EZ Drummer

[RockfordStone]

does anyone have any experience of this.

im looking to get a good drum instrument for Reaper in the new year and from what ive seen and read it heard it seems a good bit of kit for the money. i particularly like the loops you can drop in rather than fully programme

if anyone has used this and would recommend it let me know what your thoughts on it are. alternatively any other recommendations would be great. cheers

[Zenitram]

Do you have an electronic drum kit, or will you be programming your beats from a keyboard, or just using the beats and fills that come with these packages?

They all have demo versions, so do try them out.

I love Addictive Drums myself, as I find the interface the most user friendly for tweaking the sounds, but I use it with an electronic kit, so I'm playing live.

The ones to look at:
XLN Audio - Addictive Drums
Toontrack - Superior Drummer
FXpansion - BFD2

They all do the same thing, and they do it very well; but that's me thinking about them as a drummer and sound tweaker, not as a beat programmer.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Zenitram

[RockfordStone]

ill be using the programming from keyboard approach, both bespoke and using some of the beats from the programmes.

i downloaded the ez drummer demo, but it didnt even provide a whole kit, which is more than useless.

im looking for something that sounds good enough to potentially use on a release, i have some demo ones, but the sounds are not as great, which you expect from free stuff.

ill give the other ones a look

[Zenitram]

The Addictive Drums demo only gives you one kick, one snare, one hats and one cymbal, but when you then start sculpting those sounds while playing back the beats, you get an idea of how versatile it can be. I find the envelope and pitch section to be really useful and versatile.

Find one you most like the feel of, and take it from there.

More options:

http://www.analoguedrums.com/index.php

[url="http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=DrumCore_Free&id=1061"]http://www.vst4free....re_Free&id=1061[/url]1

[url="http://www.pettinhouse.com/html/download.html"]http://www.pettinhou...l/download.html[/url]

[url="http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2010/06/24/free-sample-shootout-2-acoustic-drums-full-kits/"]http://bedroomproduc...rums-full-kits/[/url]

Edited December 9, 2012 by Zenitram

[Mornats]

I use EZ Drummer and love it. Really nice sounds and expandable using their EZX kits. I use the Funkmasters, Classic, Claustrophobic, Twisted, Jazz and Pop/Rock kits. All of the tracks on my soundcloud page (see my signature) are done using EZ Drummer. On one or two, people have thought it was live drums which is a good review of the software!

It's really easy to use the drum loops provided and you can create your own but I mainly use the drum loops and edit them if needed.

For me the best thing about EZdrummer is that I can have a decent drum track up and running I minutes and I can then get on with writing and recording and can come back and develop the drum track later.

[lefrash]

I own EZdrummer and I use it in Reaper. Its great! Really easy to use, and due to the drag and drop of the loops its incredibly simple. Of course once you drop the loop into reaper, you can then double click and change any f the beats yourself via the midi piano roll. I bought it mainly because of the price, but its turned out to be a great bit of software. Its also possible to seperate out the kick, snare, overheads etc into 8 tracks, allowing you to use your own reverbs etc and having full control of the mixing... this might not be unique to EZDrummer though.

the only thing negative I;ve got to say is that its so widely used its quite obvious when its getting used in other peoples recordings. Especially with the snare. That might be just because I'm so used to the sound and perhaps people who have BFD or addictive drums come across the same thing. I only have the basic pack (cant remember what its called now) but theres 3 or 4 snares to choose (I think).

[Zenitram]

EZ drummer was updated some time ago to Superior Drummer 2.0, which I understand to be miles better.

[Mornats]

Nope, EZDrummer is a separate product and is their budget version of Superior Drummer. Drumkit from Hell was their original one that was updated to be Superior Drummer.

[Zenitram]

Ah OK.

[Mornats]

It's confusing as you can get the Drumkit from Hell EZX for EZDrummer...

[charic]

Also check out steven slate drums

[paul_5]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1355078908' post='1893793']
It's confusing as you can get the Drumkit from Hell EZX for EZDrummer...
[/quote]

Yes, but it's also great. I tend to run 2 instances of EZ Drummer in most projects - Vintage Rock for Snare, kick and hats and Drumkit From Hell for all the cymbals and extended range of toms. It takes a bit of work to get the two to sound like one kit but it's worth it.

EZ Drummer is brilliant. I've also used BFD but I found the graphical interface to be a real nightmare to use compared to EZ drummer.

[RockfordStone]

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1355080049' post='1893819']
Also check out steven slate drums
[/quote]

ive had a look at this, i think its between SSD and Ez Drummer at the moment

[charic]

I have ssd if you want to pop round and check it out

[xilddx]

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1355073491' post='1893674']
does anyone have any experience of this.

im looking to get a good drum instrument for Reaper in the new year and from what ive seen and read it heard it seems a good bit of kit for the money. i particularly like the loops you can drop in rather than fully programme

if anyone has used this and would recommend it let me know what your thoughts on it are. alternatively any other recommendations would be great. cheers
[/quote]

That track I did for the Nov competition was done with EZDrummer in Reaper. It's really good. All about dropping in their loops and editing in the MIDI piano roll, I'm a total noob and found it really easy.

[xilddx]

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1355082139' post='1893850']
Yes, but it's also great. I tend to run 2 instances of EZ Drummer in most projects - [b]Vintage Rock for Snare, kick and hats and Drumkit From Hell for all the cymbals and extended range of toms.[/b] It takes a bit of work to get the two to sound like one kit but it's worth it.

EZ Drummer is brilliant. I've also used BFD but I found the graphical interface to be a real nightmare to use compared to EZ drummer.
[/quote]
That's [b]exactly[/b] what I've been doing!

[RockfordStone]

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1355102156' post='1894180']
That track I did for the Nov competition was done with EZDrummer in Reaper. It's really good. All about dropping in their loops and editing in the MIDI piano roll, I'm a total noob and found it really easy.
[/quote]

thats what im thinking of doing, im not looking to create a top 10 record, but id like some decent drums that in an emergancy i could release demo's to the world with half decent sounding drums

[xilddx]

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1355131462' post='1894324']
thats what im thinking of doing, im not looking to create a top 10 record, but id like some decent drums that in an emergancy i could release demo's to the world with half decent sounding drums
[/quote]
They will sound much more than half decent, barely need to eq, just get the right level of reverb and you're away. You can also adjust all the levels of each part of the kit later by opening the EZD mixer and messing about with it while your track is running. It really is very easy.

I would have absolutely no problem with releasing an album into the wild with EZD drums on it, they sound like a real pro drummer, very human.

[Zenitram]

This makes me think about offering a service to people here to provide some live drumming to their tracks... a sort of long-distance collaboration. Or something. No doubt it's been done before.

[RockfordStone]

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1355132624' post='1894343']
This makes me think about offering a service to people here to provide some live drumming to their tracks... a sort of long-distance collaboration. Or something. No doubt it's been done before.
[/quote]

someone i used to know does it, there is a call for it

[Zenitram]

Well if anyone fancies it I'll give it a go, no obligation, just for fun, etc.

[Mornats]

The drums on here were done on the Clyde Stubblefield kit from the Funkmasters EZX: http://soundcloud.com/mornats/rift-1

As silddx says, you don't need to do much to get a good sound from them.

[charic]

Heres an idea someone put up a midi drum track and well each bounce our favourite drum sound out

[Skol303]

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1355132624' post='1894343']This makes me think about offering a service to people here to provide some live drumming to their tracks... a sort of long-distance collaboration.[/quote]

Hell yes! Great idea. I have a mate in the Ukraine with whom I'm doing just that in the new year. I say 'mate' but of the sort I've never met in person. That's the great thing about the Interweb - it makes the world a much smaller place when it comes to collaboration!

Anyway I don't want to be greedy, but if nobody takes you up on your offer of some live drums then I may well do so myself. But I'd encourage anyone here to step in first - it's a great offer :-)

[Zenitram]

Well, er, I need to set up my drum kit again and, umm... meet my deadline in ten days' time for a big job I'm doing, and, er, stuff, so it might be a while...