I almost can't believe it myself, after having followed this thread for God knows how long. Gonna drop on Tuesday apparently:
Any News on Stevens Slate Drums 5?
There's no news in any stores about it yet, but there will be soon.
I held off on buying Superior Drummer 3 'cause I love the character and vibe of Steven's offerings. Hopefully my patience is finally about to pay off!
This is huge for many here I'm sure...
EDIT 1
Nobody's asked this yet, but in anticipation of the inevitable questions about SSD4 expansion-library compatibilities:
1) Yes, the David Bendeth Drums, Chris Lord-Alge, Blackbird Studio Drums and Terry Date expansions will work.
2) IIRC you'll be issued links to download the "compatibilised" versions of the libraries you own; the original files you have won't load. Same goes for legacy factory libs, the updated versions of which will be included in SSD5.
3) They're apparently going to sound even-better due to the new playback engine.
Also, Slate's M.O. is to ensure the retention of existing libraries in new versions of the plugin, so all previous factory libraries will be included as legacy banks.
EDIT 2
There's a new built-in scripting engine that'll help kits play in a more-realistic fashion. I'm guessing that this'll be tremendously-helpful to those using MIDI keyboards as input devices.
OK, it's here, and Michael_dk has Kindly shared deets from his email:
- 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
- VERY BIG - 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
Glad he made a new video and didn't just stick with the one he made early in the year:
EDIT 3
New release thread:
Steven Slate Drums 5 (SSD5) Now Available
Apparently there are 138 drum kit presets, 84 kicks, 77 snares, 58 toms, 11 hi-hats, 14 crashes, 6 rides, 4 splashes 3 chinas, 1 clap, 1 tambourine and 1 cowbell.
The physically-modeled drum playback algorithm mentioned above apparently "recreates the sound of real drum parts with realism that you'll have to hear to believe. Simple round robin is a thing of the past... now each drum dissolves into the next just like a real acoustic drum kit."
there's a demo version here:
Steven Slate Drums - World-Class Virtual Drum Instruments & Replacers
EDIT 4
MIDI-groove libraries:
From Baxterbrown over at GearSlutz:
Groove Monkee has an extensive library and they are in the process of making them SSD5 compatible. I bought the Hi-Octane groove pack Friday and their support team said they'd likely have the SSD5 compatible version ready by this Tuesday.
EDIT 5
MIDI-groove libraries:
Steven Slate said this at GS several hours ago:
We are working on more grooves and will be adding a large number of them free of charge in a near update.
EDIT 6 2019-04-04
Now on sale for $99. Upgrade from SSD4 Platinum to SSD5 $49, and SSD4 EX to SSD5 $79. Expansions 50%-off sale too.