EZDrummer3 opinion

[OpaD79]

Legitimately, if you use this, how long does it take you to create an average song? Any tips or warnings to use with Tascam DP32-SD? I'm not sure I am going this route, but looking for the opinions of users. Thanks in advance.

 

[DM60]

I haven't updated to 3, but I have to assume it is probably better than 2. That being said, there are a lot of good features in 2. I use the MIDI grooves and have purchased some of the packs. I use the grooves a lot and depending on approach I can have the drum parts knocked out pretty quick. I will sometimes add to the drums to give it more personal flavor (record a new MIDI track and route to the EZ channel or add to existing MIDI). I really like the labeling, verse, chorus, bridge, fill and there are some presets for different drum mix.

I haven't really used other drum plugins much, I do find EZ and the SD drums and their MIDI packs very good and very usable.

 

[Papanate]

Legitimately, if you use this, how long does it take you to create an average song? Any tips or warnings to use with Tascam DP32-SD? I'm not sure I am going this route, but looking for the opinions of users. Thanks in advance.

EZ Drummer 3 is software - how are you going to snyc the drum to the DP-32? In any case it might take days to create a track- it depends on how complicated you want the drums - and how adept you are at feel or programing - but straight ahead drums and not altering much you have a track in about 1/2/ hour.

On average I can have song up and ready in about 20 minutes - then over the next week or so I alter parts - move around the different drums and tweak the feel.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Personally, I've modified my workflow to make it so that every drum plugin I use has fundamentally the same workflow. Setting EZD to be compatible with this heavily-customized, template-based multi-routed workflow was in general more easy and standardized than some of the other options. e.g. if an Ugritone kit takes 15 minutes to build the template, an EZD one takes 10. But, once my templates are built, every drum kit takes the exact same amount of time to track/sequence and edit.

 

[Papanate]

But, once my templates are built, every drum kit takes the exact same amount of time to track/sequence and edit.

Do the templates have the timing of the drums built into them? Meaning sometime you want to push the snare a couple of ticks in front of the beat - and the hi-hat one tick in front - and then the kick locked into the beat -

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I haven't used EzD3, but I'm a Superior 3 user and I'm assuming the audio engine is broadly similar, you just lose a lot of the (stupendous) flexibility you get with Superior.

And, if so, I'll add that Superior 3 was a huge step up in realism over Superior 2. I've been very impressed - subtle flams and ghost notes and stff like that, well, it handles them REALLY well.

 

[DM60]

I haven't used EzD3, but I'm a Superior 3 user and I'm assuming the audio engine is broadly similar, you just lose a lot of the (stupendous) flexibility you get with Superior.

And, if so, I'll add that Superior 3 was a huge step up in realism over Superior 2. I've been very impressed - subtle flams and ghost notes and stff like that, well, it handles them REALLY well.

I've been thinking of upgrading to SD3, not cheap, but SD2 has served me well. Is the humanize feature pretty good?

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I've been thinking of upgrading to SD3, not cheap, but SD2 has served me well. Is the humanize feature pretty good?

IMO it isn't the humanize, so much as... idunno, S2 was always very good... but the cymbals in particular on S3 just feel WAY more natural. I can try to do some A/B clips with the same drum programming bt the different engines (I think I still have 2 on my machine) though of course different presets will cause differences too... But they feel significantly more "real" sounding to me, the way the cymbals behave. And I do think things like flams and ghost notes are handled far better.

 

[DM60]

IMO it isn't the humanize, so much as... idunno, S2 was always very good... but the cymbals in particular on S3 just feel WAY more natural. I can try to do some A/B clips with the same drum programming bt the different engines (I think I still have 2 on my machine) though of course different presets will cause differences too... But they feel significantly more "real" sounding to me, the way the cymbals behave. And I do think things like flams and ghost notes are handled far better.

Thanks for that info. I know on SD2, to your point about cymbals, I even purchased some cymbals so I could get a more realistic sound. But...

I think I will look into SD3. I use the SD plugin 99% on my stuff, so it isn't like I won't get my money's worth.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Happy to run some comparison clips and whatnot, but I really was impressed by how much more natural all the brass sounded.