a Mac)
Paste our folder(s) into the “User MIDI” folder
Right click on 'User MIDI' and select 'Sync File Changes'

image: User MIDI folder in Superior 3

The files will appear in EZdrummer 2 also. If you have both, use the Superior 3 install method outlined here.

To access the grooves in EZdrummer 2, click on the 'Browser' tab. Then click on the 'Show/hide USER MIDI' button on the top right, just under 'Menu'.

Recommendations

For EZDrummer 1 or Superior 2, please run our installer or copy the files into your 'My MIDIFILES' folder.

If you have EZDrummer 2 but NOT Superior 3, you can run our installer. Alternatively, you could do a manual installation.

If you have Superior 3, we now recommend the manual installation above.

How to update 3rd Party MIDI in Superior 3

If the contents of a folder have changed, it's easy to update Superior 3 database:

Replace the old files with the updated version
Open the 'Grooves' tab in Superior 3
Right click on 'User MIDI' under the 'User Libraries' section
Select 'Sync File Changes'

Currently, the downside to this method is that Superior 3 displays folder contents differently depending on the location of the files. For years, we've been supporting their enhanced formatting techniques but it's a bit funky with this method. You'll see some extra characters because everything is shown 'as is' when stored in 'User MIDI'.

We're currently revising the folder structure and will make the new format available as a free update.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact our support team.

Rock on!

I previously made a guide on setting up version 2, but here’s a new one on how to set up the hi-hat in Superior Drummer 3. It looks like a lot of info, but that’s only because I try to go over every step in a way that any user will be able to understand. Let’s dig in!

Starting point
Having everything already working in your current drum brain (aka drum module) is the foundation for everything that will be communicated to Superior Drummer.
First get your kit and hi hat sounding good with your drum brain itself. Refer to the manual of whatever device you are using. If it isn’t working with the built in sounds on your module on it’s own, you may have issues that Superior Drummer won’t be able to fix.
If you use a Roland drum brain, here is a good video on fine tuning the settings of the hi-hat in the module itself so that you can get optimum performance.

MIDI basics
In drum terms, MIDI notes can be thought of as simple “hits” that tell the computer that a note has been turned on (and then immediately off). This is what tells the drum samples to play in Superior Drummer. The other information these “hits” send the computer, is the velocity at which you hit the drum. A higher velocity number will produce a harder hitting drum sound in order to sound realistic. The velocity number goes up to a max of 127.
Now, the simplest and best way to set up your module is to have the outgoing midi be in line with the General Midi standards. This is a basic set of standard notes that percussion software knows how to interpret. For instance, if you set your bass drum as note 36 (in your drum module) the percussion software on your computer will know to produce the sound of a bass drum, because note 36 is “Bass Drum 1” in the General Midi standards. Your module likely already is set up to use these notes as it’s outgoing midi, but there may be some notes that don’t fall in line with these standards. You don’t have to use General Midi for everything, but it will make your life easier with Superior Drummer as well as any other percussion software because it is a default standard.

Here is a list of all the General MIDI percussion mappings if you need to reference them.

Superior Drummer 3 has made our lives much, much easier by displaying a live readout of all the MIDI incoming into the computer. For instance, if you hit the bass drum, Superior Drummer will show you which MIDI note your bass drum pad is sending out. This is another way you can confirm that your drum brain MIDI is using the General MIDI notes. Previously, we had to download separate software to troubleshoot our MIDI issues, but now its as easy as opening up the MIDI Monitor window in the right-hand column. (Note: A similar MIDI readout, called “Analyzer”, can be used when inside the Settings window).

Make sure that the MIDI Monitor option menu is set to “Show Notes”, and that “Show Keys” and “Show Internal Notes” are off. MIDI notes also can be read as musical keys, but when dealing with percussion I find that the numerical note numbers are more straight forward. But you can always turn on the Keys option if you wish.

Basics of SD3 Drum Mapping
This article is mainly about the hi hat, but here’s a brief overview of how to map any of the drums. Using the General Midi notes in your drum brain should make most things work off the bat, but in case any of your pads aren’t triggering the correct drum, the easiest way to fix this is by using the “Learn” feature.

Say for example the Hi Tom on your e-Drums is triggering a low tom sound in Superior Drummer. In SD3, click on the drum you actually want to trigger so that it has a blue outline in the graphical representation of the drum set. Open Settings > MIDI In / E-Drums and a new window of options will pop up. In the “Mapping” tab, hit the “Learn” button. Now hit the physical Hi-Tom on your e-drum set. Now hit your Hi Tom on your set more and you will see that it is now correctly mapped to the right drum.
What happened is that your drum module was sending a MIDI note that Superior didn’t recognize as being the correct note. Superior now re-routed that note and now interprets it as the correct note inside the software.

You can now see in the MIDI settings that that note has been edited. When note 43 is selected, you can see in the Mapping tap that the arrow is now pointing to the new note that it routes to, “1.” Furthermore, below in the Analyzer window, it shows the actual MIDI note you are hitting, and then it shows the number that it is being re-routed to in green. In my screenshot I have remapped note 43 to note 1 (just as an arbitrary demonstration). Now when I hit the pad associated with note 43 in my drum module, it shows that it detected note 43, but is now re-interpretting it as note 1. Any notes that you have not Edited will say “No” to signify you have not edited them in SD3. The cleanest way to set up your drums is to have all your real MIDI coming from your modu