[Steve Heinke]

Tim, I play/refine EZ tracks with an old Roland Octopad. Even have a kick pedal trigger plugged in so I can sort of ‘play’ the Octopad. You can find these old beasts pretty cheap these days. Make sure all the pads work.

Steve

[Steve Heinke]

Dean, the MIDI grooves are really the place to start. I work in ProTools with EZ Drummer, so I create an Instrument (or MIDI) track, insert EZ as a plugin, then open EZ’s groove window. There you’ll find all the pre-recorded MIDI grooves, which are usually 2 or 4 bar segments. Find one you like, then drop it into your MIDI track, and copy it down the line to create a simple long groove. [NOTE: dunno how this relates directly to Cubase, but I’ve found that you should have your DAW in Grid Mode when you’re dropping EZ MIDI clips in. This way the MIDI grooves ‘snap’ to the beat.] You can then refine the track by using different groove clips for the various sections of your song. Later, you can come back and ‘overdub’ additional cymbals, tom hits, etc by using a keyboard or other MIDI controller (I use an old Roland Octapad) like the previous reply said. If you’re really good at playing drums on a controller, you could forego the EZ grooves and actually ‘play’ your own performance. But you need to be recording your MIDI performance. Mouse-clicking on a drum like you were doing is only for preview of that drum’s sound.

Your drum track will get more and more refined and realistic as you tweak your EZ track. For instance, remove high hat notes when in a tom fill. You should try to think like a drummer and say to yourself, ‘what can a real drummer play with 2 feet and 2 hands at any given moment?”.

Good Luck, Steve

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