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I appreciate the skill of the drummers who play on the Toontrack products, but sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind an expansion pack of simple but well played fills.
Quite often a catchy fill is just a few hits but perhaps on an off-beat to create a point of interest eg thinking about some of really basic fills they used in 80’s synth pop. I also find there are a lack of basic rolls eg things like Ringo’s intro roll in to “Ticket to Ride”. I tend to have to play them myself and create the midi,… I don’t mind but it is time consuming.
So for what I call meat and potatoes, those basic rock grooves I look to;
https://www.toontrack.com/product/basic-rock-midi/
https://www.toontrack.com/product/basic-rock-2-midi/
https://www.toontrack.com/product/basic-rock-fills-midi/
Martin does a nice job of laying down basic beats
Another one I find useful for less fancy (although Norman is very capable of the complex rhythms)
https://www.toontrack.com/product/sixties-pop-grooves/
For a slightly edgier set of still quite useable rhythms (Kenny Aronoff’s)
https://www.toontrack.com/product/american-rock-midi/
Hope that helps
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Thanks for the reply Brad,
I’ll check out those Midis. I think the only one that I have from your list is Basic Rock Fills.
Tony
Completely Agree. It takes more time to write songs panning through ridiculous busy drum beats than just doing it with a metronome and adding the beats later. I find even those “basic” beats, at least from the demos, to be over the top. Or you’ve got just a nice HH and Snare going for a second, then some retarded fill or drum roll comes in there to screw it up before you can lay down an idea. Not everything has to be showing off. Fucking drummers..
“It is better to play than do nothing”
Confucius
Would also agree the need for more spaced midi drum beats. Most of the midi sets are filled with very busy drums including the fills etc. Really annoying except for the more uptempo stuff. There has been posts about this issue before but toontracks seem to just keep doing the same thing. The sounds are good but there are very few and I mean very few simpler non busy tracks. You know sometimes a song need some SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !! I have Superior Drummer 3 with 8 midi paks incl the songwriter stuff and still difficult to use for slower and or more open songs. Really disappointing.
All things considered, since the creation of this thread, there are more tools within EZD to create that space if you find a groove over the top. And you don’t have to resort to using a DAW. Not to mention that addition of numerous MIDI packs since. Activating the Web Shop MIDI option within Tap-2-Find can help locate a groove similar, if not exact, to what you are looking for.
Also remember that it is often far easier to take away from a groove than to add to it.
jord
in the edit play style UI – you can “thin out” the notes using the notes dial as a means of reducing the amount of hits within a given section of MIDI. split a busy roll into the length you need and reduce the number of notes to get some of the nuances (hopefully) of the player based notes (and why you’re not just writing the notes yourself). save those you like for re-use.
Glenn
www.runnel.com
www.reverbnation.com/fossile
1
Thanked by: GranitzaExactly! Edit Play Styles and the Grid Editor are wonderful things.
jord
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Thanked by: Brandon CostelloI’d love to see a thing like that “cymbal stuff” section but for builds. Like simple builds on the snare and floor tom. Maybe something like, sixteenth/eighth note/quarter note build up // increase in velocity over one bar/two bars/four bars.
Is that already a thing and I’m missing it? I know I can make my own but I just wanted to see if anyone else might find that feature useful.
While you can use the tools suggested in the comments above to achieve a less busy drum groove, I am still perplexed why most of these grooves are very busy and give little space at all. Can’t a drummer just lay down some very simple groove patterns? There are a few, but very few. I also find that the drums using the brushes are not that easy to set up using many of the midi grooves that one might use for a slower paced song. Toontracks should take notice and at least do one midi pack that deals with all of this really well and forget the busy drums for a minute or two. There have been many posts about this in the past but not sure toontracks is listening.
Not true at all. I just did a search for one of the most basic grooves using Tap-2-Find.
I got pages of results, with many of them in EZ Drummer 3’s stock library.
There are plenty of simple grooves and fills available. And if you need something more from them, there are many ways to customize them to make them your own.
They can also be adapted to brushes.
jord
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Thanked by: Das MahnkeyNice post! I have EZ Drummer 2 (and lots of other drum programs). I have raved about several other drum programs, but to me
EZ Drummer really is the easiest. The complexity slider just by itself is a very nice feature. The slicing and dicing + drop & drag options are really
quite good and dead simple. There’s definitely no shortage of ways to get what you want. This is a NICE….”NOICE” program. I give top marks for
EZ Drummer.
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