Hello
today, I'm gonna talk to you about the new drum sampler from Toontrack called EZDrummer 2
Rather than being just a drum sampler
it puts a lot more emphasis on the songwriting aspect in this version than before
I'm gonna briefly show you what you can do with the plugin
and what I do and how I use it to create drum tracks for my own songs
So, this is my Logic project where I already have come up with a couple of riffs
I've got the left guitar, right guitar, bass guitar and the center guitar.
It sounds like this.
It's just a basic verse
pre-chorus
and a chorus
and then the verse again. I want to make a complete drum track for this particular song.
This is where EZDrummer 2 really shines:
rather than using the Midi pad to write beats manually now, using the browser and the search function,
you can find grooves yourself using different filters, like genre and time signatures etc.
But I'm going to use the "tap to find" function within the plugin to quickly find a beat that fits the guitar riff I wrote
The verse riff.
Basically I tap a beat myself with the click of the mouse.
So it's uhm ...
And you can keep on adding parts of the kit as the loop goes, like this.
You get the idea. I'm gonna keep this simple, so I will remove the ride and the crash ...
... and the Toms.
So, when you got the idea done, you press show results
and EZDrummer 2 will show you the grooves that fit the beat you wanted the most.
So, let's hear them. This has a 95% match.
This one has 93% match.
I think this one is the one that sounds close to what I want, so I'll use this one.
I'll just drag it down to the board here.
When I've dragged a groove down to the board I can edit its play style
by double clicking. Here you have it. Listen to it.
You can change the opening hit if you want. To a ride, or a crash
and change the power hand.
And also another thing I can do is that I can add hits for different parts
So, if I want more kick hits
I add them here.
Even more.
What's awesome with this feature is that you can basically copy the same groove
and just change them up. Just a bit, to make the drum track more dynamic and not too repetitive.
If I press here, I can also adjust the velocity.
But I can also adjust the velocity of different parts if I want to.
Mainly I would just change the power hand. I changed it from the Hi Hat to one of the Crashes.
To make the groove heavier.
Okay, so let's listen to what we have.
That's pretty heavy!
Ok, the drum beat is cool. I got the drum beat for the verse. I want to base the whole song around this groove.
I've just opened the Song Creator
I drag the groove into the Midi Drop Zone
and the Song Creator will analyze and create song parts for you based on your initial beat.
So, here we have suggested intros, verses, pre-choruses, chorus, bridge, fills
You've got a lot of them. And the endings etc.
So ...
Okay, to continue the song I want another verse.
Groove ...
Change the power hand here ...
Okay, so let's check out the ...
And next is the pre-chorus and for the pre-chorus riff I will want something with a ride on it to just ...
... change the dynamics a bit. So, let's find a groove.
This sounds pretty good. I'll just open that up and drag it down here
Open to Play Style
Change the power hand to a ride
And let's just put in a fill.
Before the chorus, so put that in there
You can also add hits to the fills if you want to. If you want more snare hits ...
And then we have the chorus. I want something that's heavy.
That's cool.
That one too. So, that's the chorus and then ...
That's pretty good. Then after the chorus it's going back to the verse again, so we'll grab a verse right here.
And there you have it! The complete and dynamic song and drum track created in less than five minutes.