Routing Superior Drummer 3 in Ableton Live

Routing your Superior Drummer 3 Drums in Ableton Live 11 Suite. Learn to route your drum tracks to mono so they are ready for mixing using the Utility Plug-in within Ableton. Make sure to keep your overheads and main room mic stereo. If you have a mono room mic, keep it mono.
tags:
superior drummer, superior drummer 3, ai drummer, ableton live, ableton live 11 suite, drum routing, overheads, room mics, drum production, dark matter ezx, modern metal ezx, snare, kick, tom, rack tom, floor tom, cymbals, meinl, sabian, bizzance, cymbas

[@ThaKid14]

You're the freakin hero I never knew I needed. God bless you. THIS IS THE VIDEO I ALWAYS NEEDED. genius

[@willytonezone]

So happy to have blessed you. Thank you for your kind comment.

[@michaelstack299]

You're still the only video to explain how to route everything. Thank you so much for doing it in the first place.

[@willytonezone]

Thank you for your comment. I was actually thinking the same when I was trying to figure it out through KZbin. So when I did figure it out I had to share it.

[@thenextinsect]

Thanks for this. It’s helpful. I’ve been trying to incorporate SD3 into our workflow for the library and to add realism, but it’s been a major PITA trying to convert MIDI clips that were created in Ableton Drum Racks. Your video got me right where I needed to be… I had a snare from an Ableton pack driving me crazy. After watching the video, and getting the routing down, I was able to move the hits in the original MIDI clip to get the sounds/drum-visual in SD3. At last! Can’t thank you enough

[@willytonezone]

Sounds like your knee deep into it. Awesome glad I could help !

[@phil_helix1191]

Thank you so much for this! Extremely informative, especially when recorded the MIDI and it gave audio files wow haha. I'm new to this concept and usually just exported the file as audio before then having to go back to mix and master them. Thanks again

[@willytonezone]

Isn’t it awesome you can almost treat it like a real drum kit when it’s recorded to audio. Both ways work but much more control over sound this way!

[@phil_helix1191]

@@willytonezone Exactly man that's really helpful and an amazing tip to save so much mucking around. Yea having drums in audio is the best, you can treat it exactly like a real drum kit and mix and master it to perfection!! Cheers for that! Subbed and liked!

[@oscaralonsorojas]

Thanks for the video. But there's no need to use the Utility device. If the Mic of the kick is in the center, Ableton is going to send the same amount of sound to the left and right channel and that will sound mono. Don't confuse center with mono. Kicks or snares don't need to be mono necessarily, they need to be in the center of the mix (Not a rule by the way). Internally you always have stereo tracks in Ableton, even if you use utility for turning it mono. Thanks again for the info!

[@willytonezone]

Hi! Thanks for this comment. I used the utility for mono because just because I thought it was actually converting the track to mono because you can’t create a mono track in Ableton but you are right. The kick is already center so it’s not going to sound any different with the utility plug-in with mono on. Also glad I could you help you out as well as you helped me :)

[@sarinsahil]

Great video! Many thanks! Can one group one of these audio tracks with a subgroup track from drum rack? e.g Group Superior Drummer Kick - (Audio Multi Out) with C1 (Kick Sample) from Drum Rack and make both of them one group? I don't want to add the sample to Superior Drummer and process/route it from there but be able to use SD3 and Drum Rack and combine the instruments, SD Kick and Drum Rack Kick Sample, SD Snare and Drum Rack Snare Sample...so on... and have all of them be grouped as Kick, Snare, Toms......I hope this makes sense. Thank you! :)

[@willytonezone]

Yes most definitely this is possible. You would simply route out your drum rack and then move that track so it’s under your superior Drummer track and group them together so they can both be processed at the same time within Ableton. If that’s what you were asking?

[@willytonezone]

I’ll have to look more into drum rack I haven’t used it much.

[@sarinsahil]

@@willytonezoneI’d love to know what you find :)

[@phildimopoulos6010]

Man this is awesome, pretty sure this is the only vid explaining this... because I was wondering how I'm going to mix the drums with the rest of the tracks (guitar, bass, vox etc.), and if I was going to have to mix them separately (somehow) directly in SD3. But now I don't have to! However, I do have one question for ya... what if I built the entire drum track right in SD3? I have all the "grooves" lined up exactly for the song I wrote at the bottom of SD3... should I just consolidate all the the grooves into one single "take" then drag it into Ableton? or will it be automatically routed into each individual drum/cymbal tracks I created once I hit record?

[@willytonezone]

Thanks for commenting! Glad I can help you out. As for your question I believe it will work either way. I personally like to have the midi file (groove consolidated) out in an Ableton MIDI track instead of in SD3 just because I prefer to work that way. I like having all the data out of the plug in if that makes sense. Let me know if that works for you.

[@phildimopoulos6010]

@@willytonezone I totally agree man. I commented while I was still at work, and now I’m at home and JUST opened Ableton, rewatched your vid and 100% it’s much better to have the audio file right in Ableton. I think though, that I/whoever should have the song structure 100% before doing this otherwise making changes to the drum parts will become a PAIN. Btw, thanks again for these vid (and your others I checked out, very well done, and getting better!), AND for responding. You’re awesome!

[@willytonezone]

@@phildimopoulos6010 Wow really appreciate everything you have said here. It’s so nice to read your thoughts. Thank you for the feedback. I hope to hear some great mixes and drums from you! Yes, always have everything articulated before you print ! Happy producing and mixing.

[@yael_valle]

A trick I use to maximize the track limit on multi put midi instruments send tracks thru channels as pairs since they're all technically mono signals (pan each left and right to get the track into their left and right channels) and then use utility on each track and single out the left and right channel so then you can pan your drums however u like. This lets you keep more tracks for things like overheads and room mics that are natural stereo pairs

[@willytonezone]

This is smart. I will make a video on this. Thank you for your input.

[@SkurgeBeatz]

Make a video bro

[@keinpedrosa6908]

Amazing help and horrible video quality but just good enough to make my life much easier from now on. thank you

[@willytonezone]

I need to work on that. Appreciate the feedback, it honestly helps even if it’s obvious. Glad I can help you out!!

[@zaydenmiller9924]

Bless your soul

[@willytonezone]

Appreciate it. Thank you

[@mikelayman495]

Hi Willy, thank you sooo much for this. Question, every time I open up SD3 from the plug in there seems to be a new superior drummer track under the Amb Ribbon or the last track, with a weird looking record button looks like a "J" inside the red dot, but I noticed on your video its not there. Also Im trying to add a TD50x as individual outs x 8 (or as a single track as I have faders on the module) to Ableton for a blended mix but not succeeding. Could you let me know how to wing this please?

[@willytonezone]

Hey man. So from reading that first part. I believe there might be some sort of thing you will need to turn off. To be honest I have never had that happen. But it’s happening in the Ableton session and not Superior Drummer right? And secondly, I have a TD30 and I use the 8 outs on the back of the module. So I used a snake cable (or 8 cables) and connected them from my module and into my interface (I use a Studio Capture - 16 ins). From there in Ableton you can setup 8 tracks and arm all of them to record TD50 audio while arming the superior drummer midi track to write MIDI. You can also use the TD50 stereo out if you don’t have 8 cables or ins on your interface to output your sound from your td50 into Ableton. Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know!

[@mikelayman495]

@@willytonezone Hey Willy, Thx again for your replies, yes its in Ableton , not SD3 . Actually thats what I'm doing , I have two (L&R) outs from TD50 in to my Behringer XR18 I have signal on my iPad running the app for the XR18 but I can not seem to get any signal in Ableton, Wish I could send a screen shot here but I dont think I can? I am sure its just some button I need to slap, and man when I find it hahaha. Also, that Black (tama?) Kit sounds awesome, what library is that from? talk soon Will.

[@willytonezone]

Hey if you send me your discord then you can send me the screen shots and I’ll help ya out directly. I believe I’m using Dark Matter EZX. It’s an EZDrummer expansion and it’s so good sounding out of the box. Comes with those tama kit parts

[@mikelayman495]

@@willytonezone thx for that Ez

[@mikelayman495]

LaymanOnDrums_12578's server

[@accameron]

Quick question - what track are you dumping those superior drummer grooves? Is that an instrument track?

[@willytonezone]

Hi there. It’s actually called a MIDI track in Ableton. You can only make two types of tracks in Ableton. Audio or MIDI. Sounds like you use Pro Tools :)

[@accameron]

@@willytonezone You are correct!! And thank you. So the process is just make a MIDI track within Ableton, then make a bunch of audio tracks and route appropriately, but dump the Superior Drummer clips into the MIDI track - literally drag and drop from SD3? Basically, the MIDI track dictates what goes everywhere else? Second question - what about a custom drum loop that you create yourself within SD3? Can you just dump that into the MIDI track as well some how? THanks!

[@willytonezone]

Yes. The track you have superior drummer on will read the MIDI loops and then make sound accordingly how the MIDI was drawn taking in velocity and timing. And to answer your second question. If you make a MIDI track within SD3 then you can export it from SD3 as a MIDI file and then drag it into your Ableton session. Hope that makes sense for ya.

[@175Das]

Thank you very much, Willy, this is exactly what I wanted. U've help so much... 🥲

[@willytonezone]

You’re welcome!! Glad to see some Ableton users using superior drummer.