Ezdrummer 3 midi mapping

[jzee4570]

In EZ 2 you could right click on each drum to see the corresponding midi key and each articulation. I didn’t see that in EZ3. Where can I find the mapping for the new kits?

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

Topic

[Neil Cummins]

Page 152 of the User Guide shows you where to locate these jzee.

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Thanked by: Bob10217

[Markonian]

The EZD3 guide I have only goes to page 107.  Is there a different User Guide that you have a link to?

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

[Neil Cummins]

I think my PDF mapping needs sorting out Markonian…if I’m understanding the original question correctly,look for the section called MIDI Mapping And Velocity Properties.There’s a Mapping option in there.

Assuming this is what you want of course in the context of the question.

Neil

[jzee4570]

So I figured it out. You have to click the Edrum tab and then when you click on the drums they have midi mapping for each piece and articulation.

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Thanked by: Bob10217 and tigershadow

[Mark Heath]

Ah that was non-intuitive to find! I looked in the Edrum tab a few times, but missed that you can click “mapping” next to “velocity”.

It’s nice that it shows the numbers, although I would have liked it to display the note name (e.g. F#3) as well, as I usually am looking at these values to know what key I should press on my keyboard and I don’t have the MIDI note numbers memorized!

[Anton Nordmark]

Mark Heath wrote:

Ah that was non-intuitive to find! I looked in the Edrum tab a few times, but missed that you can click “mapping” next to “velocity”.

It’s nice that it shows the numbers, although I would have liked it to display the note name (e.g. F#3) as well, as I usually am looking at these values to know what key I should press on my keyboard and I don’t have the MIDI note numbers memorized!

Hi Mark.

You can display Note Names (Keys) if you click on the menu that by default says “Note Number” in the mapping panel. Click on it and choose “Key.” Hope that helps!

Anton Nordmark – Toontrack
UX Designer

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Thanked by: tigershadow, Mark Heath and Tim Biedert

[propianist]

The biggest problem EZD2 and EZD3 both suffer from is the INCONSISTENT method the toms are assigned factory MIDI notes…

Thankfully though EZD3 is less fixed than EZD2 and does allow you to “Learn” a new custom user note for each part, via MIDI input (only!) from your e-drums or keyboard – though being able to edit the screen value directly with a mouse click n drag would have been far “EZ-ier”.

Here’s the tom preset factory MIDI note assignment, for all libraries I personally own…

with full 5 TOMS playable…
EZD2 Modern_________________C2__B1__A1__G1__F1
EZD3 Main Room______________C2__B1__A1__G1__F1
EZD3 Bright Room_____________C2__B1__A1__G1__F1
EZX Gospel______________ A3__C2__B1______G1__F1
EZX Progressive_______________C2__B1__A1__G1__F1

with full 4 TOMS playable…
EZX Alt Rock_________________C2__B1______G1__F1
EZX Modern Metal_____________C2__B1______G1__F1
EZX Southern Soul 70s_________C2__B1__A1__G1
EZX The Classic_______________C2__B1__A1__G1

with full 3 TOMS playable…
EZD3 Tight Room______________C2__B1______G1
EZX Big Band_________________C2__B1______G1
EZX Classic Rock______________ C2__________G1__F1
EZX Kicks & Snares_____________C2__B1______G1
EZX Pop!_____________________C2__B1______G1
EZX Rock!____________________C2__B1______G1

with full 2 TOMS playable…
EZD2 Vintage_________________ C2_________G1
EZX Southern Soul 60s__________C2_________G1

So why aren’t they mapped consistently???!

Why does EZX Gospel’s 5-tom mapping need to be different from all the rest with 5 toms?

Why does EZX Classic Rock’s 3-tom mapping need to be different from all the rest with 3 toms?

Why must there be two contrary schools of mapping for the 4 tom setups?  4 toms is 4 toms!  Keep them the same 4 notes!

The annoying problem manifests whether you’re playing MIDI e-drums live with drumsticks, or playing MIDI piano keyboard with fingers, or even just playing your MIDI file / drum patterns from DAW or standalone – all your sources are producing live note data across let’s say 4 different toms, but whenever you audition through your different sound libraries even those with 4 playable toms on the screen graphic, they don’t always marry up with the same toms you see onscreen, and some hits get played on wrong tom, while some hits are just missing and not heard at all!

It seems the reason Toontrack have assigned their notes in this awkward layout, is due to the original sampled physical drumkit in their recording studio session having either “rack toms” or “floor toms” and they’ve labelled according to that count.  Hence Toontrack choose to define a 3-tom kit with 2 rack toms + 1 floor tom (eg. EZX Rock!) as being different MIDI note assignment than a 3-tom kit with 1 rack tom + 2 floor toms (eg. EZX Classic Rock) and frankly this is just annoying / confusing / awkward for the end user who just wants to strike the 3 toms they see on the screen.

Surely the end user doesn’t really care their 4 toms were originally 2 rack + 2 floor, or 3 rack + 1 floor, or 1 rack + 3 floor, or 4 rack or whatever…  they just want to play them as 4 toms!!!!  The session notes and info can be found and read for interest, but now they’re just digital samples to be played!  4 toms is 4 toms!  I’ve got drumsticks in my hands and I just want to play my 4 toms, on my Roland V-Drums kit’s 4 toms, and I obviously want to hear the correct 4 tom samples, matching the 4 toms I can see on the computer screen in front of me, and so on obviously whilst I audition through my various EZX sound libraries without having to stop and re-program my e-drum brain module note settings every time I switch library!

Understandably going from 5-tom to 4-tom to 3-tom to 2-tom libraries you must expect some degree of adaption to account for the mismatch, and understandably any 5-tom MIDI pattern won’t sound correct played back on a 2-tom drumkit, but at least if there was one consistent logic to factory assignments which held true for all core and EXZ libraries and matched GM standard too, and thus one familiar consistent method of adaption between the 5-tom vs 4-tom vs 3-tom vs 2 tom setups, which we could all remember, that would make things nice, consistent and predictable to use.  The current system is very messy when you mix and match different EZX and look deeply into exactly which toms are being played by which notes.

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

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Thanked by: rpm-nj

[propianist]

Also, rather than this current split menu…

…this would look better and be a clear improvement…

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

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Thanked by: John C, Mark Heath, Miles Maxwell and 1 other.

[Mark4866]

The MIDI mappings of drum kits was available through a menu selection in EX Drummer 2, “About Sound Libraries”. This doesn’t seem available in EZ Drummer 3, although most of the PDF’s of the mappings and kit instruments can be found in the folders containing the kits. The new kits available with EZ Drummer 3 do not appear to have these PDF’s for MIDI mapping. Was very handy to have in this format.

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Thanked by: Neil Cummins, Mark Heath and propianist

[Andreas Walfridsson]

propianist wrote:

Also, rather than this current split menu…

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!

In what situation did you experience that you had to toggle back and forth between keys and numbers?:) Personally I generally use one or the other rather than switching back and forth between them. I use the note number column with E-Drums and the keys column with MIDI keyboards. If there are workflows that require the user to toggle back and forth between the two I agree that it could probably be a bit cumbersome though.

Andreas Walfridsson - Toontrack
UX Designer

[Markonian]

I too hope they integrate “About Sound Libraries” into EZD3.  That was very handy to have without the need to go through folders.

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

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Thanked by: Neil Cummins

[propianist]

Hi Andreas,

Having both columns of info (midi note number PLUS key name) on same menu display would be much nicer.  That’s a fact.

It does become a workflow problem often, because different hardware & software manufacturers do number octaves differently in key names. ie.  piano middle C = note number 60 = can be named C3 or C4 depending on which manufacturer you refer to.  This is a widely known phenomenon!

Consider the KICK DRUM (MIDI note number 36)  What is its corresponding key name, either C1 or C2…?

Alesis SR16 drum machine = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C1 on LCD screen

Alesis SR18 drum machine = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C1 on blue LCD screen

Roland TD10 V-Drum brain = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C2 on green LCD screen

Roland TDW1 Expansion Board = Kick = MIDI note 36 = user manual (page 25) key name is C2

Roland TD30 V-Drum brain = Kick = MIDI note 36 = user manual (page 150) key name is C2

Pearl / Slate Mimic Pro brain = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C2 on LCD screen

Gewa G9 brain = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name is C2 on LCD screen

Toontrack EZ Drummer 2 = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C1

Toontrack EZ Drummer 3 = Kick = MIDI note 36 = key name C1

Kawai MP8 piano / master keyboard = MIDI note 36 = key name C1 on LCD screen

Reaper MIDI piano roll editor = MIDI note 36 = key name C2

Native Kontakt 6 = MIDI note 36 = key name C1

UVI Workstation = MIDI note 36 = key name C1

So Toontrack’s key name octave numbering is actually different to most Roland V-Drums hardware, Pearl Mimic Pro, Gewa G9, and to Reaper DAW, all of which are popular platforms, and confusion does arise.  But I am honestly not complaining to Toontrack about such disparity per se, because other manufacturers cannot agree either.  Nor am I suggesting Toontrack switch to another numbering methodology, because of their already huge existing user base.  But I’m simply asking please just display BOTH your names and numbers columns side-by-side for increased clarity please.

For instance of a pretty common workflow where it becomes an issue – if playing Roland V-Drums kit recording MIDI into Reaper, then editing piano-roll events afterwards with the aid of master keyboard, while auditioning the drum playback using lovely EZ Drummer sounds…

…you’ll be scratching your head because the MIDI numbers on piano-roll will all be correct (36=36) but the displayed key names will all be one octave different (C2 vs C1) so you’ll need to figure how to work with this disparity by mentally transposing one octave for each note name.  You cannot apply global transpose of one octave to all MIDI events (to try “correcting” displayed key names) because that will totally mess up all the note numbers and corresponding sounds – it is better left alone.  But the octave numbering disparity still exists because of the platforms used, and the user needs to keep track of what’s going on.

Desktop musicians always find it easier to think in musical key names like C2 and D2 when tapping drum parts in from their master keyboard, rather than abstract numbers like 36 and 38, but those note numbers are the only reliable thing you can believe, if unsure which octave numbering key method your hardware / software used.  Therefore being able to see both info columns side-by-side really would help when bringing EZ Drummer 3 into the melee as well.

EZD3 has actually made things worse than EZD2 because you can’t right-click the drum in question anymore and see the note mapping quickly, you’ve got to leave the main screen and go > Settings menu > e-drums… > then tap the drum > click Mapping > then toggle Note Number vs Key to see each one while remembering what the other one was!

It doesn’t need to be so awkward.

Please display both columns of info in same menu.

Also please add “right-click on drum” pop-up option “Details” again to directly show this mapping info and other playable articulations too below the sounds / import sample.

ARTICULATIONS!!!!

On this very subject – as it stands in EZD3, from the main play window, there is no way anymore(!) to audition the different playable articulations for each instrument.  In EDZ2 you could right-click each drum and “Details” would give you all the articulation samples playable and show their MIDI note mapping, but EZD3 doesn’t show any of these extra playable articulations anymore from the main screen – instead it forces you to go find the Settings menu >  go to the e-drums menu screen > and click Mapping before you can even see or hear the other playable articulations.

EZdrummer version: 3.0.0
Operating system: Windows 10

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Thanked by: Miles Maxwell

[Schlabadiwutz]

I play a Roland TD 20 for years now with Toontrack libraries but since using EZ 3 there is always a HH sample  added to the Ride cymbal sound. I have no idea how to get rid of this. I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

EZdrummer version: 3.0.2
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

• This post was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Schlabadiwutz.

[NOE JB]

How come EZ-Drummer 3 doesn’t have the same ‘articulations details’ window like EZ-Drummer 2 ? Why going backwards on this particular thing while everything else is pushed foward? It was perfect in EZ2 when it was right under our finger tips !!! Going to the ‘E-Drum’ setting everytime is counter-intuitive and kills the flow. Will this be updated?

EZdrummer version: 3.0.2
Operating system: Windows 10

[John]

Schlabadiwutz wrote:

I play a Roland TD 20 for years now with Toontrack libraries but since using EZ 3 there is always a HH sample  added to the Ride cymbal sound. I have no idea how to get rid of this. I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

EZdrummer version: 3.0.2
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

• This post was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Schlabadiwutz.

Please record a snippet where this happens and then examine the MIDI. Most likely, you will find two notes happening at the same time and then I recommend tweaking the X-talk settings in the module.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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