Ok. Yeah, it has nothing but Crash and Mute for the crashes.
>Can you mix and match drums and cymbals from different expansions?
Yes, you can use the x-drum feature to bring in more drums from
any expansion of your choice. Whether they sound good together
is another matter. They are, after all, recorded in different rooms with
different mics in different places. From what I understand you should
have at least two expansions available so you can try it for yourself.
Most SDXs don’t offer any other articulation than ‘crash’ for crashes. Well,
except the ‘Mute’ which is a muted ‘Crash’. The exceptions I am aware of
are the two ‘Roots’ and the ‘Music City’ SDXs. Those three have crashes
with ‘Crash’, ‘Ride’ and ‘Bell’ articulations or more.
You can do the same with the other EZXs but if you have them on
DVD you might find it quicker to install the DVDs and then download
and apply the updates.
I have an idea. I have access to an Akai MPK49. It suffers from the
same problem. My guess is that the reason is the same for your Akai.
The transport controlling buttons on my Akai send MIDI CC 115 – 118,
117 for Stop and 118 for Play. When these are pressed they send
the value 127 and when released they do nothing. That means that
they never change their value. That is a problem for the MIDI learn
algorithm which requires a fairly substantial change of the value
before accepting a CC. This is because it is very common that MIDI
controllers send a more or less continuous stream of CC events for
some CC:s. Although not exactly good behavior this is still
understandable since a knob or slider may physically sit just in between
two digital values leading to a continuous alternation between them.
Such CC:s have to be filtered out since they would otherwise
be immediately learned as soon as MIDI learn was attempted.
For now the workaround that I use myself is to MIDI learn Start
and Stop to some other CC and then save a MIDI learn preset.
The next step is to use ‘Manage in Explorer/Browser’ to go to
the folder where the preset is saved and then open it up in a
text editor and change the relevant CC numbers. This is fairly
simple as long as the CC numbers for Start and Stop are known.
I am not sure there is much point in comparing raw SDXs in
a musical context. Most of what you will think of as the
difference is just the difference in what the producer likes
to ‘put on tape’.
The VST plug-in format allows for the plug-in to ask the host for
the current tempo and time signature. However, there is no way to
ask the host about what happens at other times. Nor is it actually
required by the host to provide the information the plug asks for.
Apart from any technical limitations that are out of Toontrack’s
control the choice of leaving EZdrummer 2 without a way to
control tempo and time signature, within its own songtrack,
should also be perceived as a way to keep things EZ.
