anyone tryed toontrack's new "EZ keys"

[stevecollom]

it seem's like a joke but maybe not for non-piano players or players with very limited ability
Has anyone used these?

[burpo]

Looks and sounds like junk to me.

[Len911]

Steve, I don't have it, I looked at it. It seems like it is geared for someone that might use it more exclusively to write songs, someone without a daw or decent piano. If you already have a daw and piano software, maybe you are looking more for stylized piano riffs. Google "piano riffs", here are a couple I found;

http://www.pgmusic.com/addons.riffsandp ... php?os=win

http://www.producerpack.com/search.html?q=midi+keys

http://www.keyfax.com/index.php/twiddly ... drums.html

[Kolstad]

I got it when it came out, and it actually sounds quite nice. I wasn't expecting a lot from the soundengine, but have been pleasently surprised. It's very light on the cpu, which makes it very flexible to work with for me.

The piano is developed by Sampletekk, and the patches are all useful in a mix context. The arranger is pretty awesome for quick generation of chords. I dabble some on keys/piano, but it takes a lot longer to work out more complex arrangements, so when I need chords like F#m7-5+9, it's great. The midi stuff can be useful in some cases as well. Sometimes the piano plays a very basic role in a mix, or just works as a temp track, and for those uses the midi is quick'n dirty and very easy to edit.

Furthermore it helps me to improve my own playing by hearing the basic piano tracks, and don't forget the midi including that from the arranger can be used for synth/strings arrangements as well, so it's an awesomely versatile tool. I've tried it with the Catanya arpeggiator, and that opens up completely new worlds as well!

So, it's all good at my end, but hey I'm biased as a "songwriter"

[matto]

Hey Magne,

here's a tip: If you're trying to get your songs cut, don't use chords like "F#m7-5+9"...

[Kolstad]

Hey Magne,

here's a tip: If you're trying to get your songs cut, don't use chords like "F#m7-5+9"...

Hmmm, you think there will be a problem?

Actually I just googled it to sound cool in this cool virtual musicians forum. In the real world, I play plain chords like A, B and C.. sometimes I even struggle to program those

Still won't get cut, though... I can't even peak english, and all I do is cut myself

[mojobone]

I checked out the demo; seems like it'd be handy for sketching out progressions, particularly if you don't have great accompaniment chops, and the price seems about right for what it does.

[AndyKotz]

I have it and love it. I don't use the piano sounds though. I use the MIDI progressions/songs since I'm a guitarist with limited keyboard skills. I also use the Chord Selector. The cool thing with that is when you use the MIDI songs you can create your own song and chord progressions with the Chord Selector by changing chord voicings and colors. It's a great songwriting tool. The piano sounds are very useable though... I just have some great piano plugins that I love.

In fact... here's a song where I used EZ Keys: "An Angel Among Us"

[Kolstad]

A recent way I used it for composing, was that I first played the sections for a song on my midi keyboard with a strings vsti. I'm not a proficient keys player, so I don't know what I was playing. I just played something untill I liked it, and then recorded it. Then EZ Keys came in, because I could use the chord selector to analyze the chords I just played, and chart the song out, so I could add bass and guitars.. I don't know of any other tool that can do that!

[AndyKotz]

That's awesome... sure speeds up the songwriting process and helps you stay focused on the "song".