Jay CooverStarting this off, as a few things come immediately to mind. The first one already mentioned frequently.
1. Ability for the song track to maintain the custom chords set by the user, while the user auditions different styles.
2. In addition to the octave up/down button in the chord selection dialog, the user should be able to switch chord inversions up/down. An octave is frequently just way too much.
3. A way to intelligently humanize imported MIDI files that were programmed or quantized. You know the type. All perfectly quantized with every note velocity equalling 100. Exactly the type of piano parts we have come to hate. Randomize the note placement slightly, in the manner a human would. Also, perhaps add velocity emphasis in certain places, with options on how to do this. Maybe it would be possible to steal the groove (note placement and velocities) from a library track and apply it somehow to the imported track.
4. A search/filter function to find grooves, fully indexed for speed. Add this to Superior/EZDrummer as well. If the above suggestion is not possible, this becomes even more important.
5. More MIDI files of course, but in addition, it would be much better to be able to keep all the rock files in “rock” and blues in “blues” at the very highest level of organization. By this I mean that it is difficult to search in one genre when the files are split up by MIDI add-on library name as in EZDrummer/Superior. With the EZDrummer method, I might have to search through 3 or 4 libraries, looking for “rock” or “swing”, plus my approximate tempo in each one. If we could eliminate the library designation at the top level and get straight to genres, time signature, tempos, swing/straight and keep it at that level, it would be much easier to browse files as more and more add-ons are introduced. It may be desirable to have organ/piano/etc separate, but I would prefer it if every piano library that came along did not create its own groove folder.
6. When I pick Bb in the chord selector, don’t rename it to A#. Just kind of annoying. Figure this out…have a simple sharp/flat checkbox and keep it consistent.
7. Upright piano, organ, clavichord, electric piano add-ons.
8. Transpose entire track in the editor up/down in half steps.
Anything else?
SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings
Starting this off, as a few things come immediately to mind. The first one already mentioned frequently.
1. Ability for the song track to maintain the custom chords set by the user, while the user auditions different styles.
2. In addition to the octave up/down button in the chord selection dialog, the user should be able to switch chord inversions up/down. An octave is frequently just way too much.
3. A way to intelligently humanize imported MIDI files that were programmed or quantized. You know the type. All perfectly quantized with every note velocity equalling 100. Exactly the type of piano parts we have come to hate. Randomize the note placement slightly, in the manner a human would. Also, perhaps add velocity emphasis in certain places, with options on how to do this. Maybe it would be possible to steal the groove (note placement and velocities) from a library track and apply it somehow to the imported track.
4. A search/filter function to find grooves, fully indexed for speed. Add this to Superior/EZDrummer as well. If the above suggestion is not possible, this becomes even more important.
5. More MIDI files of course, but in addition, it would be much better to be able to keep all the rock files in “rock” and blues in “blues” at the very highest level of organization. By this I mean that it is difficult to search in one genre when the files are split up by MIDI add-on library name as in EZDrummer/Superior. With the EZDrummer method, I might have to search through 3 or 4 libraries, looking for “rock” or “swing”, plus my approximate tempo in each one. If we could eliminate the library designation at the top level and get straight to genres, time signature, tempos, swing/straight and keep it at that level, it would be much easier to browse files as more and more add-ons are introduced. It may be desirable to have organ/piano/etc separate, but I would prefer it if every piano library that came along did not create its own groove folder.
6. When I pick Bb in the chord selector, don’t rename it to A#. Just kind of annoying. Figure this out…have a simple sharp/flat checkbox and keep it consistent.
7. Upright piano, organ, clavichord, electric piano add-ons.
8. Transpose entire track in the editor up/down in half steps.
Anything else?
SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings
JohnWell…
(again, I am expressing my personal opinions here, not Toontrack official statements) I guess it just depends on what your expectations of what the product is and what it can do for you.
For me, it has been not only a time saver but also made some parts of my daily work better and easier.
I use all different parts of what’s in there, add some of my own MIDI, mix ‘n match and what doesn’t work inside EZkeys i fix myself in my DAW, since I have a keyboard controller and can play some easier stuff myself.
Or I simply “spice” my own MIDI, trying out different stuff with the CoF.
The way I look at it, what’s included in EZkeys can be varied by the user himself to a much higher degree than what was included with e.g. EZdrummer but that’s me.
If you have other expectations of what the product can do for you, I can understand that the included MIDI might be disappointing but then again, it is the initial release of EZkeys. From now on, “anything” can happen and of course the input of users will matter and have impact. Toontrack has always listened to the user base.
Enough from me, I’m already sold on it and biased. We can agree on that
BTW, they were actually filming the very building I am sitting in right now, working every day in Stockholm City.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
Cygnus64ORIGINAL: jerjabs
EZ Drummer IS A ONE STOP shop for drum composing, that’s what I wanted EZ Keys to be. Listen, you’re kidding yourself if you think the current amount of drag and drop performance are enough to justify a $150+ plugin. There is no arguing this fact, if you do, you’re wrong.
Jerjabs, I think the other thread entitled “I don’t get it” is aptly titled. In no way do I mean that in an insulting or negative way, not at all. There could be lots of reasons for differing opinions, from pre-conceived expectations to differing ways that we all use tools, or maybe advertising that suggests certain things etc. Some people might not “get it”, it’s a different concept than existing products, and there’s nothing wrong about that.
I, for one, “get it”. I’m thrilled with the product and I think the $150 I paid to Sweetwater was an excellent price, the piano vst alone is worth it. The piano sounds great in a mix. The amount of midi patterns included with the purchase is substantially more than it appears, it’s just packaged differently than EZ Drummer:
EZ Drummer comes with 1 measure patterns for the most part: EZ Keys has 8 measure phrases. The phrases can be substantially different in the last 4 measures than they are in the first 4. In other words, it’s two patterns in one package. Likewise, there are one measure segments that can be looped and work brilliantly, so theoretically the 8 measure phrase can have up to 8 patterns. In other words, the content you want is there, it’s just in long phrases that one needs to de-phrase, so to speak. That scissor tool is a miracle worker!! Chopping up an 8 measure phrase expands the possibilities considerably.
The crux of the biscuit: I’m sure many of us have EZ Drummer, and there will be inevitable comparisons. EZ Drummer is merely a 21st century drum machine: it doesn’t work much differently than my drum machines from 30 years ago. EZ Keys is a new bird. Get this: Drums are Pattern-based, Keyboards are NOT. One wants the constant oom-pah of a steady drum beat, but they don’t want a pattern-based keyboard part. They want “phrases”, and every phrase is unique. 100 people could use the exact same drum patterns and get 100 different results with the song, but 100 people using the same phrase will get one result: that one phrase. That’s where the “I get it/I don’t get it” difference comes in. I think it’s a music-based solution to “get” and not product-based. The good news is I think most people will “get it” with a little time. When one looks at it from a strictly musical viewpoint, they might see that this is not a “loop-based” product like audio loops: It’s a phrase builder.
What you describe as a “ONE STOP” keyboard solution doesn’t exist, simply because it CANNOT exist. It’s against the essence of what music is. If you were led to believe otherwise I guess that’s something to take up with the Toontrack advert dept. 🙂 But the product and the amount of product is there, and it’s oh-so-cool. As a fellow musician, I’m encouraging you to take a bit of time and look at the patterns and see the wealth of material that is already there, you might be pleasantly surprised if you look at it from a different perspective.
Jay CooverFeature requests anyone?
SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings
jerry JaborekORIGINAL: Whitten
I just spent a few minutes with EZkeys, but I found one of the swing pattern jazz grooves was like a basic rock ballad.
I agree with John, you need to explore outside the song categories.
Sweet, five choices.
jerry JaborekLook, it bums me out that I have to be a member of the downer club here. All I can say is that at this point, after working with the demo myself, discussing the product with fellow engineer / song writing friends and reading other posters comments . . . EZ Keys seems to falls short of the mark set by prior products. Where I and others feel it falls short are seemingly EZ fixes. At best, the reaction to EZ Keys is divided. This was never the case with EZ Drummer. From it’s release, EZ Drummer was a home run. Hell, I’m still considering buying EZ Keys. I just wish it was a no brainer decision.
I LOVE EZ DRUMMER! I LOVE SUPERIOR DRUMS! I LOVE SWEDISH PEOPLE! I LOVE SWEDEN! I LOVE THEIR MEATBALLS! I LOVE THEIR HOT AIRLINE STEWARDESS! I LOVE GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATTOO and I even love Mr. Yngwie J. Malmsteen . . . kinda.
VIVA SWEDEN ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Cygnus64ORIGINAL: fizbin
Feature requests anyone?
Repeat button (“R”). Anything selected in the song track would be repeated by pressing R: if there is one measure selected, that measure is repeated. If an entire phrase is selected, same thing. If a chord symbol (and only the chord symbol) is selected, the chord would repeat (but the thematic material below it would not). If both the chord and the pattern were selected, than both would repeat.
Copy/Paste: A midi file cannot be pasted into a DAW, it can only be dragged in ( I think?). It would be easier and have more uses if one could paste.
Cygnus64To clarify the above: I don’t mean like a “repeat sign” in music. I mean that something selected would “repaste” itself to the next slot.
WhittenORIGINAL: Cygnus64
Copy/Paste: A midi file cannot be pasted into a DAW, it can only be dragged in ( I think?). It would be easier and have more uses if one could paste.
I don’t understand the problem (genuinely)? Once you drag your EZkeys midi into a DAW, it can be copied and pasted with no end.
Anyway, at risk of going against ‘fizbin’, who is manfully trying to keep the thread on track, I’m very happy you love EZdrummer and Superior.
In fact EZdrummer has had plenty of criticism over the years. That’s just the nature of we humans.
Apparently EZdrummer could be a lot better if only….. Just like EZkeys could be a lot better if only……
Cygnus64ORIGINAL: Whitten
ORIGINAL: Cygnus64
Copy/Paste: A midi file cannot be pasted into a DAW, it can only be dragged in ( I think?). It would be easier and have more uses if one could paste.
I don’t understand the problem (genuinely)?
More of a workflow than anything else. I do long pieces with 60+ tracks, sometimes it’s a lot easier to be able to paste than it is to drag. I often drag to the wrong line and the wrong place. 🙂 Also, once you drag an entire segment into a DAW, it becomes one. In EZ Keys, it might be 20 patterns, so it’s the ability to pick one pattern and copy it then paste it on any line in the score. I’m a pro symphony arranger, so I’m looking at lots of staves at one time.
Whitten Yes.
I’m just suggesting the better workflow at present is to drag small clips into your DAW early on, and build up the very long string of parts there.
Essentially I think it’s unreasonable to expect EZkeys to act like a mini DAW.
Your DAW provides the tools to string very long arrangements together, plus all the tools like cut, paste and deep editing possibilities.
EZkeys provides a small footprint acoustic piano and a basic midi library to start you off.
EZkeys is $150, Ableton $300, Logic $799. EZkeys is $150, Ivory $180 to $350 (plus iLok).
Cygnus64ORIGINAL: Whitten
Yes.
I’m just suggesting the better workflow at present is to drag small clips into your DAW early on, and build up the very long string of parts there.
Essentially I think it’s unreasonable to expect EZkeys to act like a mini DAW.
Let me get this straight: You think “copy/paste” , something found in “notepad” from the 80s, is some sort of advanced DAW feature? Wowza. I didn’t ask for auto-harmonizing Tuvaluan throat-singing samples in semi-tones, or World Peace. It’s not Roe v Wade or Tiananmen Square we’re talking, I said “copy/paste”. You know, like software aimed at pre-schoolers might have. You think “copy/paste is unreasonable? If you think “copy/paste” is some strange, weird, exotic thing that says “DAW”, you probably need to spend far less time responding with gibberish to stuff on the interwebz, just sayin.’
Whitten Hmmm. You are suddenly extremely aggressive and rather unreasonable.
I’m trying to help you get to where you need to be.
Personally, I find a DAW a much more secure piece of software to dedicate hours of painstaking work, then a $150 plug-in that’s been out a week. As I said, EZkeys isn’t a mini DAW and it’s not unreasonable to point that out to you or anyone else.
My DAW autosaves every five minutes, so if all my copy/pasting causes the program to crash, I only have to go back 5 or 10 minutes, not back to the beginning.
Anyway, sorry my ‘gibberish’ didn’t help you out.
Cygnus64ORIGINAL: Whitten
As I said, EZkeys isn’t a mini DAW and it’s not unreasonable to point that out to you or anyone else.
It’s extremely unreasonable and frankly, it’s absolutely ridiculous. This is a thread about feature requests. It is not about YOU telling ME where I “need to be”, I could write a friggin’ piano concerto with this thing. I work with DAW’s 8 hours a day.
I’ll ask for any feature requests I DAMN WELL PLEASE. If you don’t like them, big woopy woo. Christ, I asked for copy/paste and you act like I asked for a multiple fugue variation generator . Unless I missed the big meeting where you were appointed “Feature Requests Hall Monitor” or “Thread Czar”, I would really appreciate you butting out of my business and not trying to be judge of what is reasonable and what is unreasonable according to you, that’s the grade school hall monitor approach.
Jay CooverLadies, please.
SD 2.3 NY vol 2/Metal Foundry/C & V/Roots 1 & 2/Music City Latin Percussion/Funkmasters/The Classic/Jazz/Pop!/#1 Hits/Electronic/Twisted/Claustrophobic EZKeys 1.1 with all the trimmings
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