Improving accessibility by adding keystrokes and DAW automation possibilities to EZDrummer 2

[Scott]

Hi,

I’ve purchased EZDrummer 2, and am hosting it in the most recent Windows build of Reaper at the time of writing.

I’m totally blind, so I rely on keystrokes rather than mouse movements, and screen reader software speaks to me in a synthetic voice as changes take place (kinda like having Professor Hawking providing a running commentary on your production skillz). I also use the automation parameters of the DAW in conjunction with hardware control surfaces to modify the settings of many plugins, which brings us to my question.

Currently in EZDrummer 2, there don’t seem to be any keystrokes that trigger the menus, and none of the functionality seems to be adjustable via automation, so as things stand, I’m unable to interact with the majority of EZdrummers functions. Needless to say, requiring sighted assistance every time I need to do something more advanced than changing preset is a PITA.

So, now I’m writing in the hope that this might reach the EZDrummer development team. I’d really appreciate the opportunity to provide more in depth feedback and discuss whether this situation can be improved in future updates. There are encouraging signs here that EzDrummer could become very usable for blind producers without big changes. For example, once triggered, every menu I’ve tested so far is navigable from the keyboard, and the options are read perfectly by every Windows screen reader… it’s getting to the button that triggers each menu using the keyboard in the first place that poses a problem.

If this seems niche as a request, consider the vast number of drummers, songwriters, producers etc who already either use hardware control surfaces or would add one to their rig in order to have more control from their recording position when engineering themselves. any work that goes into being able to interact with EzDrummer through automation parameters would be a benefit to all of those users too.

Thanks, hope to hear back from someone at Toontrack HQ soon.

Scott

Topic

[Andreas Walfridsson]

@Scott said:
Hi,

I’ve purchased EZDrummer 2, and am hosting it in the most recent Windows build of Reaper at the time of writing.

I’m totally blind, so I rely on keystrokes rather than mouse movements, and screen reader software speaks to me in a synthetic voice as changes take place (kinda like having Professor Hawking providing a running commentary on your production skillz). I also use the automation parameters of the DAW in conjunction with hardware control surfaces to modify the settings of many plugins, which brings us to my question.

Currently in EZDrummer 2, there don’t seem to be any keystrokes that trigger the menus, and none of the functionality seems to be adjustable via automation, so as things stand, I’m unable to interact with the majority of EZdrummers functions. Needless to say, requiring sighted assistance every time I need to do something more advanced than changing preset is a PITA.

So, now I’m writing in the hope that this might reach the EZDrummer development team. I’d really appreciate the opportunity to provide more in depth feedback and discuss whether this situation can be improved in future updates. There are encouraging signs here that EzDrummer could become very usable for blind producers without big changes. For example, once triggered, every menu I’ve tested so far is navigable from the keyboard, and the options are read perfectly by every Windows screen reader… it’s getting to the button that triggers each menu using the keyboard in the first place that poses a problem.

If this seems niche as a request, consider the vast number of drummers, songwriters, producers etc who already either use hardware control surfaces or would add one to their rig in order to have more control from their recording position when engineering themselves. any work that goes into being able to interact with EzDrummer through automation parameters would be a benefit to all of those users too.

Thanks, hope to hear back from someone at Toontrack HQ soon.

Scott  

Hi,

Thanks for your post!

It’s possible to automate some functionality in Ezdrummer 2. Right click the control in Ezdrummer 2 that you like to automate and select Midi Learn, then assign this control to your midi controller. Now you should be able to create the automation curve.

I’ll look into how we could implement the features you request. Would you mind if I contacted you with some questions using the email adress that is registered to your Toontrack user account?

Andreas,
Interaction Designer
Toontrack Music

Andreas Walfridsson - Toontrack
UX Designer

[Scott]

Hi Andreas,

Thanks for the speedy response!

Yep, feel free to shoot additional questions over email. Happy to provide as much info as you need in writing, videos of workflows in action, or anything else that would be useful.

I have a few thoughts re your suggestion of assigning controls via MIDI learn:

1. Without sighted assistance, I get stuck at the first hurdle, because as things stand I can’t get any keyboard access to the EzDrummer 2 GUI, so there’s no way of me knowing where to right click. If their were keystrokes to select each GUI element or even something as basic as a consistent tab order that enabled a user to navigate the GUI, that would help,. Even if those controls weren’t read aloud, I’ll be using the plugin often enough that I could learn the order the controls are presented in, route my mouse pointer to the current keyboard selection and be sure I was right clicking on the correct area of the screen.

2. In many, many other plugins, controls don’t need to be manually mapped to a physical control in order to become automatable. For example, parametric EQ plugins usually expose frequency, gain and Q width for each active band as a minimum without MIDI Learn being required. To make a comparison closer to home, Addictive Drums did a good job of this throughout version 1x of their product, and as a result it was possible to make full use of their internal mixer from a control surface straight out of the box. I prefer the samples used by EzDrummer 2 and also feel that it responds more realistically when dealing with a wide range of MIDI velocities, hence why I’m keen to see EzDrummer become more usable by blind producers and drummers.

3. I found 10 potential automation parameters which are currently labeled “Ctrl 1” through “Ctrl 10”. Presumably these are what would be used to connect MIDI hardware to EzDrummer 2 if I could carry out the suggested MIDI Learn workflow? I’ve described in the previous paragraph how parameters being automatable by default would be a huge productivity boost, but while I’ve got you here, I should add that it would also be a huge help to have more relevant labels, such as “Snare Top Level” or “Compressor Ratio” as opposed to something generic like “Ctrl 3”.

Anyway, drop me an email and let’s see what can be done.

Cheers

Scott

[Author]

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