EZdrummer 2: time signature changes

[Hazy]

I have made a song in Reaper 64 with various...

I have made a song in Reaper 64 with various tempo and time signature changes. EZdrummer follows the tempo changes perfectly but stays in 4/4. This means that e.g. measure 21 in Reaper is measure 17 in EZdrummer, bars in EZdrummer don’t start at the first beat etc., which make it very hard to find a fitting groove.

It would be great if EZdrummer would change time signature in sync with Reaper or alternatively if I could enter these changes manually in the Song Track.

I have made a song in Reaper 64 with various tempo and time signature changes. EZdrummer follows the tempo changes perfectly but stays in 4/4. This means that e.g. measure 21 in Reaper is measure 17 in EZdrummer, bars in EZdrummer don’t start at the first beat etc., which make it very hard to find a fitting groove.

It would be great if EZdrummer would change time signature in sync with Reaper or alternatively if I could enter these changes manually in the Song Track.

2

Thanked by: roliva and Ian Neal

Topic

[Jdickson]

Since submitting my (somewhat harsh) review, and after speaking with my salesperson at Sweetwater, I  upgraded to Superior-3. I have not had a chance to fully explore yet, but on the surface, it appears that it will be much better suited to my purposes. I suppose that my biggest beef is, that from a user’s standpoint, I would have expected all global musical parameters, such as bar numbers, tempos, and time signatures to always be synced to the DAW, even on the less expensive EZ Drummer 2.  Maybe they will be one day. I hope that Toontrack will be a leader in this area, even if it requires designing a new plugin protocol. This would be very appealing in the professional world where time is money and mistakes can be unforgiveable. Since these apps function more like a DAW within a DAW, their timeline parameters should always be hard-linked (especially bar numbers!). If play is pressed on one or the other, everything should sync and go (unless intentionally un-linked). This is even more important when video, lighting control, etc. is part of the equation (I am a big fan of seamless integration…). The fun-factor would also go off the charts!

In your defense, the audio quality is beyond awesome! These samples are extremely well recorded and the degree of control is very impressive. Many of the features are useful, flexible and intuitive, and the availability of a wide variety of expansion add-ons is quite impressive. I look forward to having this type of power at my fingertips!

[Matt Agrell]

I know this is an old topic and that ToonTrack’s answer is that you should be using their other product if you make complicated music.

Thats a crappy answer to deny one of the basic musical functions: Pitch, Time, Tempo. The EZ part of the name we all bought into is

—not having to own a full kit and all the mics needed to record it—

Make it easy please, don’t deny us the ability to create music that has a sophisticated use of time. I get why superior drummer costs more, you get 11 different room mics for gosh sake (if you need that) and 235GB of high quality sounds etc. A great product I am sure. That basic musical functions that would be expected of a drummer are left out of Ezdrummer is a poor choice by Toontrack. I am sure the moderator who chimed in must be right that most people would not miss being able to write in 11/8, however some of us do miss it and don’t need the additional sounds and mix features of Superior Drummer 3.

I request you put a manual time signature change in to Ez drummer. Or change the advertising so that the lack of this basic musical feature is called out clearly.

1

Thanked by: roliva

[roliva]

Same as everyone here – bought EZ Drummer 2 a week ago, trying to track a song that fluctuates between 3/4 and 2/4 and am surprised I can’t at least manually change the song track to match my DAW. The sound is amazing but, ugh…

[Lepaco]

+1

🙁

• This post was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Lepaco.

[fcarosone]

The capability of adding time signature and tempo changes in the EZDrummer Song Track has been added in EZD3 finally, so I purchased the odd-time MIDI packs

Yet, I still have some troubles in v3.

I did time signature changes in the DAW and introduced manually in the song track in EZD3: that worked fine. Just remember, if you insert new fresh measures in the DAW, the DAW might shift automatically the following signature changes, while EZD3 does not do it and you have to move the shifts in the song track yourself.

In another project I had many slight tempo changes to follow real players, and EZD3 as a VST followed nicely, but when I exported the Song Track as a wav, the wav does not follow those changes. I am in “Follow Host” mode. If a disable Follow Host , tempo in EZD3 goes back to 120bpm fixed and is even more wrong.

Is importing the tempo map from the DAW to EZD the only way to make it work in this case? Since it followed the tempo changes without doing anything I was illuded… Thanks

[John]

Hi,

when you have ‘Follow Host’ Enabled in EZD3, it syncs to the Tempo sent by the DAW/host to the plug-in.
Time Signature, however, is not sent by the host, so you need to have it/them registered on the EZD3 Song Track to “see” it/them there.
If you export a MIDI file from your host project (does not matter what’s in it), it will contain both Tempo and Time Signature changes and via the ‘Track’ Menu, you can Import these Tempo and Time Signature maps to your EZD3 Song Track.

When using the EZD3 Song Track Export of Audio Files, the host is not running the Timeline, so if you have ‘Follow Host’ Enabled while doing the Export, the resulting files will just use the Tempo at the current Timeline position in the host. Disable ‘Follow Host’ while Exporting the Song Track Audio and make sure you have Imported Tempo and Time Signature from a MIDI file from the Host Project and the resulting files will play back as expected when Imported to your host Project.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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