- We compare EZDrummer 2 vs Superior Drummer 3.
- Find out which one is right for you.
- Find out why more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better.
EZDrummer VS Superior Drummer: Which Is Right For You?
If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re in the market for a fantastic drum rompler that’ll take your songwriting to the next level.
Toontrack have done a fantastic job at developing both EZDrummer and Superior Drummer 3 (following on from, you guessed it, Superior Drummer 2), both have great drums sounds, but you might be wondering whether Superior Drummer is worth the extra cash.
Like most things, the answer isn’t so clear cut, and just because Superior Drummer is more expensive, doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for you.
In this case, neither are a clear winner. They both have their pros and cons but deciding which is the best depends entirely on your own needs.
Allow me to explain.
EZDrummer 2 and Superior Drummer 3 isn’t just some clever marketing ploy to rebrand the same drum rompler and make double profits. They are entirely separate tools and depending on your circumstances, one will fit you better than the other depending on what you want from your drum tracks.
I’ve compiled a handy guide below which should help you make the right purchasing decision.
Opinion: EZDrummer Is Better For Songwriters
Hold your horses. Before you Superior Drummer fanboys start flaming me, let me explain my case.
I only use drum romplers for demos and idea generation. Once I have laid down the foundations of a track, I send it over to a real drummer to do their thing, which more often than not, ends up being wildly different from what I programmed in in the first place!
As a result, many of the features that come with Superior Drummer 3 end up being overkill for me.
Building Song Structures Hasn’t Been Easier
EZDrummer has been my drum rompler of choice for the past several years, for a singular reason: it’s downright the easiest plugin to get a songwriting vibe going.
EZDrummer exists for those of us who only require a drum VST to get ideas flowing.
In under half an hour, I can effortlessly build up a basic song structure to accompany the guitar lines I punch in, thanks to the handy ‘Creator Bar’. Cut/copy/paste however I wish, and Bob’s your uncle. I can either press record to capture the drums into audio or drag and drop entire loops onto a MIDI track. It’s really that simple.
Limited Choices Unlocks My Creativity
While a lot of producers creating drum tracks want to get all into the nitty-gritty of mic placement, adjusting axis’ and room sounds, honestly all this stuff detracts from me actually making music.
Again, all I need out of a drum rompler is for me to layout grooves and drum parts so that I can get ideas out of my head — fast.
I intentionally like to keep it simple here because analysis paralysis resulting in tweaking toms for 4 hours.
EZDrummer’s Libraries Sound Good Right Out Of The Gate
If the drum libraries (stock ones and addons) weren’t good right out of the gate, my decision on this might have been swayed towards Superior Drummer.
But because they are mix-ready (and they sound incredible for every genre), this allows me to focus on writing music immediately, instead of worrying too much about mixdowns.
So Why Would Anyone Consider Superior Drummer 3?
Your circumstances might differ from mine, and so to balance out this article, here are a few arguments whereby spending the extra money on Superior Drummer would benefit you.
1. You Want TOTAL Control
Superior Drummer offers you 100% control over sound design and manipulation. Jump into Superior Drummer 3 for the first time, and you’ll be overwhelmed by the number of room settings, drum skins, microphone positions, etc you have on offer to tweak.
If you are planning on releasing music with programmed drums, I would 100% recommend Superior Drummer.
Whereas EZDrummer offers you record-ready drum sounds right out of the gate, Superior Drummer offers you raw, unprocessed samples so you can shape and process them however you wish.
You even have access to manipulate how much ‘microphone bleed’ you want — the attention to detail is unparalleled.
2. The Enhanced Grid Editor
It does suck being confined to your DAW’s piano roll in EZDrummer. Instruments won’t be labeled, and I do sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time trying to locate which crash cymbal is which on my piano roll.
Getting granular with velocity changes is also a pain, and a very unintuitive process.
The Grid Editor in Superior Drummer solves all of these problems and makes drum editing a breeze. It’s all done within the plugin itself, in a streamlined interface and also lets you store multiple versions or variations of your MIDI grooves, so you can audition different parts to you or your clients with a few simple clicks.
3. You Want More Drum Libraries
An obvious argument for wanting Superior Drummer 3 over EZDrummer 2 is that the breadth of sound libraries in SD3 is staggering. While EZDrummer 2 gives you a core library of around 3GB, Superior Drummer 3 offers 230GB of drum sounds and libraries.
The larger package doesn’t just mean more libraries. A large reason why the file size is massive is that they really went the extra mile to record as many different articulations and velocities of drum hits as humanly possible.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, do you really need to spend the extra on Superior Drummer? Is it worth you upgrading/crossgrading to Superior Drummer 3? Maybe, but maybe not.
If you’re completely happy with how your workflow operates on EZDrummer, then stick with it. If you’re after a new level of control over your drum sound and programming — then by all means, definitely pick up Superior Drummer 3.
A neat thing about the crossgrade feature is that all the kits from EZDrummer 2 can be ported over seamlessly to Superior Drummer 3, and you can keep both VSTs and use them independently.
There are a host of other worthy competitors to EZ Drummer & Superior Drummer worth checking out. Here are a few I personally recommend:
- GetGoodDrums (Check out Nick’s fantastic review of GetGoodDrums)
- Addictive Drums 2 (Check out Nick’s fantastic review of Addictive Drums 2)
If I’m not mixing my songs and instead send them to a mixing engineer via stems, probably he will not have
EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer VSTS’s, to tweak drum mics etc… and also I’m using Studio One DAW that has drum MIDI editor like Cubase.
EZ drummer will be just fine right?.
Good question. Most professional producers/engineers who take on clients these days should have some kind of drum programming software. It is best to ask them what they use. You’re in luck if they use the same drum software as you, but even if they don’t.. it doesn’t really matter so much, because MIDI info can be transferred across all drum romplers.. You might just need to adjust the mapping. So yes, EZ Drummer would be perfectly fine.
HI, Sean, and thanks for this extremely useful page / advice! I’m leaning towards EZ Drummer for the same reasons you are a fan, but….would you say Superior drummer offers the same quick-start features as EZ Drummer, with the idea that one might grow into the advanced features later? Or are you forced to wrestle with all those tweaks right out of the box? There’ve been other instances where I thought, “Ah, this’ll do just fine”, only to regret not having the added functionality once I mastered the basic version.
Hey Brian, thanks for the comment! Yeah, both have a very similar workflow. The main difference being that EZDrummer has a more limited scope of sound libraries, and customization. You can definitely jump straight into Superior Drummer though and ignore all the advanced tools until later if you wish.
For the record, I have since moved on to GetGoodDrums (Modern & Massive Kit & PIV are my favorites)… as the tone and quality of the kits are unrivalled in my opinion. Check them out!
I’ve only just got a DAW going so I’m looking at drums, knowing nothing. Thanks for the heads up, I’m in no hurry.
It would be great if there was an in between. I like simplicity when writing, but also may commit v-drums to a final mix if they sound great. I don’t need the 11.1 surround mixes that the Superior app includes, nor do I want to dedicated 230GB of samples to my drive, 50 GB would be plenty. So, I’m stuck with a simple app or paying for overkill.
Hey Andrew, you may want to check out some of the “Kontakt” based libraries in that case. In fact, I’ve since moved on from EZDrummer to Get Good Drums (Modern & Massive Kit). Definitely worth checking out if you are shopping around. Thanks for commenting!
Hi Sean, Thank you fro the nice article. I’m a EZDrummer Prod/user,. I’m specialized in Latin Music, I recently got the Latin Drummer and Latin Percussion pack. How is the Superior Drummer World/Jazz/Latin grooves? Thank you in advance for your feedback.
HI Marco, I have both and itself whatever you wanna produce with them is a question of producing vs mixing. I f you wnat to send to your mixer engineer you don’t need the extra sound and fx form superior drummer. Is better to send the drum stems dry and maybe your room, hall or plate take in another stem.
Hi Sean,
I am about to buy one of them, please help me to decide.
My big need is to get a software that already has pre-set loops and fills that I can start from and that I can link and modify as I wish.
Infact I’m not a drummer and I always have problems to think about a drum line the more realistic as possible.
I play jazz and I’ll need in particular of jazz and funk style preset loop.
Which of them will fit better for me ?
Thank you very much!
Hi Francesco, both EZ Drummer and Superior Drummer come with their own banks of pre-set loops and fills. Superior Drummer gives you more to choose from, though. There should be a few kits that should be perfect for jazz and funk in there. You can also purchase extra kits down the line too if you need to expand.
thank you Sean,
last questions please:
1) once created a drum line, can I export it in my DAW in different tracks? (snare, kick, ride, hats, etc.)
2) do both the software allow this ?
3) are both Ez and Superior Drummer compatible with Cubase 5 ?
Thank you very much for your attention
Yep, you can export each drum hit into individual channels in both EZ Drummer & Superior Drummer! There are a few guides on YouTube as to how to do this which you can follow. Yes, they both work in Cubase.
You can do a lot of manipulation with EZDrummer 2 within your DAW and spend way too long messing around!… and I do, lol. I think Superior Drummer might be a hindrance to someone like me.
Yeah, both are incredible. Just depends on how much flexibility you need!
Really. I ended up buying an upgrade of EZdrummer. My opinion is rather low of it.
I’m guessing you would probably have to spend an arm and a leg to get decent drum sounds,
and expansion loops. . .
Frankly, the free drum tool: Sennheiser’s Drummica works much better for me,
the drum sounds are superior, the loops are better and more diverse.
Between tweaking the sounds, and the midi loops, and playing a live set along with it,
to boost diversity, and feel:
I’d say I’m getting what I need out of a midi drum sequencer.
Thanks for your opinions, and article. . .
But, I just can’t get on the ToonTrack bandwagon. . .
– K
Thanks for sharing your experience, shame it didn’t work out for you! To be perfectly honest, a lot of companies have come through in the past few years and have really given ToonTrack a run for its money. Depending on what you’re writing, there seems to be a niche library that caters much better to individual styles. EZ Drummer falls into the “we try to cover it all” category, which can only go so far. If you write modern rock/metal, I’d recommend looking at GetGood Drums. They have some REALLY great-sounding kits, and I haven’t looked back since switching over to them.
That said, I think EZ Drummer still has its place for its ‘ease of use’. Just, not a huge fan of its tones anymore since new companies have come along.
Just bear in mind users of Superior Drummer 2.0 had a short window to get a discounted upgrade to 3.0. If you missed that, as I did (due to a stroke and 2 years recovery) you’re stuffed and have to pay full price, or stick with 2.0 and struggle with it as it slowly becomes unsupported for new operating systems.
Not really good enough for a premium priced product. Lots of unhappy users of 2.0, so think carefully before buying any toontrack products.
13 pages of unhappy people at https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/upgrading-from-superior-drummer-2-to-3/
and no replies from toontrack – shameful.
Liked the product, but not paying out hundreds of pounds every few years just so that I can keep using the product – there are plenty of alternative brands out there.