Barry WarsawI have a bunch of old Cubase projects which used EZDrummer 1 and I’m migrating them from my old Intel Mac mini to my new Apple Silicon Mac Studio. I’m finding as I’m opening them that EZDrummer 2 & 3 are not compatible so all of my drum tracks are gone. Is it possible to download and install an EZD1 on my new Mac (I cannot find a download link), or tell Cubase that EZ2 or EZ3 is compatible. I’m not sure it would keep the same grooves I had, which sadly I did not “print” into my Cubase projects. Or do I have to just recreate all the drums from scratch?
Cubase 14 Pro, macOS 15
Barry WarsawHmm, now I think maybe EZD2 would satisfy that requirement, but for some reason it’s not showing up in my Cubase 14 plugins, even though Toontrack Product Manager does show that it’s installed, along with EZD3 and SD3. Can EZD2 and EZD3 be co-installed? I’m going to try to reinstall EZD2.
Cubase 14 Pro, macOS 15
ScottCubase 14 can only use VST3 plugins. EZD1 or EZD2 are both VST2 plugins. EZD3 is a VST3 plugin and can work with Cubase 14.
Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Barry WarsawAh, thanks Scott. The problem is that I never “printed” my drum tracks so when I assign that channel to EZD3 or SD3, there are no drums. I guess EZD3 doesn’t “register” itself as compatible so whatever grooves are saved in the Cubase project don’t end up triggering EZD3 when I update the missing VST Instrument channel. I don’t know if you have a solution for that?
The only other thing I can think of is to install an older version of Cubase and try to export the drum audio from there. I have several older versions installed on my old Macs, but only 14 Pro on my new Mac. Do you know the last version of Cubase that’s compatible with EZD2?
BTW, reinstalling EZD2 broke something so I opened a support ticket for that.
Cubase 14 Pro, macOS 15
Scott” I guess EZD3 doesn’t “register” itself as compatible so whatever grooves are saved in the Cubase project don’t end up triggering EZD3 when I update the missing VST Instrument channel.”
I’m not sure I follow you there. If the Cubase project contains MIDI drums parts that you dragged and dropped from EZD1/2 you should be able to load EZD3 and move the MIDI to the new EZD3 track. I can’t see why what wouldn’t work.
I believe that Cubase 13 could use VST2 plugins but I’m not sure. Might want to ask Steinberg that one.
Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Barry WarsawHmm, I’m sure I’m not explaining things right. On many projects, I created some grooves in EZD2 but never pulled the midi or the audio into Cubase. I just have an instrument track with EZD2 and it played whenever I started the project. Now when I open the project in Cubase 14 and bring up the VST Instruments panel, it has an EZD2 slot but with !!! and says it can’t find it. That makes sense given what you say above regarding VST2/VST3. By “registering” I was thinking that EZD3 would automatically be used for this VST Instrument channel.
Now, if I use the VST Instruments panel and change from EZD2 (which it can’t find) to EZD3, EZD3 does come up but doesn’t play anything. It’s like the grooves I had set up in EZD2 just disappeared. So I don’t know how to get my drums back and upgraded to EZD3 or SD3.
I’ll go back and look at Cubase’s support pages. Maybe that’s the trick: open the project in an older version of Cubase, if possible, then export the EZD2 midi or export as an audio track, then import that into the Cubase 14 project. Not sure if that will work, but it’s worth a try unless you have any better ideas.
Thanks for all your help! Now I can understand the “never upgrade” advice!
Cubase 14 Pro, macOS 15
ScottAhhh. Got it. Well, if the MIDI is still on the Song Track in EZD2 it would be impossible for EZD3 to “read” or “know” the MIDI parts as they are 2 totally separate plugins.
Best practice I’ve always followed on projects is when a song is “done”, I drag the MIDI from S3 (or EZD) song track to the Cubase track. Then disable “follow host” on the Song Track. Then, no matter what version of EZD is released (EZD 4,5,6…) the basic MIDI can be used.
Then again, after my projects are “done” and mixed, I almost never open them again anyways.
Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Barry WarsawThanks Scott. Yes, I definitely plan on following better project hygiene in the future! I’ll see what I can do for the older projects which I’m opening as I move them over to my new machine.
One interesting thing is that with newer projects I almost never edit the midi in the SD3/EZD3 plugin. I almost always drag groove midis into Cubase and edit them there. That way I can do little micro-tricks like grab just a fill from the end of a groove and add it in a short transition from chorus to verse, for example. I find it much more flexible to edit complex midi drum tracks in Cubase than in EZD3/SD3. I guess the advantage of that is that with the midi in a Cubase track, I have no problem assigning SD3 or EZD3 to that track. I guess that’s similar to your suggestion when your project is “done”. I didn’t really follow this workflow for older projects.
Thanks again for all the great advice.
Cubase 14 Pro, macOS 15
Bart ChildersSame challenge for me. I’ve been going back and checking all of my old sessions and I have many finished songs where I did not print the EZ Drummer audio or export the MIDI. So now I have no drums at all. Frustrating. Yes, I take accountability for not following best-practices. I guess I’ll use stem-separation to extract the drum audio from the final mix and then find some other AI utility to convert the drum audio to General MIDI and edit from there. Sure would be nice for Toontrack to provide a way to migrate cleanly from EZ Drummer 1.
Mac OSX 13.n , M2 Pro MBP 16, 32GB RAM, LPX 10.n.n, PT2023.n
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