EZDrummer Review [Video]

Joe Gilder | April 7, 2010

You guys and gals have been asking for a review of Toontrack’s EZDrummer for quite a while now. Here it is. Enjoy!! (And also leave a comment…)

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  • Chris M.

    One more question…

    With Pro Tools, can you automate the Velocity knob and the mixer faders that are in the EZDrummer plugin? What I have in mind is to make some parts of the songs softer (via the Velocity setting) and sometimes for the room mics to be more prominent.

    Thanks again!

  • Chris M.

    Thanks for the great review! I love all of your Pro Tools-related videos on YouTube. A great service to the community…

    Re: EZDrummer… When you preview grooves inside of the plugin, does it sync with the host’s tempo? I didn’t notice an option for this anywhere on the interface in the video. Addictive Drums, for example, has this option (to either sync to the host, or not).

    Thanks again!

    Chris M.

  • Peter

    I haven’t heard any comments about a quantizing tool in EZD. Might I have to go into my Cubase 6 and quantize the notes and note clusters as I would using the halion percussions?
    Thanks. I’ll take my answer off the air…

  • Mike G

    Love your review Joe. I just purchased EZ Drummer and was wondering if you could tell me how to manipulate/change existing grooves. I am a songwriter and this would be great if i could do this. Any info would be appreciated.

  • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

    Sorry, if it’s a MIDI track with MIDI information (not an audio track), the tempo change should work. Might want to call tech support.

  • Dan

    I’ve just watched and read a nights worth of reviews on this product. BY FAR, this was THE BEST review. I literally never leave comments on a topic.. just wanted to say you rock dude!

  • http://www.songwraith.com Songwraith

    What a great, valuable review! Many thanks!

  • http://persianvox.com jigsaw

    Hello joe!
    I Have a question about that!
    is it possible on cubase!?
    I try that but impossible!
    and how can do with BFD2 fxpansion bfd2 this redason!?
    many thx man :-)

    • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

      I’m sorry. I don’t use Cubase, so I really don’t know.

  • http://myspace.com/timbravo Tim Bravo

    Hey, Joe. I was amazed when I learned the drums on “Change” came from EZ Drummer. It boggled my mind how the software could create such realistic overhead and room mic sounds. Since then, I’ve had to record my own challenging drum parts – I can write a mean piece, but I’m not a drummer! I only imagine it would be much easier to program EZ Drummer.

    All this leads to one question: Can one write and program their own parts, or are users stuck with using prefab fills?

    • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

      Hey Tim. Yep, you don’t have to touch the pre-fab fills if you don’t want to. What I do is find a MIDI groove that’s CLOSE to what I’m looking for, drag it into my song to give it a basic groove, then I’ll go through and manually edit the MIDI notes, adding and taking away hits here and there, to make it unique to that particular song.

      Yes, EZDrummer is awesome. The biggest missing piece to a lot of drum programming out there (using Reason or something like that) is a lack of overheads/room mics. An individual snare hit may sound awesome, but it won’t sound realistic if there’s not an overhead track to tie everything together.

  • clay johnstone

    Could you run a short video on integrating a midi drum kit up with ezdrummer and pro tools? I’d think that it would be helpful to many home studio users to see how to assign the various ez drummer drum sounds to a midi drum kit and integrate the ez drummer grooves with our own fills that correspond with the music we ‘ve written so that the fills match nicely with the previous recorded music I’m planning on renting a midi kit this weekend to try to pulll this stunt off in the next few days
    We out in cyber space appreciate your committment to learning the ins and outs of the recording process CJ

    • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

      It’ll be hard for me to do a video on using a MIDI drum kit since I don’t own a MIDI drum kit, but I’ll definitely think about how I can make it happen. Thanks Clay!

  • http://www.audiogeekzine.com @theaudiogeek
  • http://unleavendbreadministries.org Philip

    Hey Joe.

    Nice Video.

    Question.

    When you were showing the EZD mixer. Was it altering the sound of the midi information that you dragged to the instrument track?

    Or was it altering the sound in EZD?

    Hope this question makes since.

    Thanks

    Philip.

    • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

      It was just affecting the audio. It works the same way the mix window in Pro Tools works. It didn’t change the underlying MIDI, it just muted/solo’d the samples I chose.

  • Mark

    Great vid, thanks !
    Does it have features that let you “humanize” the midi grooves?

    I’ve been looking for a video just like this for ProTools bundled Fxpansion BFD lite drum kit. I didn’t find much out there in youtube world, and its UI is not nearly as user friendly as EZdrummers. I’ve messed with it and it seems to have nice sounds, so I’d like to give this bundled software a go before spending more $$$.

    Joe – any experience with it?
    thx/Mark

    • http://www.homestudiocorner.com Joe Gilder

      Hey Mark. Yep, there’s a “Humanize” button on the bottom left. Forgot to mention that. Oftentimes I’ll go back and actually randomize the MIDI notes themselves (both velocity and timing) to make it sound even more “human” and less robotic.

  • Chris

    Thanks Joe, Very helpful as always

    Cheers!

  • http://www.mydigitalpathos.com Julian

    Nailed it, as usual Joe – very cool! Great coverage of what’s possible w/ EZDrummer.
    I like the realistic sound you can get with this…with the grooves you can import and then MIDI edit/modify to taste, most any 4/4 song could be nailed realistically. A boon to home-studio folks in apartments or even homeowners w/ nosey neighbors. LOL

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