Great drumsounds and lots of options! Thanks David!
Would be nice if the sidestick and the rimclick have their seperate mix channels. Not enough control now over the levels and sends as they are routed to the same channel as the snare.
Further two or more hihats to choose from would also be nice, the Zildjian is great but very distinctive and not always preferred.

Overall: 3.9

All in all, I'm happy with it. I saw the detailed walkthrough video from Joel Wanasek, so I knew what I was getting. However, the workflow could be better, and the built-in impact one-shots sound good for a simple, not fast snare pattern, but as soon as there is a more complex-busier rhythm, it is worth turning them down enough to keep the snare human-like. The snares without the impact one-shots are well layered, and can be used for everything in my opinion. One more thing: even the current latest version (1.0.4) tends to crash Cubase after a while when I'm trying and changing the one-shots (not the impacts), or when I choose the "load full tom set" option for the toms. (I use Drumforge's own one-shot catalog.) Since this is a dedicated library, it is not surprising that the cymbal selection is limited. All in all, if you are looking for a bombastic-sounding, primarily rock drum, it is worth giving it a try. If you want a multi-purpose, deeply customizable drum software, it's worth comparing it to the competition before making a choice.

A very massive drum plugin, suitable for any genre. A big plus compared to other plugins is that the set features up to 6 toms. The only minus so far is, that I wasn't able to install the latest update. But I faced this problem with my last two Drumforge purchases as well. Somehow hard to install on a Windows laptop. I didn't face these problems with all of my older purchases. So this doesn't seem to have anything to do with David Bendeth plugin, which - again - is a great plugin.

Good sounding drums. Very versatile. I mean it's David Bendeth, what can you want more!

First of all, this is a great sounding drum library for rock, pop, and metal. It sounds big, powerful, and natural. The choice of snare drums is the highlight for me (the Q Drum Co. Copper is my favorite). The option to blend in one shot samples is great as well, e.g. combining the DW 24" kick with the Smashed Potato sample, which is generously included for free, creates a punchy bass drum with a thicc low end. On the other hand, there are not many cymbals included, just one ride and hi-hat, chinas that don't sound great, IMO. Also, there is no cowbell! I would also like options to expand the kit or modify its components more freely, e.g. replace one of the toms with a side snare for EDM/rock crossover tracks, add more cymbals, so that everything I need could be done in one drum sampler. In conclusion, the Drumforge David Bendeth sampler sounds great but could do with more expansion options.

Great sound and infinite combinations and option inside.

A comprehensive drum kit sound library.

From pop and rock to metal—you can't go wrong with this choice!

A comprehensive drum kit sound library.

From pop and rock to metal—you can't go wrong with this choice!

The sounds are amazing - super punchy, quick and easy to get great sounds. Definitely a lot of variety as well. Only reason I dont give it 5 stars is theres room for improvement in the interface and some of the nuances on the technical implementation. But that being said Ive already used it on a song I released and sounds great!

Phenomenal Drum Library!
Punchy, natural drum sounds with so much choice and control. Also comes with a wealth of amazing grooves! Probably the best, most complete drum library I’ve used.

There are some great drum sounds to be had in this library. It sounds huge in a natural way, but definitely with a sound. It has a certain mid punch character that's there throughout all the drum shells.
And there are a lot of drum shells, with a lot of variety. I was a bit surprised by how short some of the snares sound in the close mics. Especially with the "riot" snare (Vinnie Paul 14x8). But the big room sounds make up for it. Especially the mono room has a ton of character. There are also some very ringy snares and some in between, so there should be something there for everyone.
The toms have a handy "load full tom set" feature so you don't have to change the tom kit pieces one by one, though be warned at the time of writing that crashes my daw (Cubase 15). I remember it working fine before so not sure what's going on there.
What would be be a useful addition here btw I think is if in the window where you select the tom pieces they would mention the amount of toms that set has. So when you're choosing a matching set you can pick one with the amount of toms you want.
The cymbals are more limited in options. Only the 2 crashes and the china have a 2nd option. They are very good sounding cymbals though, but a 2nd HH option would've been nice.
The depth of sample layers is mostly great. You can dive in and exactly see how many layers there are and how they sound. Deselect any you don't like if you feel the need to. You can make the cymbals swell and make natural snare rolls in the midi programming. Only with the kick I feel I'm missing something between the hardest and 2nd hardest hits. But I can make it work well enough and with the other shells I think they strike a nice balance between depth but also hearing enough difference between layers to give you a clear choice when programming and setting the velocities for what kind of hit you want.
The mixer page is clear, though I had to watch the walk-through video to find out what the ADR channels are. One thing a bit odd witht he mixer is that there is a hidden mono OH channel. You can find it in the Kit page under "sources", but for some reason it's not in the mixer. So that's a bit of a hassle if you want to turn that up or down for everything. I also prefer to route everything out to my daw as is and mix from there. With only 16 output channels I feel a bit limited in that regard, but it's an issue I have with other drum samplers as well so maybe there is a technical reason for that that I don't know about?
All in all great sounding drum samples, big room sounds and a great variety of shells that with some minor negatives aside are easy enough to work with

Some amazing drums samples here! Love the good selection..

Honestly this and Drumforge Daniel Bergstrand are the only drums I use on anything now, I've got nothing else that sounds anywhere near as good and I often need 6 toms which none of the other HQ libraries I looked at before finding Drumforge had.

Amazing sounding library, especially the bundled one-shots! Just wish it came with some grooves and a better browser a la toontrack to help build the actual song structures within it instead of having to go back to the DAW. But you can't deny the amount of killer sounds in here, and the flexibility for so many genres.

Drumforge David Bendeth sounds so good !! Whenever a song needs powerful drums, this library is one of the first to go to. Grateful that such a great drum library is now available to us.

I love the wide variety of instrument options and insights into David's approach. Incredible value for money! Great job DrumForge!

Punchy and almost mix ready drums, loving it!

The sounds on this pack are amazing. This is my first drum library from Drumforge and Ive been having a lot of fun with the tones and workflow of the plugin. For me this is great for a live drum sound and that classic David touch.

Best drumforge drum library to date! Honestly a great touch to include drum shot samples with the kicks and snare as well as the printed compressor and reverb channels! Rooms sounds amazing as well! Only thing to nitpick is that i'd love to see a bigger cymbal selection

I absolutely love these drums. But they could be improved. I was searching for a very versatile setup and found it with this product. It can do everything well, and I feel it gives my recordings and edge over the generic sounds I hear. Where I think it can be improved is in the shiny stuff, I find the cymbals a little uninspiring, but they are usable.
Also Drumforge crew, I am having problems with fast snare roles not sounding realistic, they are not bad, but not brilliant either. This is only small things, and overall I feel that it is a stellar product. To finish on a high note...kicks and snares are sublime, and Tom's are excellent too.

I tried every mixwave kit, odeholm drums, krimh, ez drummer, superior drummer, ultimate heavy drums, getgooddrums, and countless others, this is the best virtual drums ever created. These drums are beyond professional; this is the platinum record sound. It's a whole other level. Look into the stuff David has worked on. He's your favorite producer's favorite producer. The price tag is ridiculous for what you're getting. If you're a mixing engineer or a musician, you will regret not pulling the trigger on these sooner.

As with every other Drumforge product, Drumforge Said Bendeth is a true gem ! Sounds amazing in any context, workflow and UI are super simple and if you're into both DB and DF, you won't be disappointed ! Go for it !

This plugin is the first drum plugin that I actually mixed the drums INSIDE the plugin. I almost always route my tracks into my DAW and mix there. That was the most impressive thing to me. You really have all the tools you need on each track of the mixing window inside the plugin.

The drums sounds are great right out of the gate. They are punchy and huge. Snare drum sounds didn’t disappoint which was probably the main reason half of us bought the plugin.

On the constructive criticism side. I found the cymbal chokes a little tricky to find/use. I usually like when those are right above or below the main cymbal hits but that’s a 5 minute remapping thing on my end.

I know in one session I swapped my overheads for SSD’s because I just couldn’t get the sound I was looking for. So hopefully Drumforge will add some expansion packs with different overhead options.

Overall, super happy with the purchase.

While I understand that the routing is consistent with David Bendeth's, it doesn't fit well with my workflow, thus I'm not able to use it as much as I would like to. The drums themselves sound great but the lack of routing and customization that's typically featured in drum forge sample libraries, and is honestly across competitor drum library companies, is absent within Drumforge David Bendeth.

That's the only reason why it's not five stars.

Bendeth is a legend. Excelent drum sound!

Nothing comes close to the sound of this plugin. Bendeth is a legend and this library gives you his sound in your songs. It's actually insane.

I really like about this library that it's not trying to be anything else, that is already out there. Very specific sound and has lot of vibe. Also I have to mention incredible snare collection. If you are looking for something that sounds totally different then anything out there this is it!

This is by far the best drum sampler on the market. It has literally every bell and whistle you could possibly want built-in and the samples are far and away the best collection. I own several other samplers and since owning this one I haven't touched any of my others. I'm fact I've gone back to old recordings and replaced the old samplers with this one. It's crazy good. It's crazy versitile. It is the GOLD STANDARD for drum samplers.

The BEST-sounding library on the market... BAR NONE.

I have a range of libraries from the top dogs and I genuinely think there is nothing like this library. Snare options are incredible. If you want a library that makes you stand out, instead of sounding like everyone else using the same samples, this is the one to get.