EZ Drummer 3 - holy moly!

[AndyR]

It came out on Tuesday May 3rd.

Any other EZ Drummer user here take the pre-release upgrade discount?

I held off and held off until the crazy bearded man (Rikk Currence) did a walk though last week. It's a bit long, but it's got chapter links:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTC_Sh9A7bw

I pre-ordered immediately. I've been using EZ Drummer 2 for less than a year, and 3 pretty much addresses all the things I could think of that could be improved for me personally.

Sadly, I've not had much time to try it out yet because while I was downloading the 3 Core library (15Gb) I decided to go in the loft to get some old shelves to convert a closed-back speaker cab to an open-back (without cutting the original) and... well... I came down a bit faster than expected, without shelves, but with ladder, onto the bannisters below and... it all got a bit nasty!!

I can just about walk and breathe again now

Anyway, EZ Drummer 3, I have plugged it in tried it out... and everything the crazy man says about it in the walkthrough appears to be true.

It's AMAZING, I highly recommend it.

[Johnbee]

I did the pre order and got it on Tuesday.  It's awesome.  I'm still playing with the new features.
Sorry to hear about your spill.  Thank God it wasn't worse (it could've been).  May you heal quickly.

  John B

[AndyR]

Cheers John
Yeah, when I was lying on the floor I couldn't stop groaning etc. I feared broken ribs and a punctured lung, and a broken leg. It's all a bit sore now (plus various other places which weren't evident initially, including two fingers on the right hand), but it seems to be healing. Trying not to run before I can walk... literally  

But yeah, EZ Drummer 3 is utterly WOW. With the new kits in the main library, I can see me not bothering too much with some of the EZXs I bought before. But it's probably going to speed up a purchase of MIDI expansion packs - once I've checked out that Bandmate AI functionality.

I've actually had a 6 MIDI Pack Bundle in my sights for months but haven't managed to choose 6 from a wantlist of 10! And because I have been doing so much acoustic one-mic stuff, I'd stopped looking at the drums for a while. This has kind of fired me up again.

I'm really looking forward to checking out this Bandmate thing with some guitar parts over the weekend. I can write guitar riffs till the cows come home. If it does half of what I'm hoping for, it'll almost be like doing that in a rehearsal room with a drummer... If it's that good then I'll go ahead and order in the MIDI packs I've had my eye on so that this AI engine has a bigger library to choose from.

I have to admit, all this has got me looking at EZ Keys and EZ Bass too. That wasn't where I was expecting to go at all! I always wanted to play my own parts. But with the acoustic demo projects I've been working on (and there's LOADS more to do) it's got me back into focusing on song-writing not recording, and the idea of telling my "AI" keyboard player what to play and when, based on my chords and the groove I want, suddenly seems more attractive than spending weeks learning how to fake the parts with my limited keyboard abilities!

[Ted]

So I skipped over a bunch of chapters, but I'm really intrigued.

The GarageBand automatic drummer is like a baby version of this. But one thing it does is inserts drum fills from time to time (if you want it to). I've gotten really lazy (recently) about sequencing drum parts with fills in the Micro BR, so I just let a GarageBand drummer do its thing. (The songs I've done kind of lent themselves to this lazy approach.)

Does EZ Drummer 3 do the same thing?

[Johnbee]

Cheers John
Yeah, when I was lying on the floor I couldn't stop groaning etc. I feared broken ribs and a punctured lung, and a broken leg. It's all a bit sore now (plus various other places which weren't evident initially, including two fingers on the right hand), but it seems to be healing. Trying not to run before I can walk... literally  

But yeah, EZ Drummer 3 is utterly WOW. With the new kits in the main library, I can see me not bothering too much with some of the EZXs I bought before. But it's probably going to speed up a purchase of MIDI expansion packs - once I've checked out that Bandmate AI functionality.

I've actually had a 6 MIDI Pack Bundle in my sights for months but haven't managed to choose 6 from a wantlist of 10! And because I have been doing so much acoustic one-mic stuff, I'd stopped looking at the drums for a while. This has kind of fired me up again.

I'm really looking forward to checking out this Bandmate thing with some guitar parts over the weekend. I can write guitar riffs till the cows come home. If it does half of what I'm hoping for, it'll almost be like doing that in a rehearsal room with a drummer... If it's that good then I'll go ahead and order in the MIDI packs I've had my eye on so that this AI engine has a bigger library to choose from.

I have to admit, all this has got me looking at EZ Keys and EZ Bass too. That wasn't where I was expecting to go at all! I always wanted to play my own parts. But with the acoustic demo projects I've been working on (and there's LOADS more to do) it's got me back into focusing on song-writing not recording, and the idea of telling my "AI" keyboard player what to play and when, based on my chords and the groove I want, suddenly seems more attractive than spending weeks learning how to fake the parts with my limited keyboard abilities!

You won't make a mistake getting EZ Keys.  I've been using it for 8 years and it's awesome.  You can make a whole song around it or you can just use it for some "embellishment" if that's all you want.  You get a pretty decent variety of grooves in different genres with whatever core kit you choose but the more MIDI packs you get the more variety you have at your fingertips.  MIDI packs are about $30.00 USD.

I tried Bandmate on EZD3.  Pretty neat stuff.  It will be a time saver for me as it eliminates the need for me to "shop around" for a drum groove when I put together an initial keyboard groove.

  John B

[Johnbee]

So I skipped over a bunch of chapters, but I'm really intrigued.

The GarageBand automatic drummer is like a baby version of this. But one thing it does is inserts drum fills from time to time (if you want it to). I've gotten really lazy (recently) about sequencing drum parts with fills in the Micro BR, so I just let a GarageBand drummer do its thing. (The songs I've done kind of lent themselves to this lazy approach.)

Does EZ Drummer 3 do the same thing?

.....and then some.  You won't have to sequence at all with EZD3 if you don't want to.  In Bandmate you can play your guitar into it and it will suggest some drum grooves for you, or you can use "Tap To Find" by tapping a beat that you may have in mind into it and it will make suggestions there as well.  I don't use Garageband (I'm not a Mac man), but I think you'll be quite impressed with EZD over what you have now.
John B