Morning folks, I bought EZDrummer2 back before Christmas and have been using it on a few songs, including my latest. For those songs where you need more control of what the drums are doing than realdrums provide it is a great tool to help kick thing up a notch.
For the last little while I've been getting emails from toontrack with a special crossgrade offer to upgrade from EZDrummer2 to Superior Drummer 3. But, it's not cheap! $319 for the crossgrade.
What does Superior Drummer 3 provide that EZDrummer2 does not? Website is not that clear on the differences as far as I can tell.
Yes I agree it is worth every penny. It is a fantastic product and all your EZDrummer kits are compatible. It takes all the great features of EZDrummer, simplicity of operation and so on but also much better drum sounds. You can also easily edit the MIDI within SD3. Toontrack have made a really sophisticated product which lets you control just about every area but also made it very user-friendly. It is a huge download but you don't necessarily have to install everything. There are features for surround sound etc which I didn't require. I just installed the basic sound library and the room mikes. I didn't bother with the surround set up, height surround or additional bleed. My install therefore was a mere 80 GB!
I have not used EZDrummer 2 since having Superior 3
Fuuny you should ask...I just used EZDrummer 2 for the first time today and I'm really impressed with the workflow as a songwriter.
I am not to the point where I need to tweak each drum. Just to have it suggest some midi files after I tapped in a simple kick, tom and snare pattern, I was really impressed how it picked out similar MIDI from an actual drummer.
Really, really happy I made this purchase. It will be a LOOOONNNNGGG time until I tap this thing to it's limits.
I keep trying to pull the trigger on that package but just can’t seem to get there. I’m not as put off by the price as the learning curve (old dog new tricks ) and my lingering notion that RealDrums can always be tweaked to fit my needs. Not trying to highjack the thread - just a morning coffee ramble....
Good morning, Bud! Feel free to hijack one of my threads any time you like!
Most of the time I would agree with you and our songs are always initially developed using realdrums.
In the case of my latest song, which you have heard, I needed some big, aggressive drum fills to lead into the guitar solo. I initially tried to do it with realdrums but it wasn't cutting it so I switched over to EZDrummer2.
Drums is one of the instruments that MIDI does extremely well and in most cases regardless of the MFG. I like that fact that MIDI is more tweak-able than RDs. YMMV
Yeah, I'm loving it too. Maybe it doesn't have the same amount of individual drum control as SD3 has, but it has enough for me.
The song I'm working on now has a real heavy groove happening on the toms, it was just a couple of minutes work with EZDrummer to dial in what I needed.
I'll probably get SD3 at some point, but for now I think the $300+ dollars they want for the crossgrade will be better spent buying new midi packs for EZDrummer2, which I can use with SD3 anyway when/if the time comes.
P.S. BTW I had a listen to your song, sounds good!
So my entire use (ever) for midi has been to move generate and then move BiaB piano SuperMidiTracks to my DAW, apply a Logic Pro sound and mix away. To use EZ Drummer would I need to learn a significant amount of midi chops?
So my entire use (ever) for midi has been to move generate and then move BiaB piano SuperMidiTracks to my DAW, apply a Logic Pro sound and mix away. To use EZ Drummer would I need to learn a significant amount of midi chops?
Thanks,
Bud
Only if you want to edit what they already provide which so far I have never found the need to do.
I know diddly-squat about midi
Download the demo and give it a try, it’s fully functional. You will pick it up in no time, it’s very easy to use.
So my entire use (ever) for midi has been to move generate and then move BiaB piano SuperMidiTracks to my DAW, apply a Logic Pro sound and mix away. To use EZ Drummer would I need to learn a significant amount of midi chops?
Thanks,
Bud
Not really. BiaB MIDI drum tracks are very good but if you want more groove monkee ( https://groovemonkee.com/ ) has some excellent ones as do some other MIDI loop companies. Adding notes, deleting notes, changing notes and changing volume via velocity is just about all that I do in MIDI with my drums.
SD3 +1 it can convert the RealDrums to midi then use any kit you like.
Also check out UJAM Virtual Drummers https://www.ujam.com/instruments/ they are like RealDrums (actual playing) yet you can add any type of drum riff anywhere, adjust the individual levels and they work on GM midi as well.
So my entire use (ever) for midi has been to move generate and then move BiaB piano SuperMidiTracks to my DAW, apply a Logic Pro sound and mix away. To use EZ Drummer would I need to learn a significant amount of midi chops?
Thanks,
Bud
Bud, did you listen to either of my song links that I did with EZ Drummer? Absolutely no midi was input into EZDrummer. I clicked two different simple patterns onto the on-screen kit, and EZ Drummer selected midi patterns similar to the stressed beats I had. Then I hit 'generate song' by dragging one of those MIDI clips into it's song generator and picked a form and boom, the 2nd drum track was complete. Zero midi input.
Here's tonight's output from using EZ Drummer. I think I might have ripped off the lead guitar from some classic rock song - thought it was While My Guitar Gently Weeps at first, but I don't think that's it. Chord progression is roughly based on Radiohead's Exit Music.
Here's tonight's output from using EZ Drummer. I think I might have ripped off the lead guitar from some classic rock song - thought it was While My Guitar Gently Weeps at first, but I don't think that's it. Chord progression is roughly based on Radiohead's Exit Music.
I can do that with EZDrummer as well, unless I'm not understanding you? I can place a drum fill wherever I want and can trim it to be as long as I want.
Back in my MIDI days, I was able to create some pretty decent drum tracks, but the sounds I used were not comparable to RealDrums. I'm assuming EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer come with a pretty good sound library?
Yes, it comes with a great sound library and you can purchase additional sound libraries too. The sound is just as good as realdrums IMHO, but more versatile when you need more control. Have a listen to my latest song to hear it in action, link is in my signature.
I'm looking at multiple drum programs and +++ RealiDrums +++ is one of the more interesting programs I've run across.
It seems that RealiDrums are meant to be triggered from the keyboard in real time, while a lot of the other drum VSTIs expect the non-drummer to build parts from a supplied MIDI library.
This means you can fiddle with the parameters in real time to get what you're after, which is quite nice. It looks pretty cool.
RealiDrums accepts input in realtime but can also accept input from a midi track.
Something else I like is the program has both brushes and stick instrument sounds. I get the feeling (at least from the advertising and manuals) with some programs that either both drum sounds are not available or that you choose one of the other.
When I mentioned RealiDrums can do 1, 2, 3 and 4 beat fills BlueAttitude responded his program can do that with some cut and paste moves. The reason I mentioned that is RealiDrums does the fills without having to cut and paste. I feel that is an important distinction for someone like me or Bud that do not have much experience with MIDI. Who wants to cut and paste if you don't have to?
When I mentioned RealiDrums can do 1, 2, 3 and 4 beat fills BlueAttitude responded his program can do that with some cut and paste moves. The reason I mentioned that is RealiDrums does the fills without having to cut and paste. I feel that is an important distinction for someone like me or Bud that do not have much experience with MIDI. Who wants to cut and paste if you don't have to?
I probably didn't explain it very well. Using EZD2 requires no knowledge of midi whatsoever (I know very little about midi)
Sonar had Session Drummer but you needed to work at it. Then along came Addictive Drums 2 in Sonar Producer. Addictive Drums came with a heap of drum patterns for different parts of a song and a mirad of fills, intros and outros. It is quite easy to make little changes to patterns. One soon found himself buying more kits and parts of kits (eg another snare or kick or bongos etc) and more patterns. The really great thing was it is easy to set things up so the drummer sounded more realistic by not hitting the middle of a snare every hit or whatever. All that was required was to pull the pattern or fill into the track. Whilst you did not really need to understand midi nor drumming you could get a lot more out of the packages with a little understanding of both. For example, lifting a note by a semitone might result in a rim shot or hitting a cymbal on the bell and the like. Addictive Drums had a totally different drum map to most midi drums or Session Drummer but it did not take long at all to work with the differences and pulling patterns into a track is a lot easier than writing your own. Alas it is not cheap.