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I have just purchased EZDrummer and have installed it as a VSTi plugin to Real Band. It sounds great and makes the drum backings in the styles using Midi sound about as good as the Real Band tracks which has increased the number of useful styles many fold. That is the good news.

After installation I could access the EZDrummer groove library from within Real Band and could drag and drop the drum grooves into RB tracks. There was a problem in that each time a pattern was dragged and dropped from RB the previous pattern was deleted so I had to do the initial drag into a temporary RB track copy it then past into the actual drum track.

During this copy and paste process I noticed if the cursor was not in the correct position RB would crash sometimes even requiring a total PC reboot. Also after using RB to make some other songs using real drums when trying to use the EZDrummer plug in from RB to access the EZ grooves this no longer worked. The work around was to run EZ in the supplied Solo program.

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Unfortunately you have discovered the one real serious flaw in an otherwise excellent program. RB does not work with plugins like EZDrummer or my Jamstix or any other plugin that can create their own parts. I don't know the details but it's something to do with VST implementation. As you noted just using your EZD as a sound module for prerecorded drum tracks works fine, it's the creation part using EZD's own grooves that doesn't work. For that to work RB has to tempo lock with the plugin and it can't. For over two years now the guys at PG music have said they're aware of the problem and are working on it but so far nothing. Virtually every other important problem has been fixed fairly quickly except this one.
We can only conclude it must be really difficult if not impossible to fix because at one point Peter himself said they were working on it and every other thing he's said you can take to the bank.
I really want my Jamstix to function properly in RB but I've given up complaining about it and trust me a year ago I was all over this subject along with a few others but it hasn't been fixed and that's it but please feel free to put a new post on the wishlist about this. RB is still my favorite program so whattyagonna do?
Your question also mentions Biab. It only has one midi output port so if you try to use EZD with it every part is going to sound like drums. You have to use one good multitimbral synth that has all the instruments and then move the song to RB to use different synths.

Bob


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The requests for PG to implement VST fully have now been ongoing for the past 4-5 years. PG are clearly not interested in improving this feature for customers - so Jamstix, EZDrummer and many other VST's do not function properly - if you want to save many hours of frustration just buy another sequencer.
2010.5 has brought us a Conductor - who on earth needs a conductor in a sequencer?
Just my 2c
Roy

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I also have brought this up at times. I use jamstix, and can not use it for anything but a "dumb" drum machine inside RB, PTPA, or BiaB. It dpes a great job there but not if I want it to create anything. My guess is that it is at the core of how PTPA times itself or it would be fixed already. The main focus has been for a while real tracks, and rightly so they are incredible, but there are many times that they do not fit the bill for some projects. So I hope that at some point they can conquer this issue.

If it were just jamstix and or EZ Drummer I would just not care and work around it with the things i have, but the problem is that it is other VSTIs as well. Even some that work are a little sshakey and not as smooth as in other DAW programs. Sampletank for one has some issue with the way RB sees it's controls. I have a half dozen others that act funny in RB, but work perfectly in my other DAW. 4front pianos doesn't have any volume control, and has to be bounced to audio to work properly, PSfretted does a similar thing, and so on.

Peter, and team, this is not a rant session to be irritating to y'all, just a conversation. I am a big PG fan, i just wish you could fix this for us, as we have certainly ask enough, or maybe just say we can't fix it and we need to deal with it. LOL

Respecfully Rob


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+1 to what Rob said.

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So can somebody tell me simply what works and doesn't work with EZdrummer? I am considering a purchase but don't want to waste my money if it doesn't work well with Powertracks Pro Audio 12. So far I've heard the tempos don't sync. This doesn't sound like a big deal if I set the tempos to be the same in PT and EZD? Can I still quickly and easily build a drum track by dragging and dropping groove and fills from EZD? I appreciate info from anyone who has used EZD with PT.

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The "automatic" drummer that jams along with you doesn't work.

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Quote:

Can I still quickly and easily build a drum track by dragging and dropping groove and fills from EZD?




I don't use EZD but if you are using the correct terminology here and are referring to actual midi file "groove clips" that are stored inside a folder in EZD then yes, you can do that because a 2 or 4 bar drum clip is just another midi file and RB will handle those just fine and you can load one of those up and copy and paste it to fill up your song. BUT and this is important, if you're talking about EZD generating and recording a midi drum part as the music is playing, that's what RB doesn't support. Simply setting both to the same tempo doesn't help at least with my Jamstix it doesn't. What it does support is using EZD as a sound module to play back an existing midi drum part like one created by Biab or simply a midi file you found on the internet. This is still very useful because Biab has thousands of styles and each one has it's own substyles. Each style is capable of creating a different midi drum part and by using the chord grid you can put fills and/or a substyle wherever you want. Think of it as using the Biab "brain" instead of the EZD "brain" to create your drum part. Another thing, those Biab parts were created by a live drummer on a midi drum kit and sound great. EZD can be set up on one track or several different tracks to play those Biab created midi drum parts. RB allows you to cut and paste different sections of several tracks if you want to create one good part.
Yes it is annoying to me and others that RB won't let us use the brains inside these VSTi's to create separate parts but Biab is also an excellent drum machine in it's own right. Still, it won't allow me to easily go into the drums and change just the hi hat part or the the kick like Jamstix will without actually editing the style and that is clumsy when I just want to hear what a particular change sounds like. JS has killer controls to change a part using individual drums, velocity, manage the weighting between the kick and snare or other parts, all kinds of cool stuff and right now that won't work in RB.

Bob


Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Thank you for the detailed reply. I took a chance and purchased EZdrummer and I am using Powertracks Pro to try and create a midi track from the groove clips. This does not seem to work for me. I can't preview the grooves or drag and drop them into a track from the plug-in. I can however direct a midi track to use EZdrummer for the playback. I guess I need to find another solution to build the drum track as a midi file using EZdrummer, then import into Powertracks. Suggestions welcome, freeware would be great.

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http://www.cockos.com/reaper/index.php

It doesn't get any better than that. I'm an EZD user and I just got Biab and RB. Not sure how I'll integrate the whole thing yet. What I'll probably do is assemble all real tracks in real band, setup a project in reaper at the same tempo, dump all real tracks out to reaper including a drum track if I use a real track drums part, match sounds a bit if I like what the real track drums are giving me, and then build an EZD performance to replace the real track drums. I'm too new at real band to know if you can import a stereo wav file into RB. If so, I'd build the EZD track in reaper, then import the wav file onto a track in RB. You can even make wav files out of each piece of the EZD kit in reaper and then import each one into RB, giving you multitrack drum control. IF RB can import wav files....

Dan

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"Audio - Import wave file" command works great here.


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I was considering purchasing EZD, but after the problems I had with EZmix From Toontracks, I don't think I will. At least for now. I believe the EZ products and some of the other Toontracks items seem very good. However the VST in EZmix (and I believe EZD and perhaps all other EZ products) does not function proprely in RB. I dicussed this issue with PG and Toontracks. PG was in direct talks with Toontracks, and Toontracks said they would not change their VST formate to work with PG because their VST works with other programs. PG said at this time they are not going to adjust to work with this companies VST's. I sincerely hope PG does at some time get this VST issue fixed. All the PG products I've used are great, but can always be better. I think that PG is alway striving to reach that goal.

Milwaukee Mike

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Thanks to all for your input.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=2046935&mpage=1#2047396

Above is the link for the discussion at Cakewalk.

In short the problem was a file management problem.

C5's TTS-1 is OK as midi sounds go, and because it's an softsynth it's easier to turn the midi track or tracks into an audio track, and it's also faster. However, there is absolutely no comparison to the great sounds not to mention 3x the number to choose from (ie 3 different trumpets etc) on the SD2.

The reason I did purchase the program C5 was not for the Soft Synth but for the way it handles VST plug-ins. Real Band and PT do have issues with some 3rd party VST's.

Anybody out there using the PG products and other Programs such as C5 please provide your input. I would still like to know the differences, before I invest more time in C5 only to find out there is something (easy to use) better.

Milwaukee Mike

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I have both the PG products and MC5, I also have MTS which i think is the best DAW on the market. RB and PT both do not fully handle VSTis like EZdrummer and Jamstix, but it is never a bad thing to have one more program in the tool box to handle thoses situations. No one program does it all, or even does it all well. When i want to use Jamstix, i pop into MTS, but for other things i use RB. If I am making a song and using BiaB or Rb to create a midi drum track, Jamstix will follow that just fine in RB, but if i need Jamstix to create the drum track, I use MTS.

Look MC5 is a low cost option to run along side RB, BiaB, and even PT. It offers two nice tjhings to make a tool kit somewhat more complete. full VST and VSTi implimentation, and TTS as a better Sampler for basic midi. Use them all get familiar. You will find that they are all similar.

One more thing i recently discovered is that MC5 can add lyrics to a midi file karaoke style and that is a cool feature.


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Originally Posted By: Willow
I have just purchased EZDrummer ...... There was a problem in that each time a pattern was dragged and dropped from RB the previous pattern was deleted ....


Still has the same problem along with Superior, Addictive, EZPlayer etc...

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It seem they have to be in MIDI 1 not MIDI 0 format to drag n drop without erasing the previous. To get preview sound I had to use VSTHost

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So to convert the EZDrummer etc.. from Midi Type 0 to 1 use NAudio Midi File Converter http://naudio.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=MIDI File Converter you can download here NAudio_MIDI_File_Converter.zip as they only had the source code I had to build it. So after it has converted them to Type 1 rename the org "Midi" folder "Midiold" then put the Type 1 in a new folder "Midi". There is also a Mapper to map standard midi drums to EZ etc.. http://midifilemapper.codeplex.com/documentation?referringTitle=Home
VSTHost
EZDrummer in RealBand.MP4
EZDrummer in RealBand.WMV



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Or open the track into RB, select 'Track-Save track to file' and save it as a MIDI file (*not a Type 0 MIDI file).
This should save it as a Type 1 MIDI file.

Usually works for me.


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miketm, Robh and anyone else interested in Cakewalk Music Creator, available from PG Music or Cakewalk

Cakewalk was recently purchased by Gibson and Cakewalk is being positioned as the flagship name for consumer products with Sonar as the flagship name of the professional grade products.

Cakewalk currently offers two Music Creator products: version 6 and Touch. Version 6 is available from both PG Music and Cakewalk (though you really have to hunt for it on Cakewalk's site) while Touch is available from Cakewalk.

Both versions utilize the Skylight GUI interface so workflow differs greatly from version 5 and below. Both use the 32 bit sound engine borrowed from Sonar.

Touch will not load onto a Win XP or below operating system. I have both version 6 and Touch (actually called version 6 Touch when it first came out and offered as a free upgrade to owners of version 6) and running the exe file results in an error message. Touch works on Win 7 and above while version 6 works with XP and Vista. Touchscreen capability is not needed to use Music Creator Touch.

Two enhancements made me decide to upgrade from version 5; the step sequencer and loop matrix. The step sequencer was rebuilt from the ground up and is now much easier for me to understand how to use it. As the name implies, loop matrix lets you put loops into a matrix so you can get a feel for (vertical) instruments blend together or (horizontal) how adjacent loops mesh.

I strongly advise anyone considering purchasing Music Creator 6 or Touch also consider purchasing the Groove3 Music Creator 6 video tutorials . For less than $50US can you purchase a DAW that complements PG Music products but also more than four hours of great video training on how to you this DAW in particular or any DAW in general.

Also, for those that may have purchased Music Creator from BestBuy in the past, they have dropped the product from their physical and online stores.


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Originally Posted By: rharv
Or open the track into RB, select 'Track-Save track to file' and save it as a MIDI file (*not a Type 0 MIDI file).
This should save it as a Type 1 MIDI file.

Usually works for me.


33,000 Good luck with that.


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