Superior Drummer 3 plays any drum MIDI, and it gives you three places to put it: its own Grooves browser, its Song Track, or a MIDI track in your DAW. This guide covers all three, the settings that decide which note plays which drum, and one trap that makes every note play twice.

In this post:

• Load a pack into the Grooves browser
• Put MIDI on the Song Track
• Or use a DAW track
• Check the note map
• The double-trigger trap
• Tools worth knowing
• Questions

Menu names below are from Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 3 manual and release notes. If your version words one slightly differently, it is in the same place.

Load a pack into the Grooves browser

1. Unzip the pack somewhere you will keep it.
2. In Superior Drummer 3, open the Grooves tab.
3. Drag the .mid files or the folder onto User MIDI, or use Options > User MIDI and Linked Folders to link the folder where it is.
4. Click a groove to hear it with your kit, then drag it to the Song Track or straight onto a MIDI track in your DAW.

Since version 3.1.0, you can set an e-drum preset on a User MIDI or linked folder, for MIDI recorded on an e-kit in that kit’s map. Our grooves are General MIDI; check the map below before changing anything.

Put MIDI on the Song Track

• Drag and drop: dropping an external MIDI file on the Song Track offers the option to apply the e-drum transform to it. Dropping from User MIDI offers to bring in the tempo map and time signatures.
• Track menu: Import MIDI file, Import Tempo from MIDI File and Export Song as MIDI File.

Or use a DAW track

1. Load Superior Drummer 3 on an instrument track.
2. Drag a .mid file onto that track and press play.

MIDI coming from your DAW goes through Settings > MIDI In/E-Drums. That is the map to change if a drum is wrong. The MIDI Mapping box on the Drums tab is a different thing: it only remaps SD3’s own internal MIDI, so changing it will not fix a groove on a DAW track.

Check the note map

Toontrack’s manual shows SD3’s default map for the drums. Against the notes our grooves use:

• Drums: kick, snare, hi-hats and toms land where General MIDI expects. One detail: GM’s kick note, 36, plays the kick articulation SD3 calls “open”, and the plain kick hit is on 35. It is still the kick; remap 36 if you prefer the other.
• Cymbals: the chart in the manual stops before note 49, so it does not show where your kit’s crashes, ride and china sit. Open the MIDI Mapping Layout window (added in 3.3.4) to see them, and check notes 49, 51, 52, 53 and 57.

The quickest way to be sure is a two-minute test:

1. Put the drum plugin on an instrument track and drag one groove onto it.
2. Play it. Listen for the kick, the snare, the hi-hats and the crashes: in our grooves they carry nearly 9 in 10 hits.
3. Then listen for the toms, the china and the ride, which is where maps usually disagree.
4. For each drum that is wrong, note the MIDI note number (your DAW shows it) and fix it in the plugin’s map, as below.

Across 32 grooves from 8 of our packs, just 12 notes are used, all standard General MIDI. The kick and snare are most of the hits, then the open hi-hat, the second crash, the floor tom, the closed hi-hat and the china. Check those first.

To fix a note, change it in Settings > MIDI In/E-Drums. Drum MIDI mapping explained covers why maps differ, and the drum map lists every note.

The double-trigger trap

If you drag the Song Track’s contents into your DAW and leave Follow Host on, the manual warns that each note would be triggered twice: once from the Song Track and once from the DAW track. Turn Follow Host off after moving a song to the DAW. Since version 3.3.0, SD3 detects this and turns it off for you.

Tools worth knowing

• Tap2Find: tap or program a rhythm and find the closest grooves.
• Song Creator: builds variations and an arrangement from one groove.
• Edit Play Style and the grid editor: reshape grooves and edit single notes. Played grooves already have their feel; leave quantise off unless you want them tighter.
• Tracker: SD3’s audio-to-MIDI tool, for turning a recorded drum track into MIDI.
• Tempo: “Preview in Original Tempo” plays grooves at the tempo they were recorded at, and the 1/2x, 2x, 2/3x and 3/2x previews carry over when you drop a groove, which is a quick way to try a half-time part.

How to humanize drum MIDI shows what a played groove has that a programmed one does not. The same setup in other plugins: EZdrummer 3 and Addictive Drums 2.

Questions

Can Superior Drummer 3 use MIDI from other companies?

Yes: through User MIDI or a linked folder in the Grooves tab, by dropping files on the Song Track, or on a DAW track.

Where do I change the MIDI map in Superior Drummer 3?

For MIDI from your DAW, in Settings > MIDI In/E-Drums. The MIDI Mapping box on the Drums tab only affects SD3’s internal MIDI.

Why is every drum hit doubled in Superior Drummer 3?

Follow Host is on while the same notes play from the Song Track and a DAW track. Turn Follow Host off, or update: since 3.3.0, SD3 turns it off itself.

Do General MIDI grooves work in Superior Drummer 3?

The drums land where General MIDI expects on the default map. Check the cymbal notes (49 to 57) in the MIDI Mapping Layout window, as they can differ by kit.

The Everything Bundle has all 21 packs of General MIDI grooves played by a real drummer, ready to drop into Superior Drummer 3.