Glad I didn't purchase before trying it out, despite the major advancements in the program itself.

IMOHO, they majorly dropped the ball when they failed to record IRs of the room and to record a stellar core sample library. You could mix all libraries in one kit and have a cohesive sound. Had Toontrack had the foresight to record impulse responses of the room at Galaxy Studio (they had almost everything they needed already set up), then I could import close-miced drums and had a convincing kit by running them through convolution reverbs of the room captured with their mic setup and a sound source at each kit position. It seems I'd wind up using drums from other libraries within 3, which leads to the major problem of mismatched room ambience due to totally different recording setups. They would have been wise to allow other VST plugins in their effects slots. I guess I've been spoiled by Fractal and UA. The effects have been increased in number from 5 to 35 IIRRC, but the quality of most I tried was shit, especially the reverbs. All in all, I'm not sure what these world-class experts were thinking. Many of the drums also have nasty ringing the kind of ringing that would make me immediately retune or dampen. In order to get a mega-power hit on many toms, you have to simulate one with amplitude and pitch envelopes. The new tuning algorithm sounds good, but not good enough to extend the range to extremes. The small concert toms are not tuned nearly high enough. Were they afraid they'd hurt the heads? No power whatsoever in many of them. The toms, especially the floor toms, sound like they are being hit by an old lady, even at max velocity. I've read reviews of how awesome the samples are, but I find them lacking compared to many of the SDX libraries for SD2. The interface and workflow are vastly improved, and the new features are great. I recently got the opportunity to try SD3.

Superior drummer 3 library installer