Using EZ as standalone drum machine <– MIDI sync from looper

[MikeAnblips]

Hi,

I am using Moebius – standalone – as my looper to record riffs and/or chord sequences.
*Without” going through a DAW, which would be resource consuming and beyond my interest right now, I would like EZ to work as a standalone drum machine, getting its BPM and start/stop from the MIDI clock issued by the looper.

Which looper is not relevant at the moment, my question is whether EZ has this capability, i.e. to receive MIDI clock and start/stop signals from another MIDI device.

I’m totally new to this and – having set a MIDI (virtual) port on my OS (Windows 7) and set it as the “MIDI device” for both Looper and EZ, did not really result in success.

While I dig further on my own, I’d appreciate more knowledgeable people shedding some light 🙂

Thanks,

Michele

Topic

[Olof Westman]

>…whether EZ has this capability, i.e. to receive MIDI clock

No, EZdrummer will not sync to a MIDI clock.

>…start/stop signals from another MIDI device.

Maybe. That is totally untested as far as I know. Those signals
usually don’t make it as far as EZdrummer when it runs in a host.

Start and Stop can also be controlled via CC and MidiLearn.

There is a 10 day demo for EZdrummer 2. Maybe you should try that.

Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder

[MikeAnblips]

Hi Olof,

thank you for your reply and yes, I am using EZ’s trial version to test my ideas out.

I cannot really understand your answer, probably because I am too noob to all this. When I ask and you reply:

>>…whether EZ has this capability, i.e. to receive MIDI clock
> No, EZdrummer will not sync to a MIDI clock.
>>…start/stop signals from another MIDI device.
>Maybe. That is totally untested as far as I know. Those signals
>usually don’t make it as far as EZdrummer when it runs in a host.

I am a bit puzzled, because *when EZ runs in a host*, to me, means “when EZ is used as a VST plugin, in a DAW”.
Now, I am not totally sure my interpretation is correct, but if it is, then I would say that *for sure* EZ receives bpm, sync and what not *from the host*.
Any other plugin, our looper for instance, *when working as VST* inside a DAW, *is* totally and fully in sync with whatever other plugin is present as module managed by the DAW.

So I am not clear as to what you mean when you say that “those [MIDI sync/start/stop] signals don’t make it as far as EZdrummer when it runs in a host”.

I hope you are patient enough to explain this noob. 🙂

Cheers,

Michele

What I said at the beginning is that for my purpose I do *not* want, nor need, to switch a full DAW on just to run a coupla loops with nice grooves.

[Olof Westman]

>*when EZ runs in a host*, to me, means “when EZ is used as a VST plugin, in a DAW”.

Yes.

>Any other plugin, our looper for instance, *when working as VST* inside a DAW, *is*
> totally and fully in sync with whatever other plugin is present as module managed by the DAW.

Yes, our plug-ins included, of course.

>So I am not clear as to what you mean when you say that “those [MIDI sync/start/stop]
>signals don’t make it as far as EZdrummer when it runs in a host”.

If you hook up a MIDI controller of some sort and send a MIDI start/stop with it
then that will be picked up by the DAW and possibly start/stop it. I have never
seen those MIDI messages coming in to our plug-ins. Then again maybe my
MIDI controllers don’t send MIDI start/stop. EZdrummer 2 will react to them
if they do reach it. ( in some way…)

There is something called MIDI Clock messages that devices can send
to sync to each other. Our plug-ins do not handle these. The hosting
DAW might and we follow it in turn. When running EZdrummer 2 stand alone
the start of a bar is arbitrary and the tempo is a fixed user conrollable value
ultimately under the control of the soundcards clock.

Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder

[MikeAnblips]

Hi Olof

OK thanks. I think the main message is: use EZ and looper as VST under a DAW if you want to have them synchronized.

I’ll try that route 🙂

Cheers,

/M

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