Toontrack SDX Area 33

What Area 33 SDX Is For

Area 33 SDX is an SDX expansion dedicated to Superior Drummer 3, designed to create realistic, detailed metal drum kits that are immediately usable in production. It targets both composers and sound engineers who want to start from raw and pure sounds and then deeply shape them: modern metal, extreme, progressive, industrial, but also heavy and alternative rock when impact, definition, and a "breathing" room are sought.

Thanks to its contrasting and complementary kits, numerous snares, toms, and cymbals, and its wide selection of MIDI grooves, this SDX becomes a solid working base for writing, preproduction, recording professional demos, or finalizing demanding mixes.

Main Features

A room sound designed as an instrument

Studio 33 was designed to capture the essence of a drum room: spacious and reverberant, while remaining precise, direct, and controlled. The result: you get a rich sonic material, ideal for drums that need to hold up in dense mixes without losing depth. The 11 room microphones add rare flexibility, from tight and aggressive room sound to wide perspectives suitable for film productions or immersive mixes.

Advanced multi-microphone: sculpt beyond the "standard"

Each kit was recorded with close microphones, but with an additional set of microphones at each position. Specifically, each drum and cymbal is represented by a pair of mono and stereo microphones, allowing you to adjust width, attack, brightness, and spatial feel with remarkable finesse. Combined with Superior Drummer 3's mixing platform, you can go from a dry, surgical, and punchy sound to a wider, enveloping, and organic drum sound.

Kits designed for metal, but not limited to it

With 7 complete drum kits and a massive amount of additional elements, Area 33 SDX covers a wide spectrum: sharp attacks, articulated bass drums, snappy snares, deep toms, and cymbals with strong character. Several kits offer generous configurations (up to 8 toms, double bass drums, 15 cymbal slots), ideal for technical metal, complex orchestrations, and arrangements demanding high clarity.

Fast workflow: presets and MIDI grooves

To get straight to the point, the library includes numerous ready-to-use presets as well as a large selection of individually recorded MIDI grooves and fills. You can start with a coherent sound and then refine it according to your aesthetic (drier, more room, more modern, more massive) while speeding up writing and preproduction.

Technical specifications

Type

Full software

Downloadable

Yes

Required platform	Toontrack Superior Drummer 3	Library size	over 180 GB
Note	Superior Drummer 2 is not supported	Technique	close microphones + additional microphone set at each position
Produced and recorded by	Fredrik Thordendal and Daniel Bergstrand	Each drum and cymbal	pair of mono and stereo microphones
Location	Studio 33, Stockholm, Sweden	Room mics	11 additional room microphones (including 7 in stereo)
Drums played by	Leo Margarit	Stereo configurations	up to Surround 5.1