Ezdrummer Electronic Drum Kit
Magdalena Liendo
No matter if you are looking to make beats for hip-hop, house, grime or dub step, lead sound designer Richard Devine, an award-winning artist and pioneer in modern electronic music, has managed to squeeze, shape and bend sounds in and out of proportion as well as record pristine takes on classics to create the hottest collection of electronic drums imaginable.
Check out Toontrack sound designers Brad Bowden and Mattias Eklund introduce the Electronic EZX, walk you through the kits, FX channels and presets as well as applying its cutting edge sounds in conjunction with Superior Drummer to a song with Swedish band Grande Luxe - bringing the arrangement to an entirely new level.
The body percussion samples can be used in single, double, or group permutations, which means you can choose between the sound of one or two people clapping or a group. Finally, three separate drum rooms are available, which all significantly impact the sound of each kit: Main Room, Bright Room, and Tight Room.
There are multiple options when it comes to creating a groove or a fill. For example, you can connect the MIDI/USB output on your electric kit, use a MIDI keyboard, or use the Grid Editor, which comes as part of the software package.
Perhaps the most intriguing new feature of EZDrummer 3 is the Band Mate mode. So if you play guitar, bass, or keys, you can import a WAV file of your playing, and EZDrummer 3 will create a tailor-made drum part to match.
You can also add and remove swing, also by turning the relevant dial, too. Band Mate will create more than one groove, and you can click through these until you find one you like. You can use that groove as it is or develop it further by making various tweaks and changes in the Grid Editor. Everything is customizable.
Maybe I was doing something wrong with other libraries, but EZdrummer 3 worked flawlessly as soon as I opened the software. The hi-hat triggering is fantastic, and Toontrack even gives you mapping presets for almost all electronic drum sets on the market.
On the other hand, the extra options afforded by Superior Drummer sounded like an opportunity for analysis paralysis. I wanted an easy life and a much lighter hard drive (EZDrummer is relatively kind on memory usage).
Basic idea (like everyone else) :
1)Use a piezo either inserted in a practice pad or stuck behind a DIY pad (like the one here : -Drum-Pad/ )
I plan to use a 4051 to expand my inputs
2.1)use a midi connector for arduino and use a MIDI-USB cable and use REAPER + EZDrummer
OR
2.2) Use a serial to midi driver/converter like the one at Spikenzielabs or the one by the laser-harp inventor to send output to MIDIYoke
and use that virtual midi port as an input for a drum sampler like EZDrummer in Reaper or FLStudio
3)Shift the whole thing to my netbook on which I can install a Linux distro. Hydrogen/LMMS can be used although I'm guessing they are no where as good as Reaper + EZDrummer. But the advantage of Linux is that I can throw out all the unnecessary software packages (networking, etc) and create a really light, fast and reliable dedicated 'drum processing' distro..
Now I tried this with one piezo; I soldered the leads to the piezo and put a 1 megaohm resistor in parallel, used the demo sketch here : Serial_MIDI (I did NOT use the driver on that page which gave me some problems, I just used the sketch) and used this : -port-midi-relay/ as my converter.
So what happens is, as soon as I strike the piezo, I hear a piano note from my PC speakers..
I also modified the sketch so that instead of '127' as the midi velocity, I send the analog read value divided by 8 (max value from analog read is 1023, and max midi velocity value is 127) to the software
So now I've got the basic idea working with 'velocity' sensing
Only thing left is setting up Reaper with the Spikenzie drivers (the above mentioned driver that I successfully tried doesn't allow me to choose/config MIDI ports ) .. which is giving me problems.
Anything else I should think about before diving in and starting the whole thing on the real scale (making drum pads, tubing, etc ? )
What features would it unavoidably lack as compared to pro e-drums ?
I have also looked at most of the open-hardware drum brains on the internet, but I've no advanced knowledge of electronics yet to make sense of their designs/instuctions.. Maybe after 3-4 years I'll be able to use those schematics ditch the computer entirely .. or better still get a real drum set, but for now the way I see it,this is the only way to go.
Thanks.. Plenty of stuff about drums in the MIDI section of the playground which I didn't know existed..
Also found another serial 2 midi : Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
@robtillaart: Arduino is afaik a prototyping platform. So you should have time to learn how things work. If you have the money and don't want to learn anything about the inner "life" of a e-drumkit: buy it and you'll be happy. There's no problem about the one or the other way, isn't it?!
The Electronic EZX presents a mind-blowing collection of classic, circuit bent and resampled electronic drum sounds. It includes as much as 33 carefully crafted preset kits as well as a large selection of optional snares and kicks, all designed to cater to a broad range of genres and production styles.
We are looking for a MIDI-USB converter. My drummer friend has an electronic drum set with a MIDI out and a quarter-inch out. We've tried using the quarter inch out into a FocusRite and then into Jamulus but had trouble balancing the levels. We want to see if it will be easier using the MIDI outs into some other interface and then into Jamulus. The Focusrite (Scarlett 2i2) does not have a MIDI in.
I read your message, Luuk. Please understand that we are analog musicians who suddenly need to learn a lot about equipment and technologies we've never needed before in 45 years of makng music. What I understand from your message below is that he will need to either 1) find a way to balance the quarter-inch outputs or, 2) if he goes the MIDI route, he will need to buy additional software to convert the MIDI input to computer back into audio information. Is that a fair encapsulation of what you're saying?
Yes, I'm a drummer, an ICT'r and a soundguy :-) .
I'm using a Behringer XR-18air as my mixer, the master outs of my drummodule going straight into channel 1 and 2 of the mixer. The Berhinger XR-18 is a mixer and audio-interface in one, assigning the Master-Outs (ch17-18) to Jamulus did the job.
The problem is, every 'environment' is different, if your dutch, maybe I can help you(r drummer) out using Jamulus. Let me know if interested.
I am a drummer, and put the outputs from my drumkit's brain into a mixing desk first, because it's easier to twiddle knobs on that than it is to do it in software in the brain (which is also possible). The stereo mix then goes into another mixing desk, which has mics and sometimes other instruments plugged into it, the final stereo mix from which then goes into my audio interface for Jamulus.
So I assume your drummer is wondering whether they can put the midi triggers from their drumkit's brain into a drum sound generator of some kind (maybe via a DAW?) and from there to Jamulus? Sounds like an interesting, certainly possible, but wonderfully complex project!
Yes, but I believe they had trouble with "levels" which I took to mean that some drum sounds were louder or had other characteristics that were hard to control using the drummodule (I know mine is difficult to use, so I got a mixer instead as a luxury).
The idea of using MIDI signals is an interesting one though, and of course is used quite commonly in recording studios where getting a good acousitc sound for some drums is just too time consuming (bass drum in particular). The main issue I would predict would be how to handle the samples for each instument. For example, I have a 2Box Drumit5, which I think uses up to five samples per instrument - each at different velocities to get a "natural" distinction between hitting it hard, soft, rimshot, etc.
I'm sure that's not what TS meant.
And studio's don't work the way you describe. Yes, they use MIDI, but believe me, not to trigger a 2box, but to trigger VST-drums like Superior Drummer 3 or Addicted drums.
Sorry for not being clear. I didn't mean triggering an electronic drum kit's "brain" (eg a 2Box) using MIDI. I meant triggering a sound or sample on a computer or other generator from an acoustic kit using MIDI. In this case, we're talking about the possibility of triggering the sounds from the electonic drum kit's "brain" instead. I'm sure it's possible, and it's what the initial question implied by "MIDI his electronic kit into his Mac".
The cymbals were not loud enough relative to the other elements of the kit. It's not an expensive rig and it only has two quarter inch outs. We'll work with it as we are able. Thank you both for your creative input on this problem.
Also a Jamulus user named Philip made a great video on Jamulus and Reaper, and in it he triggers a virtual drum set using MIDI, =hRWIJqgRUXc&t=6s, he is using Serious Drummer, the big brother of EZ Drummer.
All that said, if your drummer's cymbals are a little too quiet, he may be able to use his drum module to adjust the volume of each drum/cymbal in his kit. That would be the cheapest solution to adjusting his output mix.
Midi?? That doesn't make sense. The midi-protocol doesn't transport audio, only midi-information!!
He has to lead the stereo outputs of his drummodule right into his mac or making use of an audio interface.
Popular audio interfaces are a Behringer UMC202HD or a Focusrite Scarlett 2I2.