What is the BEST Drum Program for YOUR Workflow? | My Recommendations

Each drum sampler has their strengths and weaknesses depending on your process. Today, I break down my top 4 drum sampling plugins for acoustic style drums, their pros and cons, and who I think they are for based on your workflow and style.
I take a look at Steven Slate Drums SSD 5, Addictive Drums 2, GetGood Drums (One Kit Wonder Aggressive Rock), and Drumforge (Classic and Savior).
At the end there's a sonic example of what a preset (with no tweaking) sound like, to give you an idea what a starting point working with them would be like.
== == == == == == == ==
CHAPTERS
0:00 - Intro Track
0:42 - Introduction
2:08 - Steven Slate Drums 5: Sound
2:37 - SSD 5: Thoughts
4:49 - SSD 5: Summary
5:12 - Addictive Drums 2: Sound
5:41 - ADD2: Thoughts
6:53 - ADD2: Summary
7:17 - GetGood Drums (Aggressive Rock): Sound
7:46 - GGD: Thoughts
9:33 - GGD: Summary
9:55 - Drumforge: Sound
10:24 - Drumforge: Thoughts
11:49 - Drumforge: Summary
12:28 - Sonic Comparison
13:34 - Thanks for Watching! (Yes there was a spelling error..)
Thanks for your support! 💙 🤘 Remember to subscribe and leave a comment/like, and let me know other suggestions you have!
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[@psychegamez9709]

DUDE. HOLY moly this was the video I was looking for. Such a good explanation of everything. Thank you so much for ending my 3 hour long search for which drum plug in to choose.

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome!! Glad you found it helpful!! :)

[@billguitarvin]

Thanks so much for putting this video together! I really liked at the end where you could hear all the different drum VST’s one right after the other. Nice job!

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you for watching, glad you enjoyed it!! Appreciate the feedback! :)

[@billguitarvin]

You are very welcome!

[@ChannelForty2]

Great video! Just what I was looking for! Thanks brother!

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome, Glad it helped! :)

[@complexanimal033]

Great video and production! Cheers! 🐉

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!!

[@leandro123martins]

I work today as an arranger and music producer, as drums were an instrument that I played for many years, I can feel what sounds natural in a vst and what sounds artificial, I've used about 30 different drum vsts and I always thought they weren't enough to the result I expected to hear! Because in vsts this is how it happens, when you install any vst you will notice that it is good in some things and disappointing in others! The best result I got for the drum sound using vsts was using the room, overs and hit-hat from Addictive Drums and using the snare, kick and toms from GGD and the crashes use real sounds that I have recorded and add manually later. ..So the battery in the daw looks like this: Channel 1 in stereo from the Addictive Drums "ROOM" Chaneel 2 in stereo from the Addictive Drums "OVERS" Channel 3 in mono of the Addictive Drums "HIT-HAT" Channel 4 in mono from the GGD "SNARE" Channel 5 in mono from the GGD "KICK" Chanel 6 in stereo from the GGD "TOMS" Observations: In both the ambience and the overs I leave them without crahs, because I want to hear only kick drum, snare and toms from these channels, especially because the cymbals of any vst sound artificial, so later I add sounds from cymbals that I have recorded in wav manually, I usually use two, then I place one on each channel, opening their pan by 40% on each side. Another detail is that when I mix these two different vsts, I try to tune the snare drum, bass drum and toms of the two vsts with the same tuning and leave both kits without any of their original effects, I leave them both natural, so that I can add the effects and compression of my preference and according to the music I will produce to add glue to the mix.

[@ANAKCreates]

Love it! I also do some of that as well, mixing and matching like that works really well for me too. I often use one that's easy for writing and initial production, then I develop it out after that once the parts are more set. It's a great strategy!!

[@ForTheRock]

Thanks for all the detail in this video! doing some research towards new drums for my solo project and have been highly considering Get Good Drums. I realize the interface itself is different than most of the other self-contained plugins but the sound the packs give off with the default compressing and mixing sound massive and I dig it. I still have to do more research and thought as its an investment but I am loving all the stuff I hear from some of the other GGD packs they sell!

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome, glad you liked it!! Yes totally, is’s a great default sound, not much tweaking within the app, but you get what you get out of it and the packs do sound great, I quite enjoy using GGD for what you get!

[@mr.manifestor]

The way you compared each drumkit was quite precise and easy to understand....Something which i always found quite difficult to understand but you made it a lot more simple...so thank you....Also loved how you played with those screen captures on showcasing each drumkits... This is my introduction video to your channel and im planning on sticking around... Keep at it brother🔥💯

[@ANAKCreates]

Amazing! Glad you enjoyed that, thank you!! Appreciate the kind words, more coming!!

[@garygimmestad4272]

I went with Addictive Drums 2 largely because it does what I need for a reasonable price - I got it on sale and I’ve added kits through promos. I usually run the sounds pre-fader - bypassing what detractors blame for the artificial sound - and sculpt the sounds with my own plug-ins. I can then place the drums in the room (audience orientation) and tweak them more subtly with studio quality EQ, compression, etc. Yes, it takes some time to set up the multi outs but that’s what templates are for. I’m not writing rock so the appeal to most of the other drum engines featured in this video just don’t apply to my projects. One of the other draws to AD is the variety of kits which I don’t find elsewhere: a brush kit, a mallets kit, and jazz kits. I use those a lot. In addition to the many grooves available in AD, I also set them up with Logic Pro’s Drummer. It’s easily done and it works great as a groove starter - and I’m getting better sounding drums with AD. Another plus for AD is the variety of hits for open and closed hi-hats, snare hits and clicks, etc. I can control sonic variety and dynamic progression with nuance - not just with velocity but with triggering specific hits via MIDI in piano roll. The downside is that AD is essentially an abandoned project in terms of upgrading the interface and adding new kits. Or so it appears . . .

[@licken01]

I strongly agree with your comment Gary. I feel that ANAK did not explore Addictive Drums properly. I record and compose drums frequently. I love addictive drums because the samples without the AD2 processing sound real. I record live drummers playing either an original DW kit or Yamaha stage custom kits regularly. When I compare the tones of the AD2 samples and the actual recordings of the drums, they sound very similar. This includes the cymbal sets you get from AD2. They are very close to the actual sets. My drummers are always gobsmacked when I tell them I have replaced their cymbals with samples. it sounds so real.

[@ANAKCreates]

Ah very cool! I agree that it does have some nice sounds (brushes, mallets, etc) that you don't have in many other kits, which is awesome, and the grooves are great, really vast with lots of options and a really good manipulation mechanism for them as well. All very good points! Appreciate the further insight!

[@ANAKCreates]

I think you may be right, while I have used it for years, I have also always has other options as well, so I may have not dived in as deep as I could have, very good points, I will have to look deeper into it. Appreciate the insight as well! I was approaching looking at it more out of the box and how they seem to want you to use it (which is more with their processing since that is pretty extensive) but I haven't done alot of tests with it while removing the processing and just their raw sounds. Thanks for the different outlook on that, great points!

[@itsmeadarsh4372]

I'm asking my boss for a day off. Because i want to read your comment buddy 🙂

[@PendelSteven]

Comparing to SD you get less drums for less money, so cost / value they are actually quite te same. Both come at a reasonable price value.

[@ctatrains]

Excellent video!!

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@MalcolmCottleMedia]

Great video! LOVE the new dynamic way you're using the screen captures! Myself, drumforge has really been the ticket. I love how I can get pretty natural sounding drums and then mix them together to get that final processed sound (plus adding one-shots is super easy). Being able to program the same detail that I would play is key, and to me, drumforge gives me that capability. But you're right, you need the mac pro cheese grater to handle the CPU needs hahaha.

[@ANAKCreates]

Thanks so much!! Glad you enjoyed it!! Yes, Drumforge is a great program with lots built in and great sounding kit pieces out of the box, I hope they fix the CPU thing, because that's a real bummer while writing! haha

[@jomesias]

Try freezing other tracks you have effects on to free up cpu, or even the Drumforge drum track. This is one of the best Drumforge features for me, once you freeze the track you get the built in mixer effects and send effects frozen along with the double kick sample articulations and the Drumshotz! Got it on sale half off $70, and I couldn’t be happier versus spending $500 for Superior Drummer with the Metal Foundry. For metal drums: Drumforge Bergstrand or Griner is the Holy Grail. Superior Drummer is also capable, but at a much higher price point. Far as I know, Superior Dummer doesn’t support the left and right sample feature for fast double kicks.

[@davidgoode7416]

Great video man, thanks

[@ANAKCreates]

Thanks for checking it out! Glad you enjoyed it!!

[@Michaelbraha]

Hearing “route them out” in Canadian accent is funny. Also, thanks for this awesome vid. I use addictive drums but haven’t tried any alternatives. They taken up soooo much storage on my mac. Each plugin in like 50 gb

[@ANAKCreates]

hahaha glad you enjoyed that, never really thought about that before haha Yeah they do take up some decent space, my instrument libraries are well over 500GB since I have multiple of them. Storing this stuff on an external SSD is also a great option as well!

[@adityabali1939]

Maybe it’s time you made a part 2 of this video series with extinction level event drums, hertz drums, roomsound drums, krimh drums, ezdrummer 3 and finally the CounterKit by Kyle Brownlee. These are some underrated kits and I think you will make a great shootout video. Love your content ❤

[@ANAKCreates]

I’ll have to check out more of those, my slow growing collection will eventually be able to make another video haha thanks for the suggestions!!

[@robloyst4514]

Oh I’ll have to look these up!

[@uricohen2397]

❤

[@stephenchambers2637]

I love your song you are working on!

[@ANAKCreates]

Thanks you!! Much appreciated, that song is currently in production, should be coming out next year ;)

[@agustinarce6466]

amazing video thank you, the song is really good too!!!!

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome!! Glad you liked it!! Thank you :)

[@AbideinChristFully]

In my short search in forums, I didn't hear about some of these...so I'm glad I watched. I do wish I could hear the drums solo without that guitar drowning them out.

[@ANAKCreates]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the feedback as well!

[@LunatiqueRob]

AD2 does have more rock/metal oriented kits, and those will sound much more competitive with the other libraries you used for comparison.

[@yvesnadeau7736]

I have Superior Drummer 2 and to upgrade to superior 3 wouls still cost me a lot of money. I did like your review on the SSD5 because a lot cheaper and did like also that this pluging provide raw sound. I prefer mixing the drim in my Daw.

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome, I'm glad! Yes, I agree, SSD is resonabily priced and gives you great stuff to work with, as long if you like that workflow. Very easy to use in that way!

[@yvesnadeau7736]

@@ANAKCreates 👍

[@geoffreymerrifield5666]

Great video! I don't use a daw. I use 2Box Drumit 5 MK2 module with SD3. Would really like to see you do this type of video with Superior Drummer 3 and EZ Drummer.

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you!! Ahh interesting, very cool! Once I get my hands on them to get a fair trial and put them through their paces, I would love to do another video with those as well!!

[@templatemusic]

How do you do that Geoffrey? Do you run midi out of the drumit into a standalone SD3? Or do you physically export multi-velocity samples into the drumit?

[@soulsweet40]

I love Modo Drums myself...its easy to work with and many different kits to choose from

[@ANAKCreates]

I've never tried Modo drums yet, but i've heard people love it, that's super cool!!

[@C.E.Alekperoff]

Oh wow, so it's AD2 hands down, eh?.. Thank you, this was very helpful!

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome! Glad it was helpful!

[@moffatbanda6001]

Have you tried Modo drums by IKM, Superior drum 3, by toon track?

[@ANAKCreates]

I have not yet actually! I’ve heard good things about both, mostly the ToonTrack stuff (which I use other of their products) but I haven’t dived into either yet.

[@smash_adams]

I have several GGD libraries and SSD5.5 as well and the thing that's frustrating to me with GGD is the way they decided to do the snare map, mixing center and one shots on the same trigger depending on the velocity...except the round robin engine can get weird and you end up with low velocity rim shots that sound like someone chopping wood. SSD5 is great. I wish they had more snare tunings and an option to process in plugin, and maybe a groove player that reconfigured external grooves to the SSD5 mapping like GGD does. Overall I use ssd5 more

[@ANAKCreates]

Yes totally agree, that mapping is a bit annoying. Yeah, SSDs groove player feels like a bit of a closed system and isn’t the easiest to load other things into. It has good sounds, but not a ton of processing in it which can be nice for wanting to process it in the DAW. Agreed, great take on them!

[@LaymensLament]

ey i appreciate you comment on the drums sounding dry or not because most kits just are way too processed for my taste

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome! Glad you enjoyed the video!!

[@roberteismann1929]

XLN Addictive Drums has the best Hi Hats imho. I do use SSD5 and Drumforge for the shells but mostly use XLN for Hi Hats

[@ANAKCreates]

Ahh very interesting that’s cool! I do really like mixing and matching them as well depending on the sound im going for and the needs I have.

[@fatuyiibikunle4813]

Superior drummer 3 is the better

[@deesee2008]

I actually liked SSD5 and AD2 , funnily enough.👍

[@ANAKCreates]

Nice! Everyone has different needs and tastes, it's great! Lots of room for everything! SSD5 is also one of the ones I do use the most actually, always been a great solid go-to for me.

[@BrentIraEnman]

Me too Started with SSD5 and just got AD2 which I prefer the GUI both very good

[@VanStein277]

Wow cool intro music

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you!! The song is in the works!!

[@marioaguilera4670]

Drumforge and Ssd5 are the best, I use them as replacers of my kick drums or to augment my kick and snares, my main drums comes fros superior drummer 3 which is in another league but to me drum forge and SSD5 has the best overall sound and sabes you a lot of process to make it sound great in every mix..

[@ANAKCreates]

Agreed! I love them both. Often I will even use Drumforge for Kicks and Snares, then use SSD for cymbals, or the other way around too. Very nice! I haven't used Superior Drummer myself, but I have used other ToonTrack products and they are great.

[@LajosUti]

How ezdrummer would fit into this list?

[@ANAKCreates]

I haven't used EzDrummer that much, however I do know Toontrack stuff is generally great (I'm a heavy user of EzBass). From my experience, EZ Drummer has more playing and internal programming options, and has a very robust mixer with effects, but not as many sounds and samples. I see it as more along the lines of Addictive Drums, where it's easy to get something to get started, and probably great for writing as well with lots of grooves and idea generation things, but not as good with raw sounds as something like Slate. That's my thoughts from my bits of using it, but again I am not as well versed it in, since it just never caught my fancy due to what I mentioned.

[@thomaspetersen3000]

Great song! Is it a Fender bass you are playing?

[@ANAKCreates]

Thank you!! An original, still gotta finish it but it's a cool start! And yes, that is a fender bass I'm playing, however the bass sound you hear isn't that bass, it's a programmed bass.

[@thomaspetersen3000]

@@ANAKCreates thanks man 🤟🏻

[@marsrivers]

What do you think about modo drums by ik multimedia?

[@ANAKCreates]

I have actually never used it! I would be curious to try it or hear more about it, but I have never seen anyone around me using it or had a chance to test it myself! It looks versatile which is nice.

[@marsrivers]

@@ANAKCreates I program drums with the keyboard so I needed some organic feeling in the hit hat, and addictive or ez didnt have. Modo drums has that feeling in hit hat, however drums so too much roomy

[@ANAKCreates]

@@marsrivers Ahh gotcha, makes total sense. PS, I have a podcast about tips to program drums (with a keyboard or just drawing stuff in) which might interest you! anakcreates.ca/learn/ep74

[@bredda_marcus]

MODO DRUMS is the best by far.

[@ANAKCreates]

@@bredda_marcus Cool! What do you like about it so much?

[@sound_verse]

SSD sounds BEST on this particular song to me😍

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome!! Thank you, glad you liked it!

[@gurumonkey]

Why didn't you include superior drummer 3?

[@ANAKCreates]

I don’t know enough about it, Iv only used it a handful of times, and never took to it personally. I’ve heard people that love it, but i guess just not my preference! :)

[@renofumi28]

Almost 2 years later, still waiting an update 👀

[@doum]

And what about the king? Superior Drummer 3 ????

[@ANAKCreates]

I didn’t add it in this one as I haven’t had any personal experience on it and don’t have it, so couldn’t make a helpful suggestion, but I have heard good things about it!!

[@renofumi28]

Actually, I wonder if there is someone who do what I usually do like mix and matching drums from different plugins, sometime I have an idea to layer the kick on this vst to that vst, sometime I do the toms. As you might expect it sounds like very inconvenient 😂 thankfully FL Studio have a built in plugins called Layer, that can play multiple vst's at a time

[@ANAKCreates]

That's awesome! I didn't know FL had something like that, that's very helpful. I do exactly what you're saying and use multiple at once sometimes haha but I print them into seperate audio tracks so I can make sure they are all in phase and perfect, so while it's annoying to setup sometimes, it's quite easy to use after that

[@thethings4708]

Did the Slate ssd5 drums still need a ""DONGLE"" to run with ilok ??...If yes : it is a BUMER... dongle was about the same price as plugin itself...

[@ANAKCreates]

Yes I believe it does, but believe you can still use ilok and license it on your computer itself, not needing the dongle. Might want to double check if someone else knows this, but I seem to have it working that way. So that would only need the free account and no actual physical dongle!

[@DjentlyVISUALS]

I´ve been with Addictive Drums from day 1, somewhere in 2009 and I used it in maybe 1000 demos. I always claimed this was the best drum computer of all times. Until I met SSD 5 last year. The direct comparison between their sound in this video is just alarming. AD now just seems like the worst drum computer to me :-D the funny thing is, if you use AD for so long, you´ll hear it out in every commercial production it´s used in. no matter how processed it is. cause the snare and the hihat just got this typical, artifical AD sound^^

[@ANAKCreates]

That's awesome!! Yeah it's very interesting hearing them side by side for sure! haha that's funny how the perspective changed from hearing that! Yes, agreed it has the afticial AD sound on the hats and stuff, one of the reasons it's not my go-to anymore, I use many other libraries before it now. But, different things had different purposes and places in workflows, so whatever works for someone to create!

[@LaWdHaveMercy4]

And in a couple more years you will start to hear SSD drums in the commercial. People swear they are pitch masters and can tell what’s what on a project. “No matter how processed” lol

[@auggiebendoggy]

Anyone have BFD to compare? Listening to it on it's website it sounds great. But to be honest, they all sound good.

[@ANAKCreates]

Would love to hear a good BFD comparison, I haven’t used that one in years. THey do mostly all sound good, just different in their own ways depending on what you’re working on I find.

[@auggiebendoggy]

@@ANAKCreates I use Groove Agent 5 alot but I have to often mix up the kits. What's nice is becuase you can load in 4 kits, you can then direct midi channels so that you can use the snare from one kit, while toms from another and so on without having to load in 4 different instances of groove agent. Not sure how BFD or others do but I like that feature to keep things clean on the work space.

[@ANAKCreates]

@@auggiebendoggy Super cool! I have actually never used Groove Agent, but that sounds really interesting, gunna have to check it out! I like the look of it

[@drwavenstein]

" @@ANAKCreates Yes GA-5 is fire !! A real good plugin. I've bn using GA since it first was out as just Groove Agent. It is very intuitive. Most drum plugins have a plethora of sound content for just about any Genre. Take any of them and make great music with 👍🏼"

[@ANAKCreates]

@@drwavenstein Awesome, good to know! Thanks for the insight!!

[@Bembol01]

Goran grooves is the best for me next is Superior 3 and Addictive drums 2

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome!! I have never used Goran Grooves, I’ll have to check that out!

[@abernest559]

sweet

[@ANAKCreates]

Glad you enjoyed!!

[@megatonbg4157]

SSD5 ✌

[@ANAKCreates]

Wicked! What's your fav reason for it?

[@blissfulhumanoid9536]

No one can ever tell you what’s best for you. Only you can ultimately make that decision. I personally love Addictive Drums!

[@ANAKCreates]

Agreed! You have to choose for yourself. That’s awesome! I know many people who swear by it! :)

[@1k1ta]

where is IK multimedia?

[@ANAKCreates]

It’s not one Iv been able to test yet! But it looks really cool, hope to get to try it!

[@heavenly2k]

Drumforge is by far the best sounding imo

[@ANAKCreates]

It sounds great and is very flexible! Great for really diving into different sounds!

[@MediaMusik777]

real drums?hands down modo drums by ikm ,808s boom by air ,synthetic drums synth500 by air which right now they are 10 bucks for both on plug in botique , i got them free though

[@ANAKCreates]

Ahh nice, awesome!! I've never tried Modo drums actually, but been heraing that name around a bit, might haave to check it out!

[@MediaMusik777]

@@ANAKCreates they are modeled not sampled I believe and they have classic rock kits from 60,70,80,90,2000, I layer them anyway with 808s

[@ANAKCreates]

Ahh gotcha, very cool! That definitely has a place!

[@n0g4rdd3r9]

Slate drums can't emulate cymbal swells whereas ad2 can with minimal effort.

[@ANAKCreates]

Ahh okay! Good to know! I don’t do a lot of cymbal swells actually, so hadn’t noticed, but that’s great to know! Thanks!

[@hilmi_design_officiel]

EZ drummer 2

[@ANAKCreates]

Cool! I have not had a ton of experience with it, but I do hear good things about it!

[@TwstedTV]

You forgot a couple more. damn wish I seen it with others included. for example BFD and Toontrack superior Drummer 3. So really this video is not a fair shot......LOL

[@ANAKCreates]

Totally! I can't include every one that is out there, there are so many haha I can only speak to the best of the ones I've used to give people some kind of context and comparison. I hope to be able to dive into Superior sometime as well, but at this point I haven't given it a fair shot.

[@qtippz]

Take a shot every time he says "manipulate"

[@ANAKCreates]

Haha oh boy, that should be fun haha

[@brooksbohmbach1]

I’ve legit bought All of these in and spend time with the all. My conclusion…. I hate snare drums 😂😂

[@ANAKCreates]

Hahaha snares are always the hardest thing to find!! And a good sounding Hat.. haha

[@peite7878]

I prefer Logic X built in drums

[@ANAKCreates]

Very nice! I have only played with them a little bit so far as Logic isn’t my main DAW, but I hear good things! Good to know!

[@davidteogalbo8692]

The song somewhat sounds like Decode by Paramore lol

[@ANAKCreates]

Haha never heard it before, but I could kinda see it now that ya mention it!

[@kenshiku]

Those drums really are lost in that intro track...

[@ANAKCreates]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@user-bb7te4yo3y]

I think DrumForge sounded the best out of the rest, more dynamic range, stage, impact, overall realism.

[@ANAKCreates]

I love drumforge stuff for rock and heavier stuff, I personally am not a big fan of it for other genres, or I havent found the right combo, but it does nail the heavy stuff realllyyyy well, agreed!!

[@user-bb7te4yo3y]

@@ANAKCreates yeah I like heavier tones like doomy Black Sabbath toms and snares, aggressive hats etc so I think this would be great

[@zorglub667]

more libraries please! BFD. the ujam drummers. same methodic approach (nice!).

[@ANAKCreates]

Awesome, thanks for the suggestion! Glad you enjoy the style of video for comparison!