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[Mr. Icelander]

To my mind the fundamental mistake TT has done with the any of their brush kits is simply mapping the core three sounds (Tap, Slap & Swirl, as defined in Roland’s GM) to the wrong notes! Even the Jazz EZX, which was the very first add-on I bought just because it has brushes, gets it wrong (still comes the closest though, as that one at least contains both swirl <em style=”line-height: 1.5;”>and sidestick), so I’m forced to do a lot of remapping in a DAW to make it remotely usable on any of the vast library of pre-existing midi material I’ve got. And I cannot begin to tell you how disappointing it was to have to find that out the hard way.

This, btw, was the subject of that years ago post I mentioned. I even actually told them there and then the correct mapping in hopes they’d either fix it or at the very least use for future brush kits – Neither has happened yet.

Never finish what you can't start!

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Thanked by: gearnerd

[Mr. Icelander]

gearnerd wrote:

The “Roots” mallets&brushes SDX seems to have brushes covered, they could make an EZX out of it. However something that is lacking is for superior drummer is to actually “understand” how Roland modules communicate brush swirls etc. Simply put, you can’t play with brushes with EZD or SD3, even if you have the right samples.

Well yes, that particular issue was the subject of one of my very first niggle-post on here. So definitely that too.

Never finish what you can't start!

[Mr. Icelander]

Mike_21 wrote:

It astounds me that this was not among the first of TT’s outputs. I didn’t have a need for ballroom-type music in the past, but I would love to have all that data now inside a polished performance. It just mustn’t sound like a seventies rhythm box! Yes, your request makes perfect sense. Let them do it. It would be a great success. Many thanks. Mike Horne

I had such high hopes when I heard about that latest “Ballroom & Broadway” themed jazz EZX prior to its release, but alas no perc included, which was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, I obviously still bought it, of course, but well…

 

Anyway, I just have to say I’m really pleasantly surprised by all the positive reactions my suggestion has got – much appreciated!

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[Mr. Icelander]

So what I’m hearing from the above is that the short answer is “No”?

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[Mr. Icelander]

@Michael Burstein said:
Do they even read these posts?  

Now, there’s the million dollar question if there ever was one!

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[Mr. Icelander]

I honestly thought that was included in their existing Organ expansion, and was rather miffed to discover it wasn’t.
I’d certainly give such an expansion a very good look, should they offer it

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[Mr. Icelander]

I’d like to think it is, yes,, thanks for the moral support, I’m sure. Let’s just hope the TT team agrees with that sentiment

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[Mr. Icelander]

Thanks for your input, John, you may just be on to something there. Almost all o what you said is news to me, and _good_ news for the most part.
BBox already _is_ my “Song writing” tool, that’s basically its core purpose (but for a wider palette than drums alone), so losing those features by switching from EZD to SD would apparently not be a huge loss to me from that perspective. The cumulative loss of money from having bet on the wrong horse, however, that’s another story.
I have at any rate learned a great deal here, which is always a gain, so thanks to all who contributed here.

Never finish what you can't start!

[Mr. Icelander]

@Scott E said:
What is it that you are trying to do but can’t?  

@John said:
I *think* Icelander_1 wants to freely mix drums between EZX:s, not only exchanging a snare or a tom from one EZX to another but build the kit pieces freely.

It’s not even that ambitious. I’ll try elaborate:
I’m essentially using my EZ Drummer 2 as the optimum sound plugin for my Band-in-a-Box music creation software. That application comes with loads of fantastic midi drum patterns, which I had hoped I could fully utilise via EZD. In the cases I’m currently looking at, I have a bossa brushes pattern that includes brushes _and_ congas. The thing is, BBox only has _one_ track (channel, if you prefer) designated for drums, so your mutual ideas of separate sets is out for me.
Thus, I had hoped that by buying the Hip-Hop EZX (which has the most slots of any kit), combined with the Perc EZX (to get some quality congas), I would load up the Hip-Hop kit and just replace the slots with the drums from Percs & Jazz where appropriate. Another, simpler scenario was my idea of ‘enlarging’ the Jazz kit, which has fewer slots than f.ex. the Modern Kit, by loading the Modern Kit and just replace each with drums from the Jazz kit and for the remaining slots use something that could fit the mould (i.e. not even the ambitious “Tom in a Crash Cymbal slot”, but just by using equivalent slots), such as from the Vintage kit (or even just leave the rest as is), and both these scenarios have the same caveat.
See, while this is theoretically possible, the caveat is that now I’ve discovered that drums like the brushes will _lose_ most of their articulations and only use articulations that are available in the kit I started off from. I hope I’m explaining myself properly here.
The disappointment of this discovery is further accentuated by not really having a sure way to find this out until _after_ spending (read:wasting!) the money on something which I otherwise am never going to use.

Never finish what you can't start!

[Mr. Icelander]

Upon seeing this reply, I went back in to check a hunch:

When I made that screencap above, it was from having loaded that particular snare…just the snare. And this, as I’m only just now realising, is not enough for the program, it _needs_ the whole kit!
So this time around, after first going to the upper right corner to select “Brushes Delight” from the orange bar, my screencap of that very same snare now looks like this:

And there we do have that precious swirl I was looking for, which they call a “circle”, and more than one kind at that 🙂

The caveat of this, however, is that my initial idea of buying the Hip-Hop ezx (and the Percs earlier today!) in order to mix’n-match some percs to form a fuller jazz kit will not work as I had hoped after all, which is more than a little disappointing (especially to my wallet).

Never finish what you can't start!

[Mr. Icelander]

That’s pretty much what I suspected, thanks for confirming.

Never finish what you can't start!

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