Drumkit from hell EZX in a couple of weeks

[chadsxe]

Not really chad...

~e.a

I guess if it sounds good it sounds good. I mean I understand why they did not go the 24-bit route (sample size and all) but if they were shooting for a truely top of the line product then why not.

 

[Torniojaws]

Tornio, I thought this too about the hats. I can almost bet you are using the GM map. Use the EZD drum map and you get 3 or 4 more hi-hat keys to trigger with. 3 different styles of open hats, plus the three you get when you use GM, and one other one as well. I thought I was missing something when I was using the GM map...I was. The EZD map opens up a few more things to use when programming the MIDI.

I'm not talking about programming, I'm talking about how the hihat itself sounds like in the program (the hihats they recorded for the progam) uke:

 

[006]

elephant-audio: This Left-Right hits thing is worth clarifying a bit. A drum doesn't know which hand it has been hit with, only WHERE it has been hit, and how hard. If what you want is different hit position articulations, they should be called such; if your left arm isn't as powerful as your right, then a lower velocity should be programmed or played. BFD doesn't use amplitude scaling as much as DKFHS, which, as I understand it, has pools of sound for loud, medium and soft velocity groups, and then amplitude scales within that pool. Instead, a 'continuous' range of dynamic levels, with an equally continuous dynamically-local pool of velocity layer neighbours as alternative hits is used.

I find the idea of left and right hits on a pedal-kicked bassdrum especially amusing - or do you mean you have a double kick drum kit, in which case you might have have two physically different drums recorded, or at least two recording takes of the same drum?

I think what toontrack have algorithmically is a valid (if misnamed) way to present a snare as a multi-articulated instrument; it's just a lot of drummers (especially technical session drummers) we've talked to baulk at the idea that they are any less capable of producing a hit with a certain position and certain strength with either hand.

That's great and all...however BFD sounds nothing like DFHS (and not in a good way). Especially when doing fills and lots of things that are normally done with two hands/feet when a real drummer is performing them. BFD ends up sounding like a really expensive drum machine. That's not to say that DFHS has it's downsides for a few things, however with careful programming and lots of attention to detail I think you'd be hard pressed to choose BFD over DFHS. It just doesn't make sense to pay that much more money for an inferior product. That's the bottom line. It's not about real drummer's saying their spiel...nobody cares. DFHS has "left/right hand/foot hits", take it as you wish, but BFD still doesn't offer it...or anything like it. EZD offers it...and BFD still doesn't.

~e.a

 

[HeadCrusher]

EZD has no bounce function, and no separate cymbals channels. It also does not have the option to create two tracks, dry only and bleeding only (top and bottom toms as well ) like DFHS does. From what I heard it certainly sounds great, better than DFHS, specially the snare and BD, but DFHS has the bounce function wich means everything to me. And the control bleeding on all mics is also a superb thing on DFHS. I just wish some add-ons for DFHS, maybe some more agressive/industrial sound.

But those loops on EZD made me drool... I wish I could buy just those loops, 8000... wow...

Using EZD's Mixer and your Sequencers Mixdown feature should get you to the same results, won't they?

 

[theblackmoon]

^ Head, actually not, since you can program stuff on DFHS using 16bit and no bleeding so it runs fast and strong. When you bounce, it automatically render 24 bits(if you choose so) and adds all the mics bleeding that you choose. EZD is cheaper than DFHS, and there must be reasons for that, since they´re both from Toontrack. But EZD sounds clearly better than DFHS, for me it seems that is already processed, more like ready-sounding.

 

[musickey]

Im really digging EZD my only bitch is that it takes so fucking long to load all the samples! am i missing something

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

...DFHS has "left/right hand/foot hits", take it as you wish, but BFD still doesn't offer it...or anything like it. EZD offers it...and BFD still doesn't.

I really don't want to get involved with this - I don't use either program, so it makes no difference to me - but the guy has a valid point that you can't really dismiss offhand like that.

'Left' and 'right' are abstract ideas that don't mean anything to anything outside of humans - there's no way for DFHS or BFD to recognise left and right hits, they're all just hits. All DFHS does is pick a sample from a certain group, just the same as BFD - just because it names them 'left' and 'right' hits or whatever doesn't change that. It could even be that the actual samples are were originally left- and right-handed, and that DFHS picks them alternately, I don't know - but Drumagog doesn't work like that and it can still sound natural, so saying that no left/right hits makes BFD crap doesn't hold water.

However at the same time, SKoT_FX: you also can't just ignore what Elephant-Audio is saying. Clearly something in the way DFHS overlays consecutive hits sounds more natural than the way BFD does, because so many people can hear it.

Now someone go and sort the fucking cymbal programming out!

Steve

 

[006]

Steve...I get what you are saying. But the people at ToonTrack actually took the time to record left and right handed hits at varying velocities and the DFHS plug does in fact grab samples from the pools from those two seperate categories...it does make a difference. I've actually used BFD and it does suck major ass. For what you pay...you get peanuts. And Drumagog takes a *lot* of work to make it sound natural on snare/tom fills, but yes it can be done. A lot of people really don't have the enthusiasm/energy/care to actually spend the time to make Drumagog do it though.

~e.a

 

[Kazrog]

Does it bother anyone else the EZD is only 16-bit 41k...

41k ????

 

[006]

Haha, I'm sure he meant 44.1k...I hope so at least...

~e.a

 

[SKoT_FX]

Elephant: I trust you listened to full install of BFD, and not the heavily data-reduced BFD Demo, and whoever was operating it knew have to drive the humanization features, including the anti-machine gun mode. There's also a heap of synthesis options controlling mutual choking - I don't know how the machines that people heard were setup. There's a world of extra options in BFD that people often don't know about, or how to use correctly. But anyway, I feel like I'm intruding on a toontrack thread here, so I'll quietly retire!

EDIT: Stoopid coder here has had the obvious pointed out by one of the others here at FX - for a kick with a double kick pedal mechanism, left/right hit naming make perfect sense, and has a physical reality in the different strike positions. This is a glaring mental lapse to have on a forum such as this! We actually support Toontrack's left/right kick hits in our BFDConvertor utility, and many BFD users use the NoSNare secondary hit in BFD for this purpose.

I still object to left/hit being used in the context of snares. A different position name, like "half-edge", as found in BFD DLX and some others in the works, more accurately describes the position, but there also seems to be a perception outthere that the "left hits" should have some kind of secondary dynamics. Lower dynamics and a change in position will naturally result from a change in strike location / note triggered, and the dynamics from the velocity.

 

[006]

Just to bring it to a quick close, I did completely venture throughout all the available options in the full install of BFD that the studio bought. I installed it, set everything up...tried out everything there was try in the manual using MIDI files we had in storage from previous sessions using triggers and drum modules. I just hated the even-still robotic sound. We sold it on eBay and got DFHS after a week of messing with it. Once we applied DFHS to the same MIDI files...they came alive. That immediately told us that we had something useful. I didn't have to fuck with it, didn't have to read the manual...just inserted it as a VSTi and I was done. That was my experience. As they say, first impressions are lasting ones, and BFD certainly didn't leave me impressed in one bit.

~e.a

 

[sparkyness]

quick question: I'm attempting to get EZD to "talk" to my Axiom 49 via Cubase SX3 to trigger drum sounds. Now I can trigger samples from the keyboard and trigger pads but the key mapping is not the same as the diagram provided with EZD. I've loaded the EZD drum map in Cubase on the midi track but it appears to have no effect and it plays the same sounds as the GM map. Now granted I'm a MIDI noob, but there's gotta be something I'm missing here....would really appreciate any help on this.

A blow-by-blow guide to setting up this bloody thing would be majorly helpful.

 

[~BURNY~]

Hi Skot.
I've yet to hear reallistic double strokes style rolls with bfd. Call it right/left hand or alternate pole, DFHS sounds obviously more convincing when doing it.
Not saying BFD is shit though but you guys at FXpansion should look deeper into this.
Just my two cents.

 

[johnjm22]

So why is EZD RTAS and DFH not?

When using EZD can you route the output of each individual drum to a track in your host program?

 

[sparkyness]

Yes....in the EZD Mixer there's an option to assign drums to up to 8 individual tracks. The default routing option is to send to individual tracks for kick, snare top, snare bottom, hats, rack toms (2 together), floor tom, overheads, and room.

I combine my snare top/bottom to the same track and split my rack toms to individual tracks, but it's flexible.

 

[johnjm22]

Thanks for the reply Sparkyness.

 

[Kazrog]

BFD can sound realistic for some types of music. For metal it's not very usable at all. For really basic pop/rock stuff it can sound good (just don't go too fast.) I've stolen some snares and cymbals from it on occasion to throw into my Battery kit, and when mixed with all of my other samples, some of the BFD (and BFD XFL) stuff sounds great.

Battery is still my application of choice because the possibilities are unlimited. All of the competing drum modules lock you in to a certain sample set and paradigm, and I have never found one of those that sounded as good as my highly customized Battery kit (including DFHS.)

 

[HeadCrusher]

On the left/right hand issue: I was just fooling around with EZD when I noticed, that the Snare Buzz Fills in the Grooves Library are programmed only with the right hand hits...

 

[006]

They are called ghost notes...and yes, they are for the right hand only in the EZD library...is there a problem with that? That is just how they set up the sample sets for each MIDI note...

~e.a