Steven Slate Drums has launched Steven Slate Drums 5, a major update of the virtual drum instrument.

SSD5 has been built from the ground up, featuring a new physically-modeled drum playback algorithm that recreates the sound of real drum parts with great realism. The update also comes with over 50 new Deluxe 2 Instruments which have over double the amount of layers and multisamples from any previous samples.

SSD5 makes editing your kits a breeze. Select individual drums, customize the mics and routing, choose your MIDI maps, customize your velocity and dynamic curves for each drums, and build your custom tone exactly as you want it.

SSD5’s mixer allows you to get the perfect mix of your drums, with easy access to ambient room mics and close mics. It allows you to easily route your drums discretely to your DAW so you can use your favorite plugins to get the ultimate drum tone. We also added a new master volume control to the entire plugin.

Customize your MIDI Map with SSD5’s completely reworked MIDI MAP converter. Everything in a kit preset is easily mappable and re-mappable plus you can quickly load mapping presets.

Steven Slate Drum 5

Steven Slate Drums 5 features

  • New Deluxe 2 drum library with more than 50 new instruments including 10 new kicks, 10 new snares, and even a few percussion instruments. All the drums are unique and have two stereo room layers each.
  • New SSD5 physically modeled drum playback algorithm ensures that each drum part sounds extremely natural, authentic, and real.
  • Classic Slate Drums, Deluxe 1 Drums, and ALL Expansion pack drums (CLA, Blackbird, etc) have been re-done using the new SSD5 physically modeled drum playback algorithm.
  • New GUI with a better layout and better functionality. Easy to understand and navigate, even without the manual..
  • Using Drum Kit view, or Pads/Cells View you can now load up to 32 drum instruments simultaneously along with up to 32 user one-shots..
  • Super powerful and easy routing to your DAW with AUX channels, routing manager, and routing presets..
  • Group selection of mixer strips to adjust parameters of different mics simultaneously.
  • New solo/mute logic in Mixer with hotkeys for instant un-solo and unmute..
  • Phase now can be flipped not only on selected mics but also on a whole instrument. Gives you the possibility to flip all mics in the instrument, but, for instance, subsequently flip the close mics.
  • Reworked mapping. Everything in the kit preset is easily mappable and remappable plus there is an input converter to load mapping presets for popular formats.
  • New groove library with more than 1000 new grooves. Grooves are unique and come in a lot of styles played by great drummers. New grooves are played by the new groove player, where you can adjust the dynamics and speed of grooves and ‘drag and drop’ modified grooves into your DAW.
  • Drums audition has been greatly improved. Audition just by clicking on a drum instrument.
  • Now you can change the balance of direct mics vs ambient mics for sample audition in the browser.
  • Master volume for plugin output added.
  • Resampling quality is improved.
  • Retina support added.
  • New shaping section. ADSR, where you can adjust A, D and R curves and S volume. Allows you to emulate transient shapers and compressors. Also gives endless possibilities for sound design.

Steven Slate Drums 5 for Windows and Mac (VST/AU/AAX) is available for the intro price of $149 USD (regular $179 USD). SSD4 Platinum and SSD4 EX users can upgrade at a discount until November 30th.

A free non-expiring demo version offers full functionality and one Deluxe 2 kit.

More information: Steven Slate Drums

Steven Slate Drum 5 mixing

Steven Slate Drum 5 mapping