EZ with GarageBand panning and volume controlling

[Jonathan Lang]

Hey, are any of you folks using EZ Drummer 2 with GarageBand and using external hardware to control it? As in you are not programming or stringing together drum patterns IN EZ but outside of it in one way or the other. I use a Boss DR-660 drum machine and for the most part it works well. The notes show up on the GarageBand piano roll however AFTER I record a track I have no idea how to adjust the volume of the individual drums so I just have to adjust the volume in EZ and then redo entire song recordings and hope the volume is better in the mix. Also, I can not figure out how to set the panning on the drums, I do not see any panning tools on the mixer. Is GarageBand the problem or do I just have more to learn? I also have a little bit of latency and the occasional soft hit and I think that is related to my iMac being 11 years old and slow.

Topic

[John]

Hi,

each drum in EZdrummer 2 has got a level knob in the drop-down menu located at the bottom of each drum’s graphic on the DRUMS page.

Panning individual drums cannot be done in any other way than by using the Pan sliders on the MIXER page, just above the SOLO and MUTE buttons.

Latency can be a part of computer specs, yes but also if you have any plugins in the path that introduce latency.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Jonathan Lang]

Thanks for the reply John.

I’ll try the panning again in the morning.

I’m good on adjusting the volume of each drum in the EZ Drummer plug in, it’s adjusting the volume of each drum on the GarageBand piano roll after I have recorded that I would like to do because I’m using a drum machine to sequence rather than making patterns inside EZD.

[Jonathan Lang]

I got the panning to work and it will record in stereo in the DAW, not sure why I was having a problem with that before.

I found a video explaining GarageBand piano roll note velocity but it seems that there is no way to adjust the volume independent of that on a recorded track on the piano roll. Now I’m wondering if it’s possible to assign each drum to it’s own track in GarageBand(or any DAW considering that I will probably get a newer faster computer soon) so that I can tweak drum volume while mixing, does anyone know?

[John]

Do you mean that you want to adjust the velocity for hits on your GB track? It’s definitely possible, double click the part, show automation and the Velocity controller Data lane. Then it’s just a matter of selecting and dragging or “draw” lines.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Jonathan Lang]

I keep the velocity on max, I want to be able to adjust the volume of each drum after recording just as if I had recorded a real drum kit live using 8+ mics.

The first photo shows my mixer screen after I changed it to multichannel but I don’t know how to set these individual channels to tracks in GarageBand.

The second photo is a screen shot from a YouTube video where this has been done in Logic which has more features.

[John]

OK,

I am convinced GarageBand does not support multi-out from plugins, like e.g. Logic does. I can not find it at least and a web search does not point to any info that it does.

Regarding Velocity: keeping all hits at maximum velocity would not be natural, it would be the same as if the drummer hit every drum only with maximum strength strokes.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Jonathan Lang]

Thanks for the info John. I will seriously consider upgrading to Logic when I get a new computer.

My drum machine has touch sensitive pads but it would be almost impossible to program patterns with varying velocity hits in the manner of a good drummer. We are a metal band and pitch shift the drums super low anyway so they have something of an industrial sound so max velocity works fine for us.

[Jonathan Lang]

I got new computer, it’s a MacBook Air(also downloaded Logic Pro X) and logged in and installed EZ Drummer 2 on it but I can’t figure out how to actually get it to install on and show up in Logic. I’ve watched videos and Google searched but can find no explanation anywhere.

[Aaron]

To load EZD2, make sure you have created an “Instrument” track. At the bottom left of the screen, you should see a new channel strip. Click on the “instrument” button, and a drop list should appear. From there navigate to EZ Drummer. You should be good to go from there. If that doesn’t work, you may need to reboot your mac. Sometimes plugins wont show until then.

 

EZdrummer version: 2.1.8
Operating system: macOS Mojave (10.14)

[Jonathan Lang]

Aaron wrote:

To load EZD2, make sure you have created an “Instrument” track. At the bottom left of the screen, you should see a new channel strip. Click on the “instrument” button, and a drop list should appear. From there navigate to EZ Drummer. You should be good to go from there. If that doesn’t work, you may need to reboot your mac. Sometimes plugins wont show until then.

 

EZdrummer version: 2.1.8
Operating system: macOS Mojave (10.14)

Got it thanks!

[Author]

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