EZ Drummer 2 Not my First Rant
- Thread starter ibmorjamn
- Start date
Astral Traveler
Ambassador of Both Time and Space
What do you not like about it?
LiveeviL2000
Ambassador of Pentagonal Pentatonics
I don’t know EZDrummer 2.
I have 3 and I like it. I produced a handful of songs with it. The song I did with @Sapient , Generations, was completely done with EZD3. And it gave me the shuffle swing style drumming I was looking for.
There are features that feel beyond me at the moment. I have gone in and edited the drum loop they provide by adding or subtracting elements, or adjusting the existing drumming. I just haven’t really done a deep dive with it to fully explore all it can do. But it fills my needs so far.
I did buy a few drum packs so that upped the initial cost.
Now is it better than EZD2? I don’t know. I didn’t own that version and I wouldn’t know what the differences are.
I have 3 and I like it. I produced a handful of songs with it. The song I did with @Sapient , Generations, was completely done with EZD3. And it gave me the shuffle swing style drumming I was looking for.
There are features that feel beyond me at the moment. I have gone in and edited the drum loop they provide by adding or subtracting elements, or adjusting the existing drumming. I just haven’t really done a deep dive with it to fully explore all it can do. But it fills my needs so far.
I did buy a few drum packs so that upped the initial cost.
Now is it better than EZD2? I don’t know. I didn’t own that version and I wouldn’t know what the differences are.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
The prices first for expansions. The lack of just more in an expansion. The limited number of options in each pack. The one I bought recently was custom shop. It barely has anything in the library.
The drums come with the Reverb and compression dialed up so in modern they pop but not in a good way.
The drummers in hard rock add to much extra and the variations are limited. You struggle to find a straight beat with out excess.
There is way to little for to much money.
I have had it for a couple of years.
If you want to change genres you have to buy an expansion pack every time.I don't want to give them another dime.
There are some options for jazz, latin and other styles but if you want something specific you must get your wallet and it begins add up.
If EZ drummer 3 was out when I bought EZ drummer 2 now knowing what I know it would have been an easy choice .
I refuse to give them $100 to upgrade what I have already spent more than that on 2.
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OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
It is supposed to be better in that you can pretty much do midi editing. You could write your own drum parts if they offer the kits you like. In 2 the time signitures are limited in variation as well as drumming styles.
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I can answer that…I had EZD2 for a couple/few before upgrading to EZD3. EZD2 had been around for a loooooong time(May 6 2014), and was well due for a “version-up”. Like any other music related program out there, time goes by, tech improves, things get updated, and grow. EZD3 has been kinda neat, with its new offerings…it has evolved a bit.
I just dabble with it really…just use it to keep time, mostly, and for writing. It reminds me of what I wanted my old drum machines to become. Cost compared…the root program purchase was fairly cheap, in comparison to a hardware drum machine. I still have my old 660 kicking around, and using EZD3 to put together a drum track is a lot faster and easier IMHO. I can’t play a guitar track into my 660, and expect it to come up with a bunch of choices of full song arrangements for me…ones that I can edit and arrange to my liking. That, right there, is worth the price of admission to me.
Some use it to play their own midi(as do I, on occasion).
Some buy up the midi, and expansion packs, like candy…and that’s what the company wants. Perhaps I will try one someday.
Is the EZD line the “be all/end all” for drum production? Nope…but it can be a very useful tool, if one can learn to get what they want out of it.
The Steven Slate stuff has been around for a long time, and there are many that enjoy using it. I haven’t re-hit them since going Mac, but I played/fumbled around with some of the old sample stuff way back when… Perhaps I should look into it again.
Ugh…sorry to quote myself, but I felt that there was an important tangent…
There are “other companies” that make midi packs that are compatible with use in the EZD program line. You’re not entirely roped into just EZD grooves…and these 3rd party midi groove packs are often compatible with other software too(like SSD, and Superior Drummer etc.)
One can also download whole midi songs, and load the midi file across a few tracks in a DAW(like Reaper). Then locate the drum midi track, and slap EZD on it to play it. The user can edit that midi to taste(in the DAW- using EZD as the instrument, and the midi as the performance record of the music)…changing any parameters available, cutting copying, pasting, and generally shaping it to their liking. Other plugins can be used to “humanize” the raw midi tracks before sending to EZD(or SSD etc.).
This is how I did “Paint It Black” in RiffMasters. I downloaded a free midi version of the song, verified the arrangement was reasonably correct to my liking, loaded it across a few tracks, left the tempo at the midi file’s default(I could have altered/re-mapped it further), found the drum track, loaded EZD on that track, chose my kit, tuned up the EZD mixer to taste, found the keyboard track, loaded a generic synth on that track, transposed that track to correspond with my tuning of choice, loaded a midi humanizer plug(pre instrument) on each track, tuned the humanizer plugs to taste, added a cowbell track(like it was its own drum track with another instance of EZD), and went on with recording the rest of it(a couple of guitars, bass, and vocals).
67plexi
Ambassador of Amps
I'm learning Native Instruments with Ableton Live 12 DAW with Komplete Kontrol keyboard and Machine MK3
getting good recordings with real drums also my friend Joe has been a drummer Pro 55 years I'm running the board
what gets me is my worst snare drum DW Collectors 5.5" x 14" cuts through the mix best for recording
Live my 3 Noble & Cooley snare drums rule I've been a live player my whole life so recording is new to me.
getting good recordings with real drums also my friend Joe has been a drummer Pro 55 years I'm running the board
what gets me is my worst snare drum DW Collectors 5.5" x 14" cuts through the mix best for recording
Live my 3 Noble & Cooley snare drums rule I've been a live player my whole life so recording is new to me.
I’m sorry you feel this way.
I just spent some time today racking up a bunch of stuff that I’d like for my general use, just to see how much it would add up to. It was pretty easy for me to gear up for stuff that I generally find useful for my latest list of wants. Using their custom bundle system, I grabbed 3 expansion packs, and a six pack of midi libraries. Right around $300. I tended to go with the midi packs that interested me, and offered multiple time signatures. I chose the expansion packs for the kits featured, and the samples presented.
I did not click go/they did not collect my 300 dollars.
Bummer that you can’t seem to get what you want from this. I am sorry for your troubles…enough to take a closer look at the situation today.
Yeah…they do tend to separate the midi from the expansion packs…not that I’ve bothered with the expansion packs in EZ2, but it would figure: expansion pack = sample library -/- midi pack = midi performance data. Both are cash cows for them, and others.
Hmmmmm…I do, generally, go into the mixer section and dial that stuff back to taste…there are lots of mixer options to tweak…or avoid the over the top presets. But yeah, Superior has more detailed control over those parameters.
This is where it pays off…learning to find/write/edit midi…I tend to look at EZD as a midi triggered sample player. Yeah, if you need a kit(sample library) made specifically to fit a genre, you’re kinda stuck. But learning to deal with midi performance data is a money saver…not a timesaver though.
Me too…but I chose to just run the stock kits for the life of my EZD2 Mac purchase. I had a feeling that a new version was coming, sooner than later. When I was on Windoze I had EZD and a couple of kit packs, but sequenced(or re-sequenced) or triggered my own midi often.
I just spent some time today racking up a bunch of stuff that I’d like for my general use, just to see how much it would add up to. It was pretty easy for me to gear up for stuff that I generally find useful for my latest list of wants. Using their custom bundle system, I grabbed 3 expansion packs, and a six pack of midi libraries. Right around $300. I tended to go with the midi packs that interested me, and offered multiple time signatures. I chose the expansion packs for the kits featured, and the samples presented.
I did not click go/they did not collect my 300 dollars.
Bummer that you can’t seem to get what you want from this. I am sorry for your troubles…enough to take a closer look at the situation today.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
Actually after typing the above I went back to my midi keyboard , went in to ez drummer and tapped out something I really liked. It's far from perfect but a step on the right direction. I need midi editing only.
The rest is garbage to me.
The free SSD5 has a midi editor.
It saddens me as well because I know that they put a ton of effort and probably money into it but many of the samples are just overdone to the point of not being useful. The finished product to me over polished and embellished.
Can’t you midi edit in the new DAW you’re using? You certainly can(and I do…often) in Reaper.
You should be able to sequence right on a track…create a midi item on a track, put EZD2 into the track effects, work out the midi note mapping, go to town…rinse and repeat as necessary.
Sorry for the crappy pic, but the top tracks on this screen are midi tracks…
The instances of instruments on these tracks(EZD 3, and a couple of synths) are playing the midi data that is sequenced on the tracks.
The instances of instruments on these tracks(EZD 3, and a couple of synths) are playing the midi data that is sequenced on the tracks.
I’m going to dig in on this a bit more….
I spent many years polishing and embellishing real drum tracks that I recorded shabbily…
I know that the presets are often “overblown”, much like guitar effects processors, but I haven’t really found the samples to be “bad” once I dial in the mixer. Pull the room and overheads back a bit, shut off effects etc, and insert my own fx on the DAW channel.
This is a pretty good bit of info on using the mixer and presets.
Don’t forget that you can send each piece of the EZD 2 mixer out to individual tracks in your DAW, if you want further processing control.
Don’t forget that you can send each piece of the EZD 2 mixer out to individual tracks in your DAW, if you want further processing control.
Here’s one that goes over the sending EZD 2 out to individual tracks…it really gets into that after 4:00ish. Then, a bit after 11:00 he gets into rendering those tracks to real audio….
…as I’ve mentioned in the past, I go for this route on occasion. Mostly when I’m taking my time, and throwing together something that I think might be worth the effort. Sometimes I just render a stereo mix of the drum track and treat it like a drum bus. I may process that bus, and send to my own “ambient” bus, to process in parallel. This is particularly helpful when dealing with a midi file, and using a “humanizer” plugin, to get a consistent result (something that shows in my version of Electric Funeral…I hadn’t rendered the humanized midi, thus the return from the break at the end of the solo is “mushy” because the “humanizer” plug would humanize the rest time differently every time I laid another track.).
…as I’ve mentioned in the past, I go for this route on occasion. Mostly when I’m taking my time, and throwing together something that I think might be worth the effort. Sometimes I just render a stereo mix of the drum track and treat it like a drum bus. I may process that bus, and send to my own “ambient” bus, to process in parallel. This is particularly helpful when dealing with a midi file, and using a “humanizer” plugin, to get a consistent result (something that shows in my version of Electric Funeral…I hadn’t rendered the humanized midi, thus the return from the break at the end of the solo is “mushy” because the “humanizer” plug would humanize the rest time differently every time I laid another track.).
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ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
I do pull all of the effects , embellishments in the way the parts are played or over played. Crazy fills , just to many hits. I tried editing the snares and bass but I guess I need more time with it. My best option so far is tapping out a beat on the keys or pads.
I will try watching the videos and see if that helps. I just feel that out of the box it needs work. Most of what I want is just basic stuff.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
Wow , that is interesting.