Use EZKeys without a controller/keyboard?

[Neb]

I’m on vacation right now, and can’t watch any tutorial videos on my phone’s bandwidth.

Can EZKeys be used without having an actual piano keyboard/controller attached to your computer?

Also, in EZD2 you can manipulate the otherwise fixed midi files a little by:

1] Manually recording extra hits into your song timeline.
2] Using ‘edit play-style’ to automatically add or subtract hits on individual drums and change velocity.
3] Change the ‘opening hand’ and ‘power hand’, and the type of hit (Eg. bow, bell, edge, rimshot, muted)

Can you do similar kinds of adjustments to the fixed midi files which come with EZKeys?
Eg. Make the playing of a midi file simpler/busier’, legato/staccato, loose/tight timing?

Finally, can you drag/load normal, downloaded midi files into the EZKeys interface? Or the only midi files that will work are the EZKeys midi packs?

Thanks.

Beginner-level Guitarist/Drummer/Mixer. EZD2|3 / EZKeys1|2 / EZMix3.
Desktop - Ryzen 5 4650G @ 3.7GHz | 16Gb DDR4 | 1TB SSD | Win10 Pro.
Reaper | Roland Rubix 4x4 interface | Arturia Minilab II controller.

Topic

[John]

Hi,

you can use EZkeys without a MIDI controller. The Edit options differ from what you can do in EZdrummer 2.

1. you can also record to the Song Track in EZkeys
2. + 3. clicking a chord on the Song Track brings up the Circle of Fifths where you can change the chord and inversions.
   You can add an empty block with a mouse click and edit the chord. If you create a song structure like that with just entering chords with your mouse, you can “borrow” the playing style from MIDI files in the Browser by selecting your plain chord part(s) on the Song Track and then click ‘Use Browser MIDI’ followed by selecting a MIDI part in the Browser. Try this while playing back your Song Track MIDI.
   This does not need to be performed with plain ringing chords but can be done with any MIDI (well, not percussion MIDI of course).

You can indeed Import 3rd party MIDI to use with EZkeys.

 

BR,

John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Scott]

IMO, the ‘Use Browser MIDI’ is the hidden gem of EZkeys. Quickly create the chord progression of my song by clicking the add chord button or just plunking chords on my MIDI controllerv and recording it into the Song Track. Then selecting a section, the verse for example. Then browsing the MIDI to find something that fits. Makes me sound like I can play the keyboard!

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

1

Thanked by: John

[Neb]

Thank you both.

I’m looking forward to getting back home and watching some videos, but I think I’m already sold!

Beginner-level Guitarist/Drummer/Mixer. EZD2|3 / EZKeys1|2 / EZMix3.
Desktop - Ryzen 5 4650G @ 3.7GHz | 16Gb DDR4 | 1TB SSD | Win10 Pro.
Reaper | Roland Rubix 4x4 interface | Arturia Minilab II controller.

• This post was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Neb.

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