Claustrophobic EZX sound?

[John]

My understanding is that BeatStation uses the pure ambient samples from the EZX and SDX libraries (mixer effects, overheads, room, etc, turned off) to achieve the “purest” sound, and then the user can add effects they want. This makes perfect sense, and is appreciated.

All of my EZX sets seem to follow this rule. However, the Claustrophobic sound files sound as though they have the sustain turned down, and distortion added. (I can play the drums in EZ Drummer with the effects turned off and they sound natural, as expected, but the same samples sound “wrong” in BeatStation.) I want to use these samples in their “unaltered” state. Do others experience this problem with the Claustrophobic samples? If so, is there a workaround or fix?

Thanks….

Topic

[Scott]

When I load the Claustrophobic Default Inst preset in Beatstation, the only difference between it and the EZX version is the volume (about 7.6dB louder in BTS). I compared by turning off the ‘Master2’ effect on the bus in BTS. Then I went to the EZX version and muted the ‘Room’ and ‘OH’ channels and turned all bleeds to ‘Off.’ The sound was the same to me.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[John]

Scott —

Do they sound distorted in your case? I did the same experiments and, yes, they sound the same. But on my system they are both very distorted using fx. Open the default kit in EZ Drummer or TT Solo again; you will find that the effects (e.g. distortion) are turned ON. In EZ Drummer or TT Solo, go into the mixer and either turn off/mute all the FX, or solo the drum mic channels. You will hear the true, raw, unprocessed mic’ed drum sound(s). These are the sounds that Beatstation should access and play (according to the manual and the way all the other EZXs in my library work).

With the Claustrophobic samples “pre-distorted” in BeatStation, they are not usable in my situation (live performance), and I believe users would prefer to “dial in” the amount of distortion they desire using Beatstation.

Thank in advance for checking on this and providing a fix…

John

[Scott]

Yes, the default claustrophobic kit is distorted in both cases. It is not supposed to load ‘clean’, the default kit in BTS loads the default kit from the ezx which has effects on by default.

The other EZXs that have effects channels work the same way in BTS (Twisted EZX and Electronic EZX).

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[John]

That may be the case, but may I suggest that this be changed in a future revision so that the drum samples that the EZX samples that are loaded are “upstream” from any effects? That way the user could add any effects that they want, starting from the pure, uneffected samples.

Doesn’t that seem like the best way to approach this? Or is this not achievable given the software’s architecture?

Thanks for investigating ….

[Author]

Replies