Ziltoid the omniscient and EZ drummer...

[Black neon bob]

amazing album!

However, i did notice that the Dev meastro used EZ drummer on it, sounds great to me, not quite like the real thing, but it has it's charm no?

I was not sure if it was EZ drummer or DFHS, but i imported a song into nuendo today, "hyperdrive" and i fired up EZ drummer, i compared the kick, snare and the rest.

To my big suprise, he really did not do that much to the sound of the drums!
It's the standard kit that you load up when you go for the DFH kit in EZ.
The kick sounds a big bigger on his album, and the snare a bit more agressive, but all in all, he used no samples on top of them as far as i can tell, not much difference at all between the "dry" EZ kit and the kit on his album.

Kinda makes me wonder if my approach is any good... when i use DFHS i have a SHITLOAD of samples i use, compression, EQ, reverbs, delays, you name it, i use it.
And when i try EZ drummer, i always end up having to do some extra stuff to get more agression and dynamics out of it, instead of how Devin did it.

Devin creates a album that sounds really cool, with just the standard settings of EZ drummer and some minor tweaks, and it sounds really decent... i wonder what im missing here?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Sort of an aside here: I personally think he used EZD to make the record overly polished. The drums sound a little too quantized and perfect. I think this was the effect he was going for, especially given Ziltoid's out of this world nature.

 

[VH100R]

keep doing your thing and don't change just because Dev loaded ezdrummer and felt happy with it.

Whenever I load ezdrummer DFH I sure ain't!

p.S: what's up bob? i'm still loving those drums on cell 600

 

[KeithRT99]

the drums on your tracks sound better than ziltoid.

 

[Black neon bob]

the drums on your tracks sound better than ziltoid.

Surely you kid?!

One thing i really like on ziltoid is the kick drum... comes through nice and clean, with a nice punch to it.

sup VH100R? cheers man..

 

[JeffTD]

While his overall mix on Ziltoid might be clearer (the guys just a genius), your drums are better, IMO.

 

[Zombietakeover]

Dont be so hard on yourself.....Its Devin Townsend for christ sake the dude is amazing

amazing album!

However, i did notice that the Dev meastro used EZ drummer on it, sounds great to me, not quite like the real thing, but it has it's charm no?

I was not sure if it was EZ drummer or DFHS, but i imported a song into nuendo today, "hyperdrive" and i fired up EZ drummer, i compared the kick, snare and the rest.

To my big suprise, he really did not do that much to the sound of the drums!
It's the standard kit that you load up when you go for the DFH kit in EZ.
The kick sounds a big bigger on his album, and the snare a bit more agressive, but all in all, he used no samples on top of them as far as i can tell, not much difference at all between the "dry" EZ kit and the kit on his album.

Kinda makes me wonder if my approach is any good... when i use DFHS i have a SHITLOAD of samples i use, compression, EQ, reverbs, delays, you name it, i use it.
And when i try EZ drummer, i always end up having to do some extra stuff to get more agression and dynamics out of it, instead of how Devin did it.

Devin creates a album that sounds really cool, with just the standard settings of EZ drummer and some minor tweaks, and it sounds really decent... i wonder what im missing here?

 

[lepersmeesa]

Mastering more than likely. To me the snare sounds pretty cack.

 

[Lefthander]

great news about EZiltiod

dont knew about it

 

[Kazrog]

I can't listen to the album very often because the EZ drums bug me so much. I can understand Devin wanting to use samples, wish he'd used DFHS + Slate instead.

 

[F.E.T]

I felt this post contained too much babble.. What I wanted to say in short is that samples are mostly used to reinforce an actual performance (and are often recorded from the same kit). DFHS amongst other allows you to control the consistency = theoretically less need for samples. Knowing how to make drums sound good comes with experience, which is a common denominator for all great AEs. If Devin has used EZ with minor tweaks and it sounds good it probably means that he has adjusted other elements of the mix in order to give the kick the space it needs.
And by the way, there´s no rules on how to achieve a good sound and your mixes sound awesome, Bob.

 

[Torniojaws]

I usually end up replacing drums in EZD and other drum machines because I cannot get the sound I want from the stock drums even with extreme EQ. They always sound a bit un-metal heh, more like a rock sound to them. It sounds like they have way too much midrange (really honking sound and too roomy sounding, even with the room mic disabled), and when you cut them out, the kick sounds dull and lifeless Ah well.

 

[F.E.T]

Yeah they are... I bought CurveEq not long ago and messed with it a bit for fun, trying to learn the function. I looped 1-2 seconds of the toms in Davidian and matched it against the original DFH samples and the curve came back like a huuuge M

 

[Ermz]

I can't listen to the album very often because the EZ drums bug me so much. I can understand Devin wanting to use samples, wish he'd used DFHS + Slate instead.

So he could be like every other project studio guy on here?

As much as I admire the 'tried and true' techniques that come up on these forums, I think people seem to buy into the one sound way too much. I still remember the PODxt fad, the C4 fad, the recto/5150 fad (this one doesnt seem like it'll die for a while) etc. All it really does is serve to make everything a carbon copy of the same sound.

So I'd say props to Dev for using software that more than likely wasn't intended for release quality stuff, and mainly for demoing purposes... At least it's something different!

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

So he could be like every other project studio guy on here?

As much as I admire the 'tried and true' techniques that come up on these forums, I think people seem to buy into the one sound way too much. I still remember the PODxt fad, the C4 fad, the recto/5150 fad (this one doesnt seem like it'll die for a while) etc. All it really does is serve to make everything a carbon copy of the same sound.

So I'd say props to Dev for using software that more than likely wasn't intended for release quality stuff, and mainly for demoing purposes... At least it's something different!

Good point, Moonie.

 

[JeffTD]

So I'd say props to Dev for using software that more than likely wasn't intended for release quality stuff, and mainly for demoing purposes... At least it's something different!

The story I remember is that Fredrik from Meshuggah gave it to him for writing purposes, and he got so inspired he wrote an entire album.

 

[mattisfrommars]

I got ezDrummer purely because i thought that if you just loaded up DFH and tabbed out the drums on guitar pro it would automatically come out sounding like Ziltoid or Catch 33.

It's why i resisted replacing drums for so long until i realised that Devin/Frederik (or "Gods among men" as they're otherwise known as) will just be plain better at using the software/mixing than I am

 

[Metaltastic]

You know, I recently heard the EZD with the DFH expansion, and I was not impressed by the kick sound at all - it sounded really flubby and loose (and this was the damped 22" with extreme eq). Having used the standard DFH samples (from the initial sample library they released) for awhile, I'm surprised at how much better those kicks sound than the DFHx. As for ZtO, honestly, the only thing that bothers me about the drum sound on that is the kick; I know DFH is all samples, but they still sound really fake to me for some reason.