I'm playing a Roland v-kit with a TD-8 brain triggering Superior Drummer 2, and it freaks me out! could swear it's a real kit, and a nice one at that. it took a while to get the midi just right, but now it is really tailored to the way i play and it's easy to get expressive and creative. the difference between the Roland sounds and S2 is like the difference between spam and steak. only tastier.
i have read Ocean Way is amazing also and would love to get it, but $$$$$. i will get the new S2 kits instead... i don't think you can go wrong with BFD either, but in my limited experience, it's more CPU hungry...
and i agree, virtual instruments rule. now there are so many quality choices that it isn't a question of 'better', just 'different'.

God so true. It took me about a year to finally get the perfect set in the vdrums sound. Its still not that great, but its better than everything else on it. It took me 25 minutes to figure out the midi functions and that set sounds a million times better. I'm actually using the TD-8 brain as well. A few things about it really piss me off, which is why I'm going to upgrade to the TD-20. Do you hate the hats as much as I do? I hate those hats, I think the new hats on the TD-20 are perhaps the biggest reason I'm going to upgrade. No to mention the crosstalk... oh features to die for. I'm going to look into SD2, if its as good as you say I may settle for it.

hey do you happen to have any samples handy I can hear?

here's a quick sample. the first is my dry kit settings, the second is with an ez drummer stock mixer setting. there are pretty endless possibilities to mix the kit to sound completely different, along with using different drums/cymbals, mic configurations, bleed, FX etc. etc....
i played this before my morning coffee, so ignore bad drumming/meter.

soundclick.com/share?songid=7749547

soundclick.com/share?songid=7749546

and yeah, i dislike the hats! would like to upgrade, but $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!

haha I just recently switched out that lame hat pad for a regular cymbal pad... soooooo worth it! The only downside is now I have to use one cymbal pad for two crashes. Not a biggy though, def. prefer that cymbal pad for the hats. Just a tiny bit better. Hat control still sucks though.

Those samples had some weird clicks and buzzes in them. That might be just me, or the streaming. But the drums themselves sounded very very sweet. I was watching demoes of SD2 on youtube all night last night. I def. think I'm gonna start with that. Can't beat it for 300 bucks.

yeah, a whole whack of nice drum for $300. i'm looking forward to getting the newly released kits this summer.
are you sure the buzzes aren't my stick drags? if they mostly disappear when i play the rim then that's what it is, ala Bonham, except much lamer...
which cymbal are you using for the hat? i might have to give that a try...

no it wasnt a stick buzz, it was more of a computer glitch buzz or something.

I'm using the CY12R pad, basically the crash and ride pads you get. It feels a bit better than the hats I was using. It actually moves like a hi hat does, and its about the same size.