EZ DRUMMER HEADZ and DAW drummers - Where U at?!

[BananaDemocracy]

Hey everyone

I was looking for some help with Ez drummer. I have the basics down, but i dont have a drummers feel for writing because ive always played the instruments. Where do you guys get your midi or drums when you use a DAW?

Also, where do you drummers go for guitar/instrumental backing tracks sometimes for your own tracks, if you do? I’m looking for (besides you tube) decent ones, to play/jam with....

But that was just an aside, so if you have any links or files you could share (maybe one or two of your drum files so i can see/learn)

OTherwise, if thats taboo, the tuts are fine lol THX

 

[shnizzle]

i always make my own drum midi tracks. the way i learned is i just made covers of songs with drum parts that i liked and i tried to recreate the drumming in the daw as close as possible. and i watched a lot of drumming tutorials. it will give you a good idea of how the instrument works. i covered a couple of Slipknot songs back in the day. they have some of the nastiest drum parts.

 

[Guitarmiester]

I used to buy a lot of the EzDrummer midi packs until I realized I was editing all of the grooves I used anyway. At this point, I really only use the midi packs for the fills and make all of my own drum midi. Drawing out the midi tracks is way too time consuming for me so that's not a route I ever go. I normally write my drum parts using a midi keyboard. The biggest boost to my workflow (for writing drums) has been switching to midi pads. I can finger drum pads more accurately than I can playing them on a keyboard for some reason. Plus you have the added benefit of avoiding the feel and sound of programmed drums. I like limiting myself to sticking with lines I can actually play on the pads rather than layering and ending up with some monster that only a three-armed drummer could pull off.

 

[MerlinTKD]

Getgooddrums has groove packs of Matt Halpern and Anup Sastry available, not sure if they're proprietary to the GGD software or not.

Groove Monkee makes bass and drum loops useable for all different software, supposed to be pretty good stuff!

Also you can Google ' midi drum loops for ezdrummer ' and get lots of cool results, including packs from Toontrack for less than $25

 

[ATRguitar91]

I've always preferred writing drums in guitar pro and then exporting the midi. Writing in the daw is too tedious for me.

 

[Grindspine]

Ola Englund can show you how.

 

[BananaDemocracy]

i always make my own drum midi tracks. the way i learned is i just made covers of songs with drum parts that i liked and i tried to recreate the drumming in the daw as close as possible. and i watched a lot of drumming tutorials. it will give you a good idea of how the instrument works. i covered a couple of Slipknot songs back in the day. they have some of the nastiest drum parts.

Thank you. You’re absolutely right about Slipknot: maybe the most complex percussion sections I’ve ever heard from a metal band (besides maybe Meshuggah, although they are drum machines whereas Slipknot has like 2 or 3 “percussionists”)....I gotta start listening to Slipknot more!

I used to buy a lot of the EzDrummer midi packs until I realized I was editing all of the grooves I used anyway. At this point, I really only use the midi packs for the fills and make all of my own drum midi. Drawing out the midi tracks is way too time consuming for me so that's not a route I ever go. I normally write my drum parts using a midi keyboard. The biggest boost to my workflow (for writing drums) has been switching to midi pads. I can finger drum pads more accurately than I can playing them on a keyboard for some reason. Plus you have the added benefit of avoiding the feel and sound of programmed drums. I like limiting myself to sticking with lines I can actually play on the pads rather than layering and ending up with some monster that only a three-armed drummer could pull off.

Very sound advice...I found myself also using the midi pack gratuitously, but where you have edited, I have left it alone and its grown monotonous....and that’s why I decided to ask you fine djents (“gents”)! Lol

Im also checking out the groove monkey, they dont have a lot of quality control, but there is a lot of content, so its enough to start and work through to learn

 

[Descent]

I have one EZD pack that I edit the hell out of.

 

[BLD]

I’m using Superior Drummer 2 and only have the DFH expansion. Most of the grooves work for me, but I find I spend a lot of time editing the midi notes by hand which as stated above, is very tedious. It does give me the option to map the drums exactly how I want down to the velocity, but forget to save your work once and you want to scream!

I’ve tried my keyboard to tap out drum tracks but I’m hoping to connect my V-Drums to my DAW to get a more realistic feel. I struggle getting the keyboard to sound natural, and the quantize/humanize features just don’t fix a poor performance for me... (they work wonders on a good performance tho).

I write my own rythym guitar parts and now have an old friend who is way better at lead guitars helping too. Best of luck, just gotta find what works best for you!