Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

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regardner
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Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by regardner » Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:00 am

Hello,

How do you feel about the quality of the samples in EZ Drummer2?

I ask because I received a return last night. The reason for the return was, in part, because the samples/sounds sounded dated or of poor quality.

The screener may well have meant the sounds of the live instruments I played, I don't know. If the screener meant the samples, though, the only samples I used were the drum samples in EZ Drummer2.

I searched the forums and was surprised that I couldn't find any posts directly addressing this topic.

So what do you think about EZ Drummer2? How about as in comparison to competing products?

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:21 am

There's better out there for sure but EZD seems pretty popular and " good enough " without going crazy - pretty sure I've mixed tracks for Libraries that used them.

I use Addictive Drums 2 which I think is pretty similar in sound quality..never been an issue

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by regardner » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:45 am

That's what I think, too: It's good enough. And it's not that I don't care enough to go get whatever is best, there are just so many things competing for my finite amount of money, that I'd rather invest that all too scarce resource where what I have is not good enough.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:52 am

Like all these things it depends how you arrange / layer / mix them and what the genre is.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by Telefunkin » Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:56 pm

In general, yes its plenty good enough. I've used it quite a lot in tracks that are licensed, as have many others. As you know though, there are loads of kits, loads of ways to edit and vary those kits, loads of ways to assemble the patterns, followed by loads of ways to add ambience and mix the drums in your track that influence (improve or maybe ruin) the end result. I have no doubt that I've also used many a perfectly good sample of things like sax, flute and fiddle but made them sound dated or of poor quality :).

If you want to expand your drum sounds without spending there's always this, which is also plenty good enough......
https://stevenslatedrums.com/ssd-free/
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by lesmac » Tue Sep 01, 2020 3:09 pm

Like most things, it's in the execution. It seems to be a reflexive response that we can buy our way out of troubles in music production.

Are you mult-ing out the tracks into your DAW? I prefer to use the basic kits and turn down the bleed mics when going this way.

The stereo version can be fine.

If Superior Drummer comes up on sale for a reasonable price in the future it would be worth jumping on though.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by regardner » Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:06 pm

Lester and Graham,

I ought to have known better. I've had tracks sporting EZ Drummer forwarded in the past. I suspect that I just did an unusually bad job of mixing this particular set of tracks.


The reason I first began to doubt the quality of the samples is that about six months ago I ran into some people who told me emphatically that Steven Slate was much better than EZ Drummer. I decided to test their theory by downloading the free version of SSD, but, honestly, I didn't really hear a tremendous difference between it and EZD. I think the SSD hi-hats and cymbals sound marginally better, but not enough to make me switch. I have several EZX's already, so you know, sunk costs and all that.

The screeners' comment about my dated samples brought that all back to mind and made me start to wonder if I lack the discerning ear necessary to evaluate a good drum sample.


You gentleman have helped me put that notion to rest. If there was a fault in my mix, it wasn't my samples, it was the way I mixed them.

And honestly, that's really comforting because I almost always use EZD, and if the samples were substandard, consequently, so too would have been practically every production I've ever made.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:47 pm

regardner wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:06 pm
The screeners' comment about my dated samples brought that all back to mind and made me start to wonder if I lack the discerning ear necessary to evaluate a good drum sample.
Are you certain it was the drums the screener was talking about ? Maybe post up the track in question. Sometimes the screeners think live instruments are poor samples ! It's not unnown

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by regardner » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:25 am

https://soundcloud.com/user-584639199/t ... ejW0hEaLBh

This is the track.

I submitted this waaaaaay back to four of the "covid 19" listings. I have received four different returns, and, therefore, four different opinions about its' strengths and weaknesses. Based on the critiques, I feel like I have a pretty good song, but a pretty lousy production.

Some of the production problems I feel I already know how to address. For instance, the tracks' vocal has some harsh sibilance that I just couldn't get rid of at the time. Lester (who has already heard this track and is excused from listening again) pointed me to a video about how to get the Black Keys vocal sound. I applied what I learned to my next submission, and that track actually drew praise from the screener for its' vocal tone. Thanks, Lester! Amazing how a couple of fairly small changes can make such an enormous difference.

This last critique, the one that prompted me to post this topic, said that the reason for the return is that the track is not a commercially viable rock production. I concede that. Months later, that's obvious even to me. The screener also said that something else he or she noticed was that the samples/and or sounds were dated or of poor quality.

I'd love to get everyone's thoughts. I plan to do a brand new production of the song at some point, and I'd like to do it right this time.

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Re: Is EZ Drummer Good Enough?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:44 am

regardner wrote:
Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:25 am
I'd love to get everyone's thoughts. I plan to do a brand new production of the song at some point, and I'd like to do it right this time.
Yeah..I think the song is good, you mentioned you've already got a better plan for the vocal sound - The drums do sound kinda wimpy though, I felt that way right from the very first kick drum.

They're underpowered. Could be a number of reasons depending what you've done with them.

Best way to get punchy powerful sounding drums is to use punchy powerful sounding samples from the get go. ( and then not ruin them in the mix process )..layering is your friend here.

If you bypass all the processing on them how do they sound ? Sometimes material with a lot of transients can get kind mushy and small as we pile on different layers of compression. Often we'll have some on the kick & snare themselves, then more on the drum buss, then some on the 2buss, then we might add some more in mastering. All these layers of compression can make the rest of the instruments sound nice but kill the drums if it's over done.

First thing I would try..bounce a mix without any drums. Bounce a drums only stem with no processing on it. Import them into a new session and balance the two so the drums sound more powerful.

If that makes a big difference then it's your mix and you can go back and fix it ( i.e. take of fall the stuff that's making them sound small ) . If it sounds about the same then it's your sounds , so now you can go back and do something about it.

If the samples are too weak then I would bolster them with some addition samples underneath. It's usually easier to bounce your kick & snare to audio so you can line up other layers underneath. You need to be wary of phase cancellation so listen in mono as you do it. Find a punchy kick and snare combo ( you may well need to go for something from an EDM sample pack or something ) that compliments your original selections and then put it on it's own buss and blend it in so it kinda sits underneath but adds more punch and power.

See how you go.

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