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[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: UndergroundGuitarist

It fully delivers on the sales promise, “it is what you want it to be”

I want Beatstation to be my personal assistant and my butler.
I want it to do my laundry and make my bed. I want it to clean out the mold from my A/C. I want it to stop the milk from spoiling before I use all of it, and I want it to pay all my bills and do my taxes for me. I also want it to import my favorite beers from Belgium and my favorite cheeses from France. I want it to get me into first class on flights and get me priority shipping upgraded for free on all my online purchasing. I want it to listen to the deepest longings of my heart when my wife is already asleep and I want it to make my studio smell like lavender. I would like it to stop the progression of the military industrial complex in my home country and give me good advice for investing in green companies while on the way home from a more stable and predictable job. I want it to teach me how to bake awesome bread and I want it to ensure that the Tar Heels never lose to Duke again. I want beatstation to be the answer to world peace and write all my songs for me. There, I said it. I want beatstation to do and be all those things. Can it deliver all that? Please say yes. Please, for the love of God, say yes.

Wow, sorry, guys. I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

(I hope this was taken with the simple humor I intended. I’m not knocking Beatstation or Toontrack in any way, shape, or form. Their products have totally transformed my studio work for the better, and I recommend them to anyone in the business. With their track record, I’m sure Beatstation is well worth checking out.)

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: mfefc

Ahhhhh unlucky scotty boy!

Do us a favor then, sneak round the office and see what you can dig up on the next project and report back, then guess what??? I reckon youd get a bloody long holiday!

See, problem solved, call me Mark ‘TT Staff S#*t Advice Advisor’ (Update it in my signature please).

I await my knighthood………………………………

Do you want to pay for his airfare to Sweden?

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Welcome back, FarBeyond.
I hadn’t seen you around these parts much lately…

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Nice! Thanks, Scott.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

sure, that would make sense.

I do remember Rail saying at some point that Platinum was planning on releasing other libraries of theirs for Superior, but it was conditional on how well the Joe Barresi pack sold first.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

OK, everybody–chill. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually quite good around here, so let’s just take a step back, cool?

Hi, Willy. Welcome to the forum! I think you’ll find this is a very good place to hang out and ask questions, even if this thread hasn’t gone the way you wanted so far.

Personally, I’m just a little confused as to which products you currently own. Obviously you own SD2 and EZD. Do you also own Custom & Vintage? Do you own any other expansions?

Generally speaking, I’m very sympathetic to what you’re saying here. I tend to think a lot of drum packs cater to folks who want drums to be fairly busy and to be the focus of a mix. I’m not one of those people. I have found some really good, simple fills scattered about in the stock MIDI files played by Nir Z (the Avatar kit and MIDI). Some of them are a lot busier than I ever want personally, but some of them are really good and straightforward. Likewise with Nir Z’s work on Allaire/Hit Factory. I also think Chris played some great fills in the C&V pack. I haven’t yet picked up the new Songwriter’s Fills Pack, but I do have the Songwriter’s MIDI Pack, and I think those grooves are really well done, so I would have high hopes for the fills pack, as well. They’re played by the same drummer.

I haven’t been as happy with the grooves I’ve picked up from Groove Monkee, personally. But maybe that’s just me.

All in all, there are some good, simple, straightforward, non-showy fills in there–you just have to hunt for them a bit.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Well, in the case of Platinum Samples, it’s up to THEM what to port over, not Toontrack. Platinum Samples have already said that if the Evil Drums SDX sells well, they will port over other products, like the Andy Johns package.

I imagine Toontrack would be delighted if there were some other SDX packages, but once they’ve licensed out the engine to a 3rd party, it’s no longer in their hands as to what gets ported over or when.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

We shot the whole video right here in the village where I live, Alega. We’re about 30 minutes east of Pago Pago in the Unorganized US Territory of American Samoa.

Most of the stuff we did was in that broken down house that I think was taken out by a cyclone a few years ago. The waterfall is about a 5 minute hike behind a house 3 doors down from us. The other stuff is just scenery along the road where we walk most days. It is very beautiful here, despite the societal problems.

Also, I edited my original post to note that the song is available on my site in a higher res format on a different page, audio only.

Thanks for the kind words, Scott.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

ORIGINAL: K2000

I’m running Snow Leopard (10.6.3) but my Adobe software (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects) is not 64 bits. I think Adobe is finally releasing 64 bit versions just recently… I don’t have any of them yet.

So to be clear, I can install EZDrummer, I don’t need to do anything special…? I poked around a bit on the forum and saw some posts about bridging (?) somehow which I guess is no longer applicable. Cool!

BTW, I really liked the sounds of the New York Studios expansion – those really sounded fantastic. My friend recommended DFH, which seems a little more modern-sounding than what I like, but once everything else is added, it will probably work well. It will be a start, anyway.

Thanks for your help!

So here’s the real deal (forget about Musician’s Friend–they’re not particularly knowledgeable over there about these kinds of things):
There is currently a 64-bit beta of Superior Drummer (henceforth, SD2) for PCs, but nothing for Macs yet on that front. Same with EZDrummer (henceforth, EZD).

Assuming you have the most recent version of Logic Pro, it defaults to opening in 32-bit mode. You can easily get it to open in 64-bit mode instead, if you need to go that route, but until your plugs are 64-bit, it’s probably not the best move for you. It can be done, but I’d advise sticking to 32-bit mode until your plugs are fully ported over. (If you used other large sample libraries that were ported to 64-bit already, then I’d say yeah, go for it.)

So then, yes, you can install EZD just fine, no problems whatsoever. Same with SD2.

Now, in terms of your original post, here are my thoughts. First, it’s not that surprising that Logic Pro doesn’t come with many more options than the Jam Packs for percussion loops. It would be a little bit like including a bunch of pre-made company logos with Adobe Illustrator. Sure, you could adjust the vectors a bit, change the colors, etc, but really, Illustrator is a professional application that sort of assumes you know what you’re doing. Same with Logic Pro. (I hope this is a good comparison–heck, maybe Illustrator does come with that kind of thing! I use Vector Designer instead.) Plus, there are so many third-party add ons you can buy for exactly this kind of thing.

Next, in dealing with your major question, I would tend to recommend EZD for you. EZD still allows you to tweak a bit, and as John mentioned, you can always send the sounds out individually to Logic, and then you can do whatever the heck you want with them there. Since you say, “I’m not a real drummer or engineer, so maybe Superior Drummer is overkill for me. Given the choice of 8 snare drums to choose from, it might just be wasted on me”, I’d advise you to go with EZD. You can always pick up the Crossgrade one day if you’ve really gotten into it and hit the ceiling of what EZD can provide.

The next question would really be which expansion pack to get for your style of music. There’s certainly the ‘Drumkit From Hell’ pack, but you might also want to check out the Vintage Rock EZX. It might go in the direction of the stuff you’re into–Sabbath and the like. I don’t really work on that genre of music, so I’m not the best resource for that. The New York Studios expansion you refer to is actually an SDX, so it will only work with SD2, not with EZD.

I would also echo John’s thought that you should pick up a couple of the Monster MIDI packs. There’s one that involves odd time signatures, if I recall. If you’re using odd time signatures, it will pay in spades for you to get Logic’s bars and beats to match what you’re trying to do with the time signature. It’s dead-simple to do it, and very quick, and it’ll help line everything up for you with the song structure.

I want to mostly say to you that this is an exciting journey you’re on. The Toontrack products are excellent. I can say that without bias, as I don’t work for the company. They are making some really, really wonderful products right now, and this is a community that is very open to helping one another, so don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Cheers, and best of luck to you.

Mark

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Hi wailinsmash,
Welome to the forums. This is a pretty helpful bunch around here, so this is a great place to start researching and asking any questions you may have. It might be helpful to do some searches, as well, since obviously many folks will have wondered some of the same things you probably are right now. Having said that, don’t be afraid to ask for help here.

In terms of your system specs, this is what I’m seeing on the EZDrummer product page: “Mac OS 10.4.11 or higher, G5 or Intel processor with 512 MB RAM.” So my initial guess is that no, your system won’t work. At least in theory. Who knows if it would work in practice? I have an older G4 of about the same vintage as yours, but I haven’t fired it up in over a year now, and haven’t used it for real audio work in quite a long time. It is definitely long in the tooth, as they say. I would probably consider a newer machine. Even a used first-generation Intel iMac would shock you with how much more power it has compared to your G4. Of course, I recognize there may be other reasons for you continuing to use the system you have.

So, short answer: “no, it won’t work.”
long answer: “who knows? Maybe it will, though it would probably be quite slow.”

Hope this is in some way helpful.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Yikes, the market is pretty flooded with amp sims already, several of them very good, IMO.
I really wouldn’t want the TT gang to spread themselves thin and lose focus on SD continued development.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Do you mean a place for people to share their Combined Presets and such? I think that could be really interesting, actually.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Well, the producer presets are just that: presets designed by a particular producer. If you like the drum sounds the producer in question gets on records, then you would check out their ‘producer presets.’

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Mark Williams]

Yeah, tiari, please explain a bit more, or offer up some clips. I certainly believe you when you say you’re having a problem, I just want us to be able to help you.

FWIW, I have never experienced the kind of thing you’re talking about. I would imagine it would be maddening.

Also, please give us more details on your system: machine specs, OS, DAW host and version, SD2 version, etc.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

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