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[John]

Marcel I wanted to give you a couple links to other parts of the support forum here that you might enjoy reading.   These are located under Support/Forum/EZKeys instead of “Community”.

Here’s one good article you might like to glance at, it was a topic brought up by James Ford:
https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/how-to-write-piano-parts/

Another one was specifically brought up regarding copyright issue, post originated by John Bowen:
https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/copyright-issue/

Enjoy  🙂
John Dandrea

using both CW Sonar and Studio One 4 DAW; Win 10 OS; commercial audio loops as well as MIDI, EZDrummer and EZKeys; Presonus Studio 2/6 I/F; Nectar2 Production Ste; iZotope Ozone for mastering.

[John]

Marcel – ahhh, I see.  I also, use Studio One (Pro 4).  I was also using some of the built-in tools with studio one, but when I purchased the EZKeys Studio Grand package, I was so impressed with both the sound quality as well as the ease of use, that I quickly bought in to several other of the EZKeys MIDI add-ons, including Ballad, Ballad2, Singer/Songwriter, and (one of ) the Country kits I can’t recall which (I’m at my day job right now and not in my studio).   The fact that EZKeys operates so well in stand-alone mode, allows a very great degree of creative freedom to compose without even pulling up the full blown DAW.  I have probably created more than a dozen songs now, some instrumental as well as many with lyrics/vocals, and EZKeys has really become almost an addiction with me.

Back to your composition though, you’ve done remarkably well with using Studio One tools outside of your EZKeys classic electrics,  probably you have done a lot more work than you needed to by going that route (smile).   But your results are very good all the same!

Since you seem to be using the EZKeys in much the same creative mode as I do, I’d like to share with you a couple of the tunes that I’ve composed with my EZKeys Studio Grand, and I also have & use the EZDrummer2 bundle for my various rhythms.   My site is at http://www.johndandrea.com, click on the Music menu tab, and scroll down to find various albums of material that I’m always working on.   Album #8 has my latest 2 works with EZKeys and lyrics, one is called “To Be Near You Again”, the other new one I did is called “One More Road”.  If you’d care to hear a couple of my instrumental works that feature EZKeys, scroll up to Album #3, and check out “Forever Roses”, and “Iron City Shuffle”.  In fact, both of those instrumentals were so much fun, I made them into music videos also (I’m also a newbie videographer) , and the link to those videos is on my News/Blog menu tab.   Hope you enjoy.  I place stuff here in the forums from time to time, but I really am so busy working full time and composing & recording as a hobby, that I don’t often post too much.  But I love the quiet, easy listening and ballad styles and when I hear a composition that I really like, I just have to comment.

Finally, you mentioned about ethics and that it’s not you (us) who did the playing.  Yep, I’m sure that most all of us who have heard and used this absolutely incredible tool called EZKeys, feels that way to some extent.  And yet, this is just a reflection of where the “state of the art” is at today in digital audio sampling and recording.  If you look elsewhere on the EZKeys forum, you’ll see many rather lengthy discussions that I have participated in, regarding that exact topic.  It involves the ways that we as the creators, are using the tools like EZKeys to assemble the chords, progressions, and make modifications via our own MIDI DAW editors to get a note by note sound that best represents OUR own unique melody that we create.   I think that you’d enjoy those discussions, and we’ve had several excellent contributions by Toontrack’s own moderators here.   Keep on creating –  I think the more we use these tools, the more we gain the skills and the confidence to really move out more and more on our own (making our unique modifications)  and you realize that the tools are separate from the end-result song that we create, and that it’s not a dilemma or copyright issue.  Please feel free to chat at more length via email, you can reach  me on my site’s Contact menu.  I will try to pop in here to the forums more often, and I always welcome discussions involving creating songs with EZKeys.  I know I must sound like a commercial ad for the product (!) haha  but really I’m just one more happy user plugging away with such a fun and creative instrument.
best wishes,
John

using both CW Sonar and Studio One 4 DAW; Win 10 OS; commercial audio loops as well as MIDI, EZDrummer and EZKeys; Presonus Studio 2/6 I/F; Nectar2 Production Ste; iZotope Ozone for mastering.

[John]

Marcel – I love what you did here, “What If” sounds beautiful.   I am curious to ask you, if you did not have any form of EZKeys acoustic piano, what EZKeys instrument do you have?   What software did you use then, for your acoustic piano sound?    In any case, I enjoyed “What If” very much, nice work!

I have the acoustic piano bundle in EZKeys and several of the MIDI add-on packs, and I am about to post some new work on here.  I do agree with you, that EZKeys is a very inspirational piece of composition software, I have come to rely on it very much for my own writing.   Thank you for posting your song!
Best regards,
John

using both CW Sonar and Studio One 4 DAW; Win 10 OS; commercial audio loops as well as MIDI, EZDrummer and EZKeys; Presonus Studio 2/6 I/F; Nectar2 Production Ste; iZotope Ozone for mastering.

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Thanked by: Marcel_36

[John]

Correction to location above –  I’ve found that any time I upload a revision to a song on my website, it changes the location number in the link.  So it’s best I give you a location to the main page, then direct you to the song.   So it’s at my site at:   http://www.johndandrea.com   then just navigate to:  Music / CD3 / Movin’ On.   EZKeys and EZDrummer made this song fun to record even though I wrote it back in 1983.   It’s a ballad style song.  Hope you enjoy.
John

using both CW Sonar and Studio One 4 DAW; Win 10 OS; commercial audio loops as well as MIDI, EZDrummer and EZKeys; Presonus Studio 2/6 I/F; Nectar2 Production Ste; iZotope Ozone for mastering.

[John]

Correction to location above –  I’ve found that any time I upload a revision to a song on my website, it changes the location number in the link.  So it’s best I give you a location to the main page, then direct you to the song.   So it’s at my site at:   http://www.johndandrea.com   then just navigate to:  Music / CD3 / Ten Years From Now.   EZKeys and EZDrummer made this a cool song to record, and my friend Steve who wrote this song back in 1992, is an amazing songwriter.  Enjoy.
John

using both CW Sonar and Studio One 4 DAW; Win 10 OS; commercial audio loops as well as MIDI, EZDrummer and EZKeys; Presonus Studio 2/6 I/F; Nectar2 Production Ste; iZotope Ozone for mastering.

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