EZ Bass NOW Available!

[Hidden Symmetry]

Thanks, l

53 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

While the basses sound good, they are definitely meant to be programmed and not played.  I found all kinds of problems when I played it fast or at high velocities. You get a whiff instead of a note.  This is the kind of  problem that would be a deal breakers for any quality bass virtual instrument.  If you play it slow and are careful with velocities it is fine.  But I kicked the tires and Modo Bass, OTS,  ujam, the free Ample Sound bass, etc can sleep quietly.   No competition here IMHO.   But this product is not aimed at people who have played a real bass  and have solid piano chops, and have spent years creating and playing  bass parts on a keyboard.  It is great for what it is intended to do.  But it's weird that it doesn't work as well the other way.   Oh well, I already have lots of keyswitched instruments to do that.  

There is a part at the bottom where you can adjust the playing style in various ways.  But this feature doesn't work when you play it--the time you need it the most.   It only works when you use MIDI to play it.

Thanks for the review. I'll pass, you just saved me a few bucks.

[Vernon Barnes]

Has anybody tried this with odd time signatures.  I find the automatic search engine in Superior gets a bit confused with things like 5/4 and 7/8.

[Reid Rosefelt]

53 minutes ago, Hidden Symmetry said:

Thanks, l

Thanks for the review. I'll pass, you just saved me a few bucks.

I'm sorry that I convinced you not to buy it.  I think it's great and plan to get a lot of use out of it.   I just think that everything I said is true.

I did check and you can drag the MIDI into your DAW and use it with anything you want.      I definitely will make use of that.     The bad news is that it may take a bit of editing to make it sound as good as the EZBass basses.  And I expect they will be releasing some great ones.

[Grem]

2 hours ago, BassDaddy said:

EZ Keys 2 would go right to the front of the line though.

Yep, the whole time I was watching the videos I was thinking, "I could use this feature in EZ Keys!" Yep Yep, have already decided I am going to upgrade to EZ Keys 2 for sure!! : )

[Grem]

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

Toontrack has hit it out of the park.  

 

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

This thing is a home run with GUI and looks great too.

Agreed. This is much more than I thought it would be. I am at work right now and can't d/l to play around with. But the videos have shown me that this is what I wanted and much more!! And for a great price too!! They could have gotten more for this product I believe.

[Reid Rosefelt]

I'm figuring that they will do EZKeys/EZBass paired libraries.    Maybe EZDrummer/EZKeys/EZBass libraries. 

Maybe it's not necessary, because EZBass can take any of your EZKeys stuff and make bass tracks out of it,

But they are all about EZ Peasy.  

And a series of EZDrummer/EZKeys/EZBass libraries would be very popular and generate a lot of EZMoney. 

Is it time to start bugging Toontrack about EZGuitar yet?   I am tired of making my own music.  ?

 

[Vernon Barnes]

1 hour ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I did check and you can drag the MIDI into your DAW and use it with anything you want.      I definitely will make use of that.     The bad news is that it may take a bit of editing to make it sound as good as the EZBass basses. 

This is a reservation of mine. Presumably a part contains different articulations, how are these triggered? I you try to use an Amplesound Riffer MIDI with another bass VST Amplesound's key switching may not be able to be remapped to the appropriate articulations. So you are pretty much stuck with using it with Amplesound basses or doing a awful lot of MIDI editing.

If EZKeys uses velocity switching as you comment "at high velocities. You get a whiff instead of a note. " may be suggesting it would probably be possible to map mutes, palm mutes, sustains, harmonics etc. in a Orange Tree Evolution bass and save it as a new snapshot for use with EZBass MIDI. I will be looking for documentation and hopefully a demo before committing.

The other issue is how hammer ons and pull offs are indicated and will this transfer to the target instrument.  My suspicion as been one will need to use EZBass to get a accurate playback.

Can the built in effects can be bypassed for a DI sound for processing in the DAW.

 

 

[AndyB01]

First impressions are good - a full size interface at last (where has that been)? There's a lot to explore under the hood. The audio import - not sure I'll use that too much. Midi keys import to LH worked well (mostly) but to RH chords was too busy (will depend on the song). It gives you a base (no pun intended) but you'll have to do some editing to get a really good result. That said, all my usual bass tracks have two things in common: they're out of time and dull as ditch water; so this can already accomplish a whole lot more than I can using a vst and a midi controller.

Definitely going to be one of those products it's worth investing the time in to learn it properly. Overall, I'm happy with my new toy.

Can it replace a real, live competent bassist? On balance I would say not - at least not when they're sober - but how often is that? ??

Andy

[Larry Shelby]

3 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

My first reactions, based on a quick runthrough.

Overall, I think this is a triumph and it will be a major asset to my songwriting efforts in the future. Toontrack has hit it out of the park.  

I think both basses sound great.  Of course they will be coming out with classic basses--but I like the way these two sound.  I'm looking more forward to the deluge of MIDI packs.  I am a decent piano player, so I don't buy EZKeys MIDI anymore--but I probably will buy bass expansions.

I didn't have time to check it out long, but it seems like it has surprisingly little control of effects. As far as I can tell it doesn't come with the usual pedals for reverb, compression, phaser, chorus, etc.  Just 8 knobs to tweak the overall presets, of which there are few.  The good news is that these 8 knobs auto-map to the ones in Komplete Kontrol.   Maybe I'm wrong about this.  But most people will be running this through outside effects and Toontrack might have felt that they were better off focusing in other areas. 

Based on my first explorations, the pattern based, EZKeys part is as awesome as it looks in the videos.  Lots of great patterns that sound good and are easy to tweak.  It's a better program than EZKeys in a lot of ways, in this regard--you aren't able to see and edit all the MIDI like that.  The GUI is very simple.  All those things where you drag in sounds--you don't have to read the manual to find them.  This thing is a home run with GUI and looks great too.  Love the way the basses look.

While the basses sound good, they are definitely meant to be programmed and not played.  I found all kinds of problems when I played it fast or at high velocities. You get a whiff instead of a note.  This is the kind of  problem that would be a deal breakers for any quality bass virtual instrument.  If you play it slow and are careful with velocities it is fine.  But I kicked the tires and Modo Bass, OTS,  ujam, the free Ample Sound bass, etc can sleep quietly.   No competition here IMHO.   But this product is not aimed at people who have played a real bass  and have solid piano chops, and have spent years creating and playing  bass parts on a keyboard.  It is great for what it is intended to do.  But it's weird that it doesn't work as well the other way.   Oh well, I already have lots of keyswitched instruments to do that.  

There is a part at the bottom where you can adjust the playing style in various ways.  But this feature doesn't work when you play it--the time you need it the most.   It only works when you use MIDI to play it.

Is this in the Standalone or VST Reid?

[Greg]

1 hour ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I'm figuring that they will do EZKeys/EZBass paired libraries.    Maybe EZDrummer/EZKeys/EZBass libraries. 

Maybe it's not necessary, because EZBass can take any of your EZKeys stuff and make bass tracks out of it,

But they are all about EZ Peasy.  

And a series of EZDrummer/EZKeys/EZBass libraries would be very popular and generate a lot of EZMoney. 

Is it time to start bugging Toontrack about EZGuitar yet?   I am tired of making my own music.  ?

 

As far as playability - did you get a chance to look at the keyswitch pdf?  I copied and pasted the list below.  I suspect you could use the repeater key switch for faster playing?  

Also - might be worth posting a message on the support forum if you haven't if something isn't working as you would expect?  I haven't had the experience of a "whiff" sound yet (and I like to try to break things :). could you elaborate or post a midi file?

I am really liking this release.  I also have most of the other Bass VSTis (MODO, Ample etc,) but this is pretty special for building a bass track.   

 

KEY SWITCHES.

A-1  Polyphony (hold
A#-1- Harmonic (hold). Play harmonics.

B-1 Slap/Pop (hold). Play slap sounds if available.
C0 Not used.

C#0 Middle Finger/Down Stroke. Play only middle finger/down
stroke (no alteration).
D0-Repeater (press). Repeat the last played note.

 

D#0 Loud Mute (press). Repeat the last played note as
a percussive mute.
E0 Ghost Note (press). Repeat the last played note
as a ghost note.
F0 Slide Down (press). Slide currently playing note down.
F#0 Slide (press and hold). Slide currently playing note to the
next note played.
G0 Slide Up (press). Slide currently playing note up.
G#0 Legato (hold)

Edited May 19, 2020 by Greg

[simon]

just booting it  up now - The GUI is great - I really hope they retro fit this to ezkeys...

[John Rammelt]

Yes, the Key Switch Layout document is your friend for playing EZbass live. 

Reid: I have never experienced any difficulty playing fast notes or high velocities. Something does not sound right about that.
What isn't clear in the interface but documented in the manual is that CC67 controls damping. Does your controller send CC67 for some reason? Anyways, that shouldn't affect playing fast notes but how fast are we talking about? I can play 16th notes @150 bpm (I can't keep the time but the notes sound).

Vernon: Slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs are on by default for the 2 neighbouring half notes and becomes a slide or Hamme-on/pull-off depending on how fast the second note is triggered. You can override this and perform long slides or legatos with the key switches.
If this translates well to other libraries, I can't tell, they must work the same way.

I am originally a bass player (although it was a long time ago I played it "for real" on stage) and I am really thrilled by what can be achieved with EZbass. 
Even though I enjoy playing stuff "live" on the keyboard, the versatility is great.
Since I have SD3, EZkeys and EZbass I can get a demo of an idea going in no time by first giving EZbass the drum midi for the playing style, dropping the EZkeys Song for the chords and it's a good start.

I confess I am biased though.

John

[Larry Shelby]

 

[Brian Walton]

Do they have a demo of this thing, or is it like SD3, where they expect you to pay as much as an actual instrument without playing it first?  

[Matthew Sorrels]

1 hour ago, Brian Walton said:

Do they have a demo of this thing, or is it like SD3, where they expect you to pay as much as an actual instrument without playing it first?  

From the FAQ https://www.toontrack.com/faq/ezbass-faq/

Quote

Q: Will there be a demo version of EZbass?
A: Yes, however, the demo will not be available for the EZbass launch on May 19th, 2020. The demo will be released eventually, but no ETA for a release date.

 

[Hidden Symmetry]

3 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

From the FAQ https://www.toontrack.com/faq/ezbass-faq/

 

Good to know, I always like to demo VI's if possible. By that time any bugs should be ironed out too.

[Matthew Sorrels]

They have already shipped one update to the Windows version.  It was there right after the initial install.

[musical]

18 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

They have already shipped one update to the Windows version.  It was there right after the initial install.

Yes. Saw and downloaded that. Can't decide whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.

[Reid Rosefelt]

2 hours ago, Greg said:

As far as playability - did you get a chance to look at the keyswitch pdf?  I copied and pasted the list below.  I suspect you could use the repeater key switch for faster playing?  

Also - might be worth posting a message on the support forum if you haven't if something isn't working as you would expect?  I haven't had the experience of a "whiff" sound yet (and I like to try to break things :). could you elaborate or post a midi file?

I am really liking this release.  I also have most of the other Bass VSTis (MODO, Ample etc,) but this is pretty special for building a bass track.   

 

KEY SWITCHES.

A-1  Polyphony (hold
A#-1- Harmonic (hold). Play harmonics.

B-1 Slap/Pop (hold). Play slap sounds if available.
C0 Not used.

C#0 Middle Finger/Down Stroke. Play only middle finger/down
stroke (no alteration).
D0-Repeater (press). Repeat the last played note.

 

D#0 Loud Mute (press). Repeat the last played note as
a percussive mute.
E0 Ghost Note (press). Repeat the last played note
as a ghost note.
F0 Slide Down (press). Slide currently playing note down.
F#0 Slide (press and hold). Slide currently playing note to the
next note played.
G0 Slide Up (press). Slide currently playing note up.
G#0 Legato (hold)

No, I didn't look at the key switch PDF during my brief test.  Thanks for that.   I've been playing with them.  In keeping with the great GUI, they are shown on screen. 

It's possible I unknowingly hit the key switches for mutes or ghost notes, but I don't think so.  I'm still not crazy about it as an intuitively playable instrument. But I'll keep at it.  It's certainly nice that it has harmonics and all that stuff--I just need to get experienced with using those articulations.  I don't see the point of the repeater.  If I want to repeat a D, it's just easier for me to repeat the D on the D. 

These key switches will have a big impact on any bass VI you drag it into.  You'll have to  either remove them or edit them.

@cclarry  I tried it in Standalone, in Komplete Kontrol, in PluginGuru Unify and in Cubase.    I'll be using it within Komplete Kontrol in Cubase.
I wil make a KK template for it so I can see all the key switches in the light guides.

 

[TheMaartian]

$162.68 with AZ tax at Sweetwater. YOLO!

EDIT 1: Serial number received within 2 minutes! Installing now.

EDIT 2: Here's a link to Sweetwater's Quick Start Guide: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/ezbass-quickstart-guide/

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Maar