Making Realistic Kits in Addictive Drums 2

A method for creating a realistic-sounding drum kit in Addictive Drums 2, that you can load up quickly and use as a general all-purpose demo or songwriting kit sound. This is useful to me for pretending I'm in a music rehearsal room with a real drummer pal, jamming and trying ideas out.

I love AD2, but I find that most of its preset kits are pretty fruity or have quite specific characteristics to them, which is unhelpful to work with if you're simply trying to quickly write a demo or jot an idea down. I often just want a solid and "normal"-sounding drumkit preset to start with, that I can then colour or process in whatever way I want to later on, or just give me an idea of how things will sound with a real drummer for my projects ‪@CactuarCollective‬ & ‪@luotheband‬.

It can also sound very 'preset-y' and I think if you know what to look for, it's quite easy to sniff out AD's fakeness, which is something I think lots of producers are keen to avoid. This is how I'd create my own realistic kit sounds for that purpose. This saves me a lot of time as I can load up this preset and get writing immediately, as opposed to spending ages looking for or tweaking a preset that only kind of fits what I need.

I think the kicks, toms and cymbals from the metal pack are really punchy and great, but the snare and hi-hats are a little too bright, obnoxious and sloshy to me - so I swap these out for a tighter snare & darker set of hats from the RnB pack to round out and balance the overall kit sound.

Metal Pack kit pieces:
Kick - Ludwig 22"
Toms - Ludwig Classic Maple (12x8", 13x9", 16x16", 18x16")
Crashes - 19" Zildjian K Dark, 20" Zildjian A Custom Reso
Rides - 20" Zildjian K Crash Ride, 24" Zildjian A Medium
Chinas - 18" Zildjian A Custom, 19" Zildjian K Custom Hybrid

RnB Pack kit pieces:
Snare - 14x5" Ludwig Acrolyte
Hi-Hats - 15" Meinl Byzance Dual

00:00 - Intro
00:32 - Why presets are unhelpful
02:00 - Blank Slate
02:26 - Kick & Snare
05:53 - Hi-Hat
06:45 - Toms
09:20 - Cymbals
10:00 - Master FX
13:44 - Using this Kit to Demo Ideas
14:46 - Using AD2 in Full Tracks

Instagram / Spotify / Bandcamp:
https://linktr.ee/joshtrinnamanaudio