marc2000Hi there,
I’m wondering if there is a good way to use EZD in clips of Ableton Live’s Session View. The idea behind the Session View is that each clip/line represents a part of the song which you can let repeatedly play, skip and control, you can even trigger clips (or entire lines) by MIDI commands from external gear. But I don’t understand a good way to use EZD here.
If you create a drum track in EZD (even in Session View), it is supposed to run linear from beginning to end. I don’t see a way to add jump marks or similar so that I could trigger a particular part in the song when going from on clip to another in Session View.
I could however drag the MIDI block from EZD onto a cell in Live, this will populate the the clip in Ableton with MIDI notes. When deactivating EZD to be controlled by the DAW you can play this drum part now straight from the clip in Live. BUT — MIDI from Ableton seem to use the EZD’s sound engine in a different way so that it sounds poor, and, even worse, some articulation details are lost, so that eg. a note playing a closed Hi-Hat in the original EZD sequence will then suddenly play a crash cymbal. After all, this appears not to be a solution, or I am missing something.
I’m searching the web to find instructions, tutorials or comments on this topic, but for some reason there is nothing to find.
Help much appreciated! Thank you!
Marc
JohnHi,
I am not sure how to reproduce what you are describing; if I drag grooves from EZD3 to Clip Slots in the Session View, they sound exactly as they did inside EZD3 when triggered.
Would it be possible for you to ZIP a Set and attach to a post here?
As for jumping between different locations in a single clip, I do not know if it is possible but I once read something about Follow Actions for Scenes with MaxforLive that might do it.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
marc2000Hi John,
Thanks for your reply. Attached is a test Ableton set. Steps I did to create this file:
Created new set, added EZD as a new track in Ableton, removed all other tracks, created a drum pattern in EZD Grid Editor, disabled “Follow Host”, dragged the block with the drum pattern from EZD into a clip in the track in Ableton Session View. If you now play the pattern from within EZD (e.g. Shift-Space) it sounds good. If you play the clip in Ableton, the Hi-Hat is wrong and it generally sounds worse.
About jumping between locations – I meant this to happen inside EZD. So here I am looking for a way how to remote control EZD, to jump or repeat in the song track, or in the grid. Is that possible? I guess not, but I want to be sure.
Thanks!
Marc
JohnHi Marc,
sorry for the delay. Yes, I tried your Project but didn’t get any unexpected behaviour from it; playing the clip from the Session View sounds exactly the same as from within EZDrummer 3. I have tried figuring out what could be the difference on your system but I have no good guess yet. I was thinking about if you get some kind of MIDI loop but then you would experience that with your other instruments. Still, can you check if ‘MIDI Out’ is Enabled in the EZD3 plug-in and if it is, Disable it and see if it makes any difference?
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
marc2000Hi John,
Thanks for your reply. I checked the MIDI Out in EZD3 plug-in, it was disabled. I also tried now with various settings and audio interfaces. Same. Then I completely uninstalled EZD and the libraries, deleted the directory ‘Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support > EZDrummer’, reinstalled EZD3 and Core library with updates.
Then I ran a new test, please find the link to the recorded video attached. You can hear the difference – the HiHat was played closed in EZD, but it appears from within Ableton fully open.
https://app.screencast.com/xFihX1jQuA6hv
If it could be a setting in EZD3 – is there a way to remove all settings, entirely back to factory defaults?
Any other thoughts?
Thanks a ton for your help.
Marc
JohnHi Marc,
I am slightly confused now – is this another problem or is it the same?
You initially wrote about the EZdrummer 3 plug-in had poor sound and lost articulations when MIDI was dragged to the Clip slot compared to when played back from within EZD3, so is this what you meant? The closed HH is being played back as open when played back from the Clip slot in Live?
If so, I would first check the ‘E-Drums/MIDI In’ page by clicking the small menu in the lower right corner of the plug-in (right next to the ‘MIDI’ label).
There’s a Preset drop-down list in the top of that page, where ‘Toontrack Standard’ usually is the Default. Please select another Preset and then go back to the Toontrack Standard.
Play back the groove from the Clip Slot.
Is it still Open instead of Closed?
If so, I would suspect something is sending CC1 (Modulation wheel) or CC4 to the plug-in. While on the MIDI In page, you should see what kind of MIDI is sent to the plug-in in the inspector in the lower left part on that page, right below the assigned notes.
Do you see CC1 or CC4 there?
If so, please check connected MIDI controllers, I have seen similar situations where among things a faulty mod wheel on a connect keyboard was sending erratic CC1 data even if it wasn’t used.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
marc2000Hi John,
Thanks. This solved the problem.
Sorry if I described the problem unclear, it was always the same. I understand now that my MIDI-In preset was altered, and changing it to Toontrack Standard (like you said) solved the problem. Now all that looks dead simple, it’s always the same after you learn how something works.
Actually, the problem was exactly that the closed Hi-Hat was played as an open Hi-Hat because of wrong MIDI assignments (which I thought first sounded like a Crash cymbal). This made me think something is wrong with the entire idea of dragging a drum sequence from EZD into a clip in Ableton. In addition, my volume setting was different in EZD – which altered the sound and made my assumption even stronger. Nah. Simply the wrong preset.
Thanks again.
Marc
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