EZ Drummer 2 & Naming Tracks in Cubase8

[greg]

I thought one of the new and improved features of EZ2 would be that you could drag a midi file from EZ Drummer2 to your host (Cubase 8 for me) and the name of the groove would automatically be reflected in the Cubase track name plus the Cubase part name assuming you have “parts get track names” selected as a preference.

Is this not true or do I have a wrong setting?

When I drag a midi file from EZ2 into Cubase all it ever says is “midi EZ Drummer.” That doesn’t help

Topic

[Scott]

Are you dragging from the MIDI browser or from the Song Track?

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[greg]

@Scott said:

Are you dragging from the MIDI browser or from the Song Track?

Midi browser. Im not in the studio at the moment. Is it only the song track that works?

[Scott]

I’m not in my studio right now to check. IIRC, dragging from the Song Track was different than dragging from the browser in terms of changing the track name. I don’t know why you would want the Cubase track name to change every time you dragged a different groove to the same MIDI track?

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[greg]

@Scott said:

I’m not in my studio right now to check. IIRC, dragging from the Song Track was different than dragging from the browser in terms of changing the track name. I don’t know why you would want the Cubase track name to change every time you dragged a different groove to the same MIDI track?

Regarding Cubase track names and Cubase parts, there is an option in preferences Cubase >editing>Parts Get Track Names. I’m assuming that should be unchecked therefore allowing the user to drag a midi file from the EZ2 midi browser onto the Cubase project page and that Cubase part receiving the EZ2 midi track name. I just wanted to clarify that in my preferences that was unchecked.

Could you explain how this is supposed to work if I’m not understanding it?

Thanks Scott for your timely replies! Adds great value to Toontrack!

[Scott]

Well, I just upgraded to Cubase Pro 8 last week so I’m not quite sure how it handles dragging MIDI and track names.

I can tell that in Cubase 6.5, if you dragged a MIDI groove from the browser, the MIDI track would take the groove. It annoyed me. When I dragged another groove next to the first groove, the track name would change to the new groove name…and so on as I built my track. It ended up being useless for telling me what groove I had. This was EZD1 BTW.

Now, with EZD2, I drag my grooves to the Song Track. After assembling my drum track I drag the whole thing to Cubase. I leave all the MIDI in the Song Track however. I click the unsync button so I don’t have a doubled sound. This way, if I want to edit in Cubase I can, but I also have the grooves I used in the Song Track as a reference. I can right click on any groove in the Song Track and see where it came from.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[greg]

I’m not using the EZ2 song track. All I’m doing is dragging a midi file from the EZ2 midi browser onto the Cubase project page. The result reads “midi EZ drummer” and nothing else.

Maybe you could check to see how it works in C8 and let me know?

Thanks

[Scott]

Is it different if you drag it to the Song Track first then to the Cubase MIDI Track? Like I said, I’m not at my studio and won’t be able to check until after 8pm EST.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[greg]

No difference unless I’m doing something wrong.

check it out when you have a moment. It could very well be that I’m not doing something right, or there is a Cubase preference I need to look at. As I mentioned I don’t use the song creator or song track very much.

No matter what I drag from EZ2, the name is going to be whatever I have named the track in Cubase…even when I uncheck “parts get track name” in Cubase.

[Scott]

Parts get track name in Cubase is for parts that are already in Cubase. For example, if you have a part on a track named Flute and have another track named Violin, moving the part from the Flute track to the Violin track will change the name.

It seems that MIDI dragged to a Cubase MIDI track will retain the Cubase track name. I can’t say if this is expected behavior on Cubase’s part or not. I would assume it is.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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