[norbert nolin]

Can’t thank ToonTrack enough for this! Just installed update without a hitch on OSX and instantly located all custom midis.

[norbert nolin]

I spent some time looking at how the search works and found on OSX there is a folder in /Library/Application Support/EZDrummer/Database that contains folders for all the TT product packs with a midiDB file for each. The files look related to SQL Lite databases for each pack and are all pre-defined per package, it’s not a per midi file indexing. They are large and have assignments for the attributes listed in the Search tab as well as groupings for the related beats. I think this is what they were talking about with the manual work, which even if was done by feeding into scripts is a major amount of work and hats off to them for doing it. So the match seems based on attributes and prior definition, not a magic algorithm looking at kit hits, velocities and timestamps to figure out the feel of a song being rock or country out of that based on what would still require a lot of manual training.

For user modified or 3rd party support, it seems there is a need for attribute definitions and package name for the user imported package to fit the current way it’s being done with databases per package. Maybe an import button could pull up a folder box to import and set all to user selected attributes for the import so that all the patterns in that folder would go to that named package? It would be a way to import and bulk tag, and up to the user to group accordingly but it could require a lot of prep to minimize the number of databases and packages so the more it is looked at the more I appreciate TT delaying this feature.

Aside from tech issues, if I were TT I think I’d have little incentive for wanting to give up unlocking tap2find/search for 3rd party to a basic EZDrummer2 license. They sell and have a lot of great packs so think it fair that an additional license were needed. Maybe one price for customers who have purchased some number of EZX or Midi packs to have a reduced price license upgrade as an option and a higher unlocked key price for EZDrummer2 only licenses. Other loop vendors that sell loops for EZDrummer2 could have the ability to sell indexed sets with some kind of reciprocal arrangement with TT that might include a premium for a Tap2Find logo. There could also be a need to have some limit on user imports to prevent people from bulk importing supported vendor packages that could have thousands of loops and should have paid for the tap2find/search enabled. Either way the issue doesn’t seem as cut and dry as a matching algorithm command line utility to address but I hope something can be done.

[norbert nolin]

Hope my comment wasn’t seen as TT did an intentional thing, I get that a serious amount of manual work was done on the categories. I think the updates to the existing packs added indexing files as part of the update.

In my use case a lot of loop searches are done to build cover song sequences. Guitar Pro and other sites can be used to find, what are normally poor multi-track midi’s of cover beats. Then spend endless time building backing drum patterns and tweaking midis instead of playing guitar. Getting to a short list of usable, not necessarily exact cover patterns and modest fills, is the goal. More often than not a few appropriate fills and variations from Ringo are more appropriate from a digital drummer in a live setting than ones from Keith Moon on acid.

A very useful TT web site update would be to associate cover song names with the EZX loops in EZDrummer and online package libraries. I’d pay for that as a separate subscription option with ala-cart downloads of associated midis, maybe even tied to a TT song pattern request service (open to contributing E-drummers for hire) if it’s not there. If GrooveMonkee etc. can parter, all the better to not reinvent wheels. Being a non-drummer it is a task to always know what pattern name to go looking for that best fits a particular cover with associated fills. Funk 6/8 triplet is what song? Hopefully licensed music libraries could be used to do an automated match to get that index built to reduce searches to a usable sequence in an hour vs. days when starting from scratch.

[norbert nolin]

Any update on this? Can it be added to a tracked FAQ with estimated release date?

I updated to this version in large part to do beat find on my Beat Buddy drum machine and in other libraries like from Groove Monkee in addition to the EZX ones. Look at it this way, the faster I know my existing loops don’t fit, the faster I will buy more EZX libraries. Don’t be like Logic (Apple Loops) and lock the best features of the product to only your brand. If the loops are better, more diverse etc. they will be selected.

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