EZ Drummer 3 Pre-Order NOW LIVE!

[topaz]

The problem is waiting so long for an update and mdrummer coming along and killing it. 

[Yan Filiatrault]

2 hours ago, marled said:

That's 21st century software ! ? 

No sincerly, I feel that a lot of software from medium and large companies got definitely worse in the last 7-10 years! For each fixed bug there are 2 new ones, the software gets slower and requires much more space. Where is the improvement for the customers?

If Apple stops screwing the compatibility with each OS change, that would help for a start.

[Tim Smith]

Sorry for the BFD incursion there guys and thanks for the suggestions. 

 

[Marc Cormier]

5 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

Sorry for the BFD incursion there guys and thanks for the suggestions. 

 

No worries.  There's lots of people wishing better for BFD3, me included.

[PavlovsCat]

As an owner of the first version of ezDrummer and Superior Drummer 2 -- which I use regularly -- I'm very encouraged that Toontrack is extending upgrade pricing to owners of the first version of ezDrummer (as they presently don't offer upgrade pricing for SD3). I'm hoping they'll do the same when they release SD4. 

I love Superior Drummer and SD libraries  -- even some of the ezDrummer libraries are excellent -- more than any other drum plugin, but the price for SD3 is pretty steep and Toontrack pulling upgrade pricing for SD2 owners was a far less than customer-loyal move, IMO. 

[PavlovsCat]

5 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

Sorry for the BFD incursion there guys and thanks for the suggestions. 

 

This is the Cakewalk forum. That's not even something worth worrying about. It can't hold a candle to some of the tangents most of us have gone on here! Plus, it was related and relevant to the topic of drum plugins and the choices many of us  face (for example, I own ezD, SD2, AD2, BFD Eco and numerous KONTAKT drum libraries). I've long considered BFD, but I never pulled the trigger because the demos didn't win me over the way SD demos have (and I love almost every ToonTrack library I own and want more) and when they recently offered an upgrade price of $49 USD from BFD Eco, I seriously researched moving to BFD3, but I've seen a great deal of posts from BFD3  users sharing serious unresolved issues with the plugin and I have prior serious, show-stopping bad experiences with InBrand plugins (AIR plugins) that went unresolved for a long, long time, so I'm not ready to buy anything from AIR again until I see A LOT of community members I'm familiar with posting that their issues are resolved. 

[Scott H]

Found this image of the seven drum kits included in EZD3. It looks like it might not be completely accurate.  From the promo page, we know that one of the kits is a Yamaha Absolute Hybrid Mable and another is a Gretsch USA Custom. Not sure what other 5 kits are.  

Edited April 6, 2022 by Scott H

[Tim Smith]

19 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

This is the Cakewalk forum. That's not even something worth worrying about. It can't hold a candle to some of the tangents most of us have gone on here! Plus, it was related and relevant to the topic of drum plugins and the choices many of us  face (for example, I own ezD, SD2, AD2, BFD Eco and numerous KONTAKT drum libraries). I've long considered BFD, but I never pulled the trigger because the demos didn't win me over the way SD demos have (and I love almost every ToonTrack library I own and want more) and when they recently offered an upgrade price of $49 USD from BFD Eco, I seriously researched moving to BFD3, but I've seen a great deal of posts from BFD3  users sharing serious unresolved issues with the plugin and I have prior serious, show-stopping bad experiences with InBrand plugins (AIR plugins) that went unresolved for a long, long time, so I'm not ready to buy anything from AIR again until I see A LOT of community members I'm familiar with posting that their issues are resolved. 

EZ DRummer has been my last and least used drum program. TBH I sort of bought it on a whim. I began with BFD back from the eco days and eventually moved to BFD3. I have all the drum kits in NI Komplete which is quite substantial and I think often overlooked for some  reason. There's a lot of drum heft in those kits. Then I added Addictive Drums. Add to this all of the kits and pads in Ableton which I can load and I can play on my controller pads. PLUS the tons of drum samples and loops in Sampletank MAX. It's gigs and gigs of drum samples. Not to mention all the loops and stuff in Mixcraft and Acid. Oh and I have a bunch of midi drum loops from 3rd party vendors....so I ain't hurtin' for drums lol.

Many serious mixers will send drum tracks individually to Cakewalk or another DAW so each drum track can be treated separately and I think this is the best way to mix drums, but I often opt for the path of least resistance and mix in the drum GUI because I'm not usually mixing a huge kit with a lot of requirements. This seems to be where VST drums have been headed for a long time now. I like the option to send tracks per track to my DAW though as a group. The only advantage I see to the built in GUI is the overhead mics. You can get a very similar or maybe even better thing happening as separate tracks with a bus in your DAW. The drawbacks to mixing in the drum GUI are we are stuck with the plugins they give you. If they work great. If they don't not so great. Automation might be more of a challenge as well compared to automating in the DAW. In other drum programs this can be accomplished. My guess is SD2 might have it since it's a more pro program. I see EZ Drummer as more of a beginner program that gets the job done. I'll admit I liked the program.

The competition now seems to be concentrating on the design and implementation of the GUI and the quality of the midi loops aside from sample quality.

I mean, there isn't much else. It's just samples all organized to play like a drum kit on a grid. How will this new version of EZD improve on that model? Can the listener tell if the shell was maple or not, or which heads and sticks were used? I'll bet I could play you samples blind and we would be surprised which ones you thought were better. Can a listener pick out EZD from BFD3 or AD3 on a record? 

 

[Bapu]

2 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

Can a listener pick out EZD from BFD3 or AD3 on a record? 

Nope. Just like they probably cannot tell if I used BOZ's Manic Compressor or FabFilter C2 or or or.... ? 

[Tim Smith]

At one time I could have sworn I could pick out BFD 2 from the others. To me it sounded the most like a real kit. It was probably the overheads that had more sheen. Sounded crisp, like I was hearing them in an acoustically live hall. 

If we were betting a hamburger on this one though, you might be able to fool me using different techniques in the others.

I would rather have a live crisp sample that is too crisp than a sample that never quite made it and attempt to make it crisp. To me EZ Drummer sounded less crisp. More like a kit made to fit in the most mixes well. Not a lot of sheen on those last samples. It will be interesting to hear these.

[LAGinz]

On 4/5/2022 at 12:02 PM, PavlovsCat said:

This is the Cakewalk forum. That's not even something worth worrying about. It can't hold a candle to some of the tangents most of us have gone on here! Plus, it was related and relevant to the topic of drum plugins and the choices many of us  face (for example, I own ezD, SD2, AD2, BFD Eco and numerous KONTAKT drum libraries). I've long considered BFD, but I never pulled the trigger because the demos didn't win me over the way SD demos have (and I love almost every ToonTrack library I own and want more) and when they recently offered an upgrade price of $49 USD from BFD Eco, I seriously researched moving to BFD3, but I've seen a great deal of posts from BFD3  users sharing serious unresolved issues with the plugin and I have prior serious, show-stopping bad experiences with InBrand plugins (AIR plugins) that went unresolved for a long, long time, so I'm not ready to buy anything from AIR again until I see A LOT of community members I'm familiar with posting that their issues are resolved. 

I’ve got EZ2, SD3, BFD Eco and BFD3. If the only criteria were sound, I’d probably use BFD3 on most of my projects. To me its drums just sound more real and dynamically correct - whereas the Toontrack stuff, to me at least, has a very slightly hyped up glossy quality to it. Unfortunately, sound is not the only criteria, and where Toontrack has created plugins that function seamlessly, BFD3  has been pretty much the opposite, or at least was the last time I tried its InMusic incarnation of it about 7 months ago. So, by default, Toontrack is ordinarily my go to.

[PavlovsCat]

I'm just counting on all of you BFD3 users to make sure you let us know when the plugin is stable. It's rather clear that it's not at this point. When it is, if they still have an upgrade deal from BFD Eco, I'm definitely going to get it. Until then, I'm out. SD is my go to and AD2 is my second choice. I realize it's really subjective. I fell in love with the sound of a couple of the SD expansions years ago -- that reminded me of the way I used to tune my drums. AD2 sounds really processed to me, nothing like what a well tuned drum kit sounds like when you're playing it and BFD just didn't sound all that exciting to my ears and similar to the way I liked to tune my drums (I played drums semi professionally for many years until I had an injury that stopped me from playing). But if BFD ever gets its tech issues worked out, and I can still pick it up for $100USD or less with upgrade pricing, I'm definitely getting it. Until then, I'm looking forward to the SD4 upgrade and hoping that Toontrack will offer SD4 upgrade pricing for SD2 customers as they have offered upgrade pricing to ezDrummer 1 customers. 

Edited April 7, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[LAGinz]

3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm just counting on all of you BFD3 users to make sure you let us know when the plugin is stable. It's rather clear that it's not at this point. When it is, if they still have an upgrade deal from BFD Eco, I'm definitely going to get it. Until then, I'm out. SD is my go to and AD2 is my second choice. I realize it's really subjective. I fell in love with the sound of a couple of the SD expansions years ago -- that reminded me of the way I used to tune my drums. AD2 sounds really processed to me, nothing like what a well tuned drum kit sounds like when you're playing it and BFD just didn't sound all that exciting to my ears and similar to the way I liked to tune my drums (I played drums semi professionally for many years until I had an injury that stopped me from playing). But if BFD ever gets its tech issues worked out, and I can still pick it up for $100USD or less with upgrade pricing, I'm definitely getting it. Until then, I'm looking forward to the SD4 upgrade and hoping that Toontrack will offer SD4 upgrade pricing for SD2 customers as they have offered upgrade pricing to ezDrummer 1 customers. 

If you’ve only previously heard BFD through Eco, you really haven’t fully heard the BFD sound. Not sure if it’s the sound engine, the way samples are processed or what.  But BFD3, despite all of its problems, sounds far superior to Eco.

[simon]

BFD3 is definitely 'usable' - it just still a bit too buggy for me and the their authorisation system is truly miserable.   Some of the BFD expansions have small glitches and sampling errors too.   Toontrack are bringing out updates and expansion all the time - BFD.....more or less never.  Promised fixes never seem to materialise.   Classic InMusic.

I think the question is do you buy into it as a 'new user' ?   We all know that InMusic have a terrible reputation and that seems to be true for BFD too.   Who knows what the future will bring ?   I understand that BFD4 isn't too far away, although in InMusic/BFD terms that could be years.

It's obviously a matter of opinion if you think BFD3 sounds better than SD3 - personally I find the later TT expansions to be far better than anything in BFD3, but others disagree

[Bapu]

What drum VST is the absolute best? Why, it's the one that fits the piece best. Sometimes AD, sometimes SD3, sometime SSD5, sometimes EZD2/3, sometimes CW Session Drummer and sometimes BFD3 and sometimes ...... 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Bapu

[simon]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

What drum VST is the absolute best? 

SD3

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by simon

[Tim Smith]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

What drum VST is the absolute best? Why, it's the one that fits the piece best. Sometimes AD, sometimes SD3, sometime SSD5, sometimes EZD2/3, sometimes CW Session Drummer and sometimes BFD3 and sometimes ...... 

I should have limited myself because I would spend hours looking for the holy grail of drums. Less choice means a faster choice for me.

Most pop and electronic mixes today are not terribly demanding on drums and don't necessarily need a lot of personality as compared to a more open acoustic mix. Dead samples actually work best in many of those mixes. Just boom boom boom. I could almost get away with 8 bit and no one would notice on some of it. People are not listening to the drums, they are following the beat.

For highlighting the drums though I want to hear the nice ting on those cymbals and feel like I'm there and that's probably going to be mostly in classic rock, prog rock, maybe some metal and jazz. I have heard some amazing mixes with great drums in Cakewalk using only CW Session drummer. That usually isn't me, but I've heard others do it and do it well. This goes to show that velocity levels and bit depth might not be as important as some have thought. If you can put the set in a realistic environment and have everything EQd right a good mixer doesn't need much.

My experiences with BFD 3 were mainly re registering it and loosing some of my kits when the changeover happened. I haven't noticed any major bugs with the program itself in Cakewalk. SD3 is one of the few I haven't tried,but I continue to hear good things about it. It's probably at least in par with BFD 3 ? In that line I think I might be looking for that upgrade/crossgrade price. The thing that turned a lot of BFD2 users off was they changed the gui to  and some of the ways you worked in it have been changed. And if one thing is certain, many people don't like change once they are used to something.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Tim Smith

[LAGinz]

Haven’t waded through all the promotional material on EZDrummer 3, but one question to which I hope the obvious answer is yes: Will we be able to use all the kits (standard and expansion) as well as standard and purchased midipacks which we already have with 2?

[simon]

7 minutes ago, LAGinz said:

Haven’t waded through all the promotional material on EZDrummer 3, but one question to which I hope the obvious answer is yes: Will we be able to use all the kits (standard and expansion) as well as standard and purchased midipacks which we already have with 2?

yes I believe so

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Tim Smith said:

I should have limited myself because I would spend hours looking for the holy grail of drums. Less choice means a faster choice for me.

Most pop and electronic mixes today are not terribly demanding on drums and don't necessarily need a lot of personality as compared to a more open acoustic mix. Dead samples actually work best in many of those mixes. Just boom boom boom. I could almost get away with 8 bit and no one would notice on some of it. People are not listening to the drums, they are following the beat.

For highlighting the drums though I want to hear the nice ting on those cymbals and feel like I'm there and that's probably going to be mostly in classic rock, prog rock, maybe some metal and jazz. I have heard some amazing mixes with great drums in Cakewalk using only CW Session drummer. That usually isn't me, but I've heard others do it and do it well. This goes to show that velocity levels and bit depth might not be as important as some have thought. If you can put the set in a realistic environment and have everything EQd right a good mixer doesn't need much.

My experiences with BFD 3 were mainly re registering it and loosing some of my kits when the changeover happened. I haven't noticed any major bugs with the program itself in Cakewalk. SD3 is one of the few I haven't tried,but I continue to hear good things about it. It's probably at least in par with BFD 3 ? In that line I think I might be looking for that upgrade/crossgrade price. The thing that turned a lot of BFD2 users off was they changed the gui to  and some of the ways you worked in it have been changed. And if one thing is certain, many people don't like change once they are used to something.

Well, I'm just a hobbyist who worked professionally as a drummer many years ago, but I can't play anymore and I just do music as a hobby, so I'm looking for realistic sounding acoustic kits. the demos of BFD3 easily sound good enough to justify spending $49USD on an upgrade from ECO -- and I bought a bunch of BFD libraries -- like the eSoundz Neil Peart kit -- years ago thinking I was going to upgrade to the full BFD, but never did. So, if you're no longer having any problems, you're making me think that maybe I should take the plunge. I use the latest version of Cakewalk with Windows 10.  

Please any BFD3 users, please weigh in on whether you think this is a decent time for me to get the upgrade to BFD3 or if there are still major problems with the plugin. I would greatly appreciate it. $49 is less than the price of another SD library, so it's super tempting. But if the plugin still has major problems, of course, it's not worth it. I know that I waited around 1 year before AIR fixed one of their plugins I owned, so I realize that InMusic regularly buys up old plugin brands and uses them as cash cows, not even investing enough to get a bug free product out and BFD clearly has been no exception to the rule. But perhaps the plugin is working satisfactorily at this point?