[Richard D Squires]

I have EZ 2 and I love it but I’d love to be able to add drums if I want them and adjust the way EZ takes my Roland linear input and perhaps offset the sensitivity. The reason I haven’t upgraded is like a lot of people here the 3D soundfield which sounds cool and other features that are more for serious production environment are just not what I really need. Also I have been offput by the massive size of the library “in excess of 250 GB of raw data” I don’t want to shell out extra for the ssd. So I am waiting for SD lite to be honest that works with my existing sound packs.

[Richard D Squires]

@Andrew Morris said:
This is a super old post, I know, but is there really a big difference between say.. a TD25 and an Alesis DM10/DM10X if you’re using it with SD or EZ?

Just wondering as I’m looking at a DM10, but if it’s for whatever reason not as good as a TD25 when coupled with EZ then maybe I’m not looking at the right factors.  

So I can’t say anything about the Alesis. Never played it at all. What makes the TD25 super good and much better than the previous TD9 I had was the Supernatural engine. It is way more subtle at detecting the nuances of playing than the earlier machines. If you just want something that triggers at fairly defined velocities then I am sure that most drum modules/pads will do the trick. What sets Roland ahead of the pack in my opinion is the Supernatural engine. That said recently I have been playing the Roland with EZ Drummer 2 and I have to say the subtlety actually is almost too much. When doing tom rolls it seemed to almost miss some of the subtler hits. I need to probably tune the drum triggering a bit to get it more how I want it, but it would be good to have it on the EZ Drummer side. I think this is very much easier in Superior Drummer 3 which does look absolutely amazing

[Richard D Squires]

@CJ_17 said:

Appreciate the feedback OP.
Considering EZD is doing the bulk of the work is there any significant difference between running off your TD25, as opposed to a TD11 etc?

I had the TD 9 and it lacked the Supernatural tech that makes the TD25 so nice to play. So there is a benefit as the velocity and nuance from the TD25 translates to EZ But don’t take my word for it. I never tried TD9 with EZ, but it was much more “triggery” than the 25 which has a good feel especially on the snare

[Richard D Squires]

@Pierre said:

This is exactly the post I was looking for!

I’ve loved EZDrummer 2 since I bought it, but I’m tired of programming drums with a keyboard, and I’ve been searching for a good electric drum kit to trigger EZD2. I was leaning towards an Alesis DM-10 or Crimson, but just tried the Crimson at Guitar Center and wasn’t impressed, so I tried the Roland TD 30, which is obviously awesome, as it should be for its price point. I don’t want to spend $7500, so how does the TD 25 compare?

What interface are you using? Any issues with setup and getting EZD2 to trigger?

Thanks
Pierre

Hi

The thing worth noting about the TD30 (which is awesome by the way) is that it is the kit I would love if money were no object. In terms of playability for a drummer it is peerless. And there are many better drummers than I who vouch for it’s quality in terms of sheer playability.

Which brings us to the TD25. It takes a lot of the playability of the TD30 and packs it in a very attractive smaller package. Playability is very good but after having teamed it with EZ Drummer 2 sonically it starts to really give the TD30 a run for its money. The TD 30 is very customizable soundwise, you have lots of options. By once you go down the route of using the interface as a midi trigger then those options become less important and in fact the built in Roland sounds have been occasionally criticized for their sometimes over synthetic sounds.

EZ Drummer 2 pairs so well with the TD 25. I was surprised to be honest. If you already love the sounds of it then I can’t recommend trying this paring out enough. As I said in my post, it comes with a Roland preset and the curve Hi Hat settings to adjust for playing style. The only criticism of EZDrummer 2 is that you can’t modify the triggering settings so some setups have drums that won’t be triggered by the default Roland midi CC set up or different drums that trigger the same sound. You would need the upgrade to Superior Drummer for that. However as I said you do go down the route of endless fiddling and to me it’s kind of counter productive. Beauty of EZ is if you get bored of the sounds or want to expand its fairly cheap to buy new libraries

Hope this has answered your questions

As to how I set up I have a MacBook Pro laptop connected by USB which allows me to trigger the drums. I monitor through the headphone output on the Mac Book. I also record directly to a HS5 Roland mixer by taking this same output and then monitoring through the HS5. It’s perfectly possible to record each drum seperately as well via midi, or just record midi in EZ and export that

[Richard D Squires]

I have a Roland TD 25 sound module with a pieced together Roland kit, including all the usual suspects (VH11 hihat controller, KD9 kick, PD85’s PD100x snare PD105 floor tom, CY13 ride)

Using EZ Drummer 2 with it is sublime. A whole new experience. The Hi Hat is the killer, it’s just so good, cymbals are pingy, yet sustain and there is literally 2 checkboxes to click to set up Roland as Edrums and a hi ht curve which I set to 1. I can honestly say it is a killer combo and makes me want to play and play. Yes you can tweak others more but they just don’t play as smoothly out of the box, and I haven’t had much success tweaking either Addictive or BFD.

Oh and the latency. What latency. It’s almost like the drums sound before I hit, which of course is impossible, but it makes playing infinitely more expressive and joyful.

Can’t recommend this combination enough.

[Author]

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