EZ Drummer2
Moderators: Dave Mudgett, Janice Brooks
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Ted Barnhouse II
- Posts: 27
- Joined: 4 Jul 2013 4:19 pm
- Location: Missouri, USA
EZ Drummer2
What do you all think of the EZ Drummer 2?
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Greg Cutshaw
- Posts: 6610
- Joined: 17 Nov 1998 1:01 am
- Location: Corry, PA, USA
- Contact:
I've made a ton of recordings with EZDrummer2. The user interface is awesome, the supplied midi patterns are just Ok, and the sounds are just OK.
To elaborate, the user interface is easy to learn and makes locating, sampling and editing patterns a breeze.
I have 6 midi packs and all the country, gospel and blues ones. Most of the patterns are too busy and mostly lack variety in sequences. This is easily overcome if you get good at editing the patterns yourself. I also recently purchased a bunch of midi patterns from GrooveMonkee during their 50% off sale and they have a lot of variations within their sets. GrooveMonkee has an installer program that puts their patterns inside of EZDrummer.
The recorded drum sounds are not overly authentic. For example the bass drum requires a lot of compression to make it pop. The wood block sound is not very crisp. The toms just don't sound right to me either and overall the many drum machines I've used had more realistic drum samples. A lot of this can be improved if you port the drums to a DAW (like Reaper) where you can apply extra EQ and compression.
Despite all the above comments, I haven't found any other all in one drum package that I like better than EZDrummer 2 including the other more expensive drummers offered by ToonTrack.
To elaborate, the user interface is easy to learn and makes locating, sampling and editing patterns a breeze.
I have 6 midi packs and all the country, gospel and blues ones. Most of the patterns are too busy and mostly lack variety in sequences. This is easily overcome if you get good at editing the patterns yourself. I also recently purchased a bunch of midi patterns from GrooveMonkee during their 50% off sale and they have a lot of variations within their sets. GrooveMonkee has an installer program that puts their patterns inside of EZDrummer.
The recorded drum sounds are not overly authentic. For example the bass drum requires a lot of compression to make it pop. The wood block sound is not very crisp. The toms just don't sound right to me either and overall the many drum machines I've used had more realistic drum samples. A lot of this can be improved if you port the drums to a DAW (like Reaper) where you can apply extra EQ and compression.
Despite all the above comments, I haven't found any other all in one drum package that I like better than EZDrummer 2 including the other more expensive drummers offered by ToonTrack.
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Ted Barnhouse II
- Posts: 27
- Joined: 4 Jul 2013 4:19 pm
- Location: Missouri, USA
Disclaimer: I have no actual experience with computer based recording (yet). FWIW I've done a lot of pre-research, though, to determine what I'll eventually want/need. That said............
With any software package, including drums, always check to see the memory requirements before buying. There is a drum package out there whose name escapes me, that Ibelive takes a HUGE amount of memory, something like 250 GB.
EZ Drummer2 according to a search takes 4 GB of HARD drive space, which isn't too bad.
As for the sounds being realistic, from using a couple of cheaper Zoom drum machines, making the drums sound "real" in a song has a lot to do with the programming and creation of the steps/measures/arrangements.
If you just use the stock pre-programmed user patterns it may end up sounding that way.
If you take the time to modify the factory patterns, or even better create your own, your results will probably be better.
With any software package, including drums, always check to see the memory requirements before buying. There is a drum package out there whose name escapes me, that Ibelive takes a HUGE amount of memory, something like 250 GB.
EZ Drummer2 according to a search takes 4 GB of HARD drive space, which isn't too bad.
As for the sounds being realistic, from using a couple of cheaper Zoom drum machines, making the drums sound "real" in a song has a lot to do with the programming and creation of the steps/measures/arrangements.
If you just use the stock pre-programmed user patterns it may end up sounding that way.
If you take the time to modify the factory patterns, or even better create your own, your results will probably be better.