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[rgarber]

@Jerjab – Well I never thought your loyalties were an issue, but to me the list was fine only that it concluded many of us thought that same way. I’m certainly much more better off now that some features are better understood, I would say I’m kinda in the middle of all this but very much more pro EZ Keys than against it. And I’m not speaking that to suggest you’re against it, just saying that I can see where piano accompaniment is a feature, EZ Keys could fill a woefully lacking niche in the digital market. As as a song writing platform I still have doubts about EZ Keys in that respect until the two things mentioned before come to fruition. We need to be able to add chords from scratch without adding a preset first and be able to apply a preset accompaniment to that progression. Then and only then do I think EZ Keys lives up to the claim for being a tool for song writers. But I’m optimistic because like you I’ve had good results from EZ Drummer. I have Superior Drummer for a couple of years now but I haven’t used it yet. Still trying to get a handle on some other product that keeps coming out for upgrades for itself!

@Juicey – I’d a wrote something but it just would’ve been a waste of my time.

[rgarber]

True, but once it’s converted to midi the pattern should allow the removal of those drum hits I would think. It’s not something I’ve tried yet, just speculating.

[rgarber]

@Juicy: I agree that the negativity has been helpful here too and considering I started this thread in a pretty negative tone (though I just didn’t get the point of EZ Keys at first and was quite incredulous), you betcha that it helped me to let off steam though the resulting posts and research sent me happily in a positive acceptance of EZ Keys. But I thought when I posted I was about to get reamed!

But to your point that negativity can be helpful, Jerjab did made one fatal flaw by speaking for the whole group. If he’d express his list as his opinion only, we all could agree to disagree. But his words were something like ‘the consensus here is.. 1,2,3 …’ and his assumptions doesn’t speak for me. For one thing, and I could go on about this for hours, negativity is fine when its kept in perspective, but the moment it becomes discouraging – I’ve seen people walk away from the very thing they needed all because negativity discouraged many from even trying.

I gave a nod on a couple of his points but the tenor of the post suggested that the concensus is that we leaned a bit towards the negative and cynical towards Toontrack and that didn’t represent my feelings towards Toontrack at all. And that’s just my opinion.

[rgarber]

I don’t think #6 is a valid point either but I think I know what he means to say. Think about it, many of us have been doing this digital/midi stuff for years, decades even, and we’re quite up to speed on what digital manipulation is capable of. So along comes an innovative idea like EZ Keys and yet there are features which we all can see which could have been included that for lack of a better way to put it, most posters describe that in failing to do so, they see EZ Keys as ‘pushed out the door‘ or ‘rushed.’

I also write software too and EZ Keys is obviously not rushed. IMO EZ Keys works, is well organized and mostly bug free. But I don’t want to over-reach and assume that just because I thought something else could have been added that EZ Keys is ‘unfinished’. To me, Jerjab is mixing together two different issues to express discontent with the program not reaching far enough in context with his own expertise.

With what I do commercially I run into this sentiment all the time. For example, I put out something that can be ‘modified’ through an included editor. In our genre people can take my work, add to it, and later boast I could’ve done more. Well, it takes months of planning and execution to get the base product released. In a few moments someone is boasting I could’ve done it better had I only given it five more minutes. It galls me to think to them that it only takes five minutes when it took months just so they have their five minutes of fame.

That’s the situation with #6. Without EZ Keys Jerjab wouldn’t have the basis to make his opinion. Toontrack has given us the base variation from which future variations will spring. How successful those variations is simply our test of patience as the program evolves. No guarantees but from what I see, this is gonna be an awesome product. Got my fingers crossed.

[rgarber]

@fizbin: I like this man’s thinking. That’s what I’m hoping too with the Jazz expansion that the included material is much more diverse and more indepth Jazz-wise.

Part of me is thinking here that we’re not too far from that already but for the life of me I can’t connect the dots yet how to do it. Let’s say you take Melodyne and convert some jazz piano to midi. Then if the midi is imported into EZ Keys and stored in the personal library, can’t then our own chord progression be applied and wouldn’t that give us the same thing? Trouble is I don’t know if you can separate the piano from the other instruments (bass and drums) without a mess on our hands.

Okay, so that doesn’t work. But there’s a ton of midi piano files out there where the rhythms could be brought into EZ Keys and then all we have to do is store the imported preset and then add our chord change to it.

I can’t see why this wouldn’t work…

[rgarber]

I tried pretty hard last night to type up a response like you did and I came up with pretty much the same conclusions. The one I would address, #6 and I’m only addressing this in general and not to any specific poster, and only because I’m within the game market, this kind of marketing strategy is happening all over the place. I think it depends on the product. Something like EZ Keys, well, I’m all for the expansions. It doesn’t mean I have to purchase every expansion they put out. I like Jazz so I’m only going to purchase the Jazz stuff. So to me, cost is not an objection.

The game in which I am an independent 3rd party developer for, the amount of extras we can produce for the original game is endless. I mean world-wide endless like in the thousands. The game is always taking hits from non-users who don’t understand the genre and they have this idea that to have the game means they have to purchase all the expansions. It’s not that at all. You just purchase what you want. But golly trying to make them understand…. (we need bigger smilies here…)

So why people make the ‘total cost of expansions’ argument is lost on me. I’m assuming by expansions we’re talking future add-on styles, so I just plan to get what I need and thus cost is not an issue for me.

And Toontrack does a lot of 50% off sales so you can always wait for those…

[rgarber]

IMO that this has been a good thread for helping some of us become better acquainted with EZ Keys, might we continue along that vein than get sidetracked on a review?

[rgarber]

Well, I never had found the site anyway, but stars or no stars, the program needs a few things to be super awesome. I think Tombuur issue is addressed already, sort of, in that we learned from this thread that we can save our chord progressions into our own library. And the library can be subdivided into categories. So maybe not to the master library but to a library remembered by EZ Keys.

What would make EZ Keys a five star’er for me is to be able to type chords in from scratch (which we can if we do if we do it externally from Ez Keys and then drag/drop the progression into EZ keys), AND then… to be able to take a preset and apply it to our own created progression matching the accompaniment to the chords within our chord progression.

Oh, and more libraries (starting with jazzy stuff first. ) 

[rgarber]

Sorry, I meant left clicking (not right clicking). I’ve seen a couple of people write that about the chord not playing properly but I must be doing it wrong cause the chord change takes effect and plays that way. I tried several combinations to duplicate where it doesn’t play the chord change but no cigar on that. Reckon I shouldn’t want that to happen anyway. Interesting…

[rgarber]

I haven’t been back to EZ Keys since, but this allows me to add my own descriptions too, right?

[rgarber]

Oh wow! EZ Keys is becoming more likeable by the post!! LOL!! That’s great! So am I seeing the potential in this right? I could import a BITB generated piano progression, for example, and add it to the library… then at any point after that use my saved preset, change chords if I want… man alive, that’s awesome! Definetly a smilie for that!

I think they ought to provide a link in the manual to this forum.

[rgarber]

You can?? I don’t think you can but if it could be done I don’t think anybody would be suggesting the feature to be added. But then again, this program does have a few tricks up its sleeve, you just got to hunt for them. For instance, trying to chase down the rabbit trail you just sent me off on I did find that if you right click on the pattern displayed in the edit window, there is an option Find Preset (which will highlight where the preset came from – in the library). That’s helpful. But as far as saving your own preset into the library, it’s been said enough times it can’t be done. But hey, if you know how or can locate that post, be awfully helpful. Thanks.

[rgarber]

Oh yeah, I just didn’t know that’s what it was called. I think the biggest difference is it’s not as destructive as the Split tool. I’m probably explaining what you already know, but just to see if we’re in agreement on this thing, is you first zoom in slightly and then press the Chord Add tool. Then the green marker allows you to type in a chord wherever you want. But unlike the Split tool it doesn’t divide up the measure. So really, they must’ve figured this would be the tool of choice for editing. Might have… if they placed it above the Split tool.

In a way, this is closer to what I was looking for to begin with. Coupled with the Basic Chord presets you can build up a chord progression easily. You enter the Chord Add tool, it puts in (mine always put in C – reckon its whatever Key Transposition you’re in) wherever you click the green marker to. Then you right-click to get into the COF tool and add whatever chord you want to. Not bad. The one difference maybe is the Split tool seems to suggest the next chord, or repeats the previous chord… maybe?

Other than that… it’s useable and probably preferable to the Split tool but they are alike except the Chord Add tool doesn’t break up measures like the Split tool does.   

[rgarber]

I didn’t know there was even a “chord divider” feature. Can I ask just where you’all (read the linked thread) are seeing this? Would’ve spared me a thread…

[rgarber]

So you’re saying that EZ Drummer is kinda like an expanded Sample format on steroids? And EZ Keys is going in that direction too? If that’s the case then I would ask Toontrack if they would please include some way in both programs where we can either annotate favorite patterns or give us some way to identify these patterns we’ve used but in our own words. Once I move a clip into the DAW, it’s rare I can ever find that clip again in the presets.

In general I’m in favor of this idea, I don’t see the harm in it. Including a sample, I mean. After all you can always substitute the EZ sampled instruments with your own if you got to.

There’s always going to be a fuss over cost, as long as the quality is pretty good I don’t complain on that.

Earlier I messed up and misinterpreted the classical guy’s post where I mistook his use of EZ for something else (like “easy”) – but after you posted what you did just now, suddenly I get the “EZ idea” isn’t just a cute label but a programming theme that can be applied elsewhere. That’s good and makes sense, to me, I just hope EZ Keys is pushed to the limits because this is one heck of a powerful idea that for the life of me I don’t understand why it hasn’t come years sooner.

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