Eastwest Drumkit From Hell 2

[Epicus Furor]

Does anyone use this? If so what is it like and and who easy is it to program?

I'm looking for a good drum sampler that is easy to use, i seem to be spending 90% of my recording time on drums atm on cubase

[rrhea]

You might prefer EZ Drummer. Same company but an easier prog to use. Works great with Cubase, too.

http://www.ezdrummer.com

RR

[Epicus Furor]

Thanks, i've checked it out and sounds pretty cool. Do you know if the drumkit from hell 2 has a libary of drum beats and fills e.t.c?

do most people who use these drum samplers just use the pre-programmed beats/fills or do you sometimes manually program aswell?

[rrhea]

Not too familiar with the DFH program, but I do know that DFH2 is fully programmable and very complex. It's probably the best drum prog on the market... but it does have a learning curve and it's not the fastest method of laying down drums unless you are already a drummer and have a drum pad or full kit (either electronic or a triggered acoustic kit). Otherwise, you'll be programming your own MIDIs (with a keyboard or mouse) which can take some time. Some people are very good at this, but it still takes longer than EZ Drummer... but the pay off is a totally customized drum track. I just don't know if DFH comes with a library of MIDIs like EZD does.

But since EZ Drummer comes with all those MIDIs, it just takes a little bit of creativity and you can create an endless supply of beats for songs. Plus, they just came out with expansion packs, one of which is the Drum Kit From Hell collection. The sounds and MIDIs are based on that kit, and it's supposed to be just awesome. $90 US. Great deal!

Now, if you are using Cubase, a Cakewalk product or any other good recording app with a MIDI editor you can programm your own MIDI beats for use with EZ Drummer. Since EZD is a plugin, the MIDI programming stays in your recording app, and EZD is applied to the track to trigger the sounds (same goes for the drag and drop MIDI beats that come with EZD). I think EZD the best of both worlds, and it's much cheaper and easier to use. What I've been doing is using mostly the stock MIDI beats, either whole or sliced up depending on my needs and then adding in accents like cymbal crashes, a custom fill or whatever. It's pretty awesome. And now that the expansion packs are starting to come out you'll have a ton of options to keep your tracks sounding fresh. Plus, it won't be long before people start creating their own EZD MIDI files (it's already happening) and sharing them with each other. Then the possibilities will truly be endless.

Ryan

[Epicus Furor]

hey thanks for the help, does the EZ drummer have good metal drum samples?
I'm looking for a really huge drum sound, intricate drum fills, time sigs e.t.c that will be suitable for progressive metal

[rrhea]

Originally Posted by Epicus Furor

hey thanks for the help, does the EZ drummer have good metal drum samples?
I'm looking for a really huge drum sound, intricate drum fills, time sigs e.t.c that will be suitable for progressive metal

Then you will definitely want the DFH expansion pack that just recenty became available for EZ Drummer. The stock EZ Drummer MIDIs are rock and funk plus some off time beats and stuff like that. Carefully constructed, they can be useful for metal, but nothing compared to the DFH pack.

It's easy to get confused with product names here, but this is what's going on...

EZ Drummer is the plugin/program (think of it as a Drum Kit From Hell Lite version), and the Drum Kit From Hell expansion pack (called the DFH EZX) is like buying a CD of drum loops to add to EZD. But since it's based on the DFH kit (which is monstruous) you'll get those drum sounds plus a bunch of MIDIs pre-programmed for double kick metal, stupid fast fills and all sorts of other bashing going on. Super cool stuff.

So for $165 US for EZD + $89 US for the DFH pack (total of about $250) you can have a fully functional set of beats (plus programming ability if you choose to) that you can use for some serious metal stuff! Check out the demo here: http://www.ezdrummer.com/demos.asp The DFH demo samples are in the orange-ish/red box in the upper right.

Ryan

[Epicus Furor]

thanks i checked those demo's out earlier today and that's what really got me hooked on the Drummer from hell. Does the Drummer from hell come with a library of drum beats/fills or is it just the drum sound that you would apply to pre-programmed beats on EZ'ds drum library?

Do you think it's really worth spending all that money on both programmes when i only need the drummer from hell?

I was stuck in the same kind of dilema a while back when i first got cubase, it came with no VST instruments so i had to fork out about £200 for Halion 3 for VST instruments and i find it so overly complex it really puts me off recording as i spend more time trying to work stuff out than actually making music

[rrhea]

And that's where I think you are confused.

The standalone Drum Kit from Hell (called DFH Superior) does not contain drum loops... I just checked.

And I quote... "DFH Superior... Includes its own software from Toontrack (VSTi) for Mac and PC. Features 4 double DVDs with 35GB data, 85,000 soundfiles (single hits only, no loops)."

This is for people with electric drum kits or triggers on acoustic kits, as well as MIDI programmers that are willing to mouse-click or keyboard their way through a drum track.

Drum Kit from Hell Superior costs $269, and you get no loops. EZ Drummer costs $169, comes with loops and with the new DFH EZX now has the drum sounds (plus all new loops) from the DFH Superior sound samples. For ease of use, EZD plus the DFH expansion pack ($89) is the better deal. About the same price as DFH Superior, but much easier to use right out of the box (which sounds like what you're looking for).

If you hated Halion, then you'd really be upset with DFH Superior. Not that there's anything wrong with either, it's just that they can both be difficult to use without spending a lot of time.

Ryan

[Epicus Furor]

ah got you now, are the EZ loops easy to put into cubase?

so basically the EZ drummer is drum sounds and loops and DFH is just sounds.

[rrhea]

Originally Posted by Epicus Furor

ah got you now, are the EZ loops easy to put into cubase?

so basically the EZ drummer is drum sounds and loops and DFH is just sounds.

Yup! You got it. DFH Superior only comes with the sounds, but has a much more indepth interface for programming and even live drum triggering.

I use Cubase, and EZD works extremely well with it. All you do is pick a MIDI loop and drag it to the timeline. That's it! If you want to embellish, say, a transition from one beat to another with a cymbal crash, just create a new MIDI layer and draw a blank MIDI event with the pencil tool into the new layer. Then select it and open either the MIDI editor (the one with the piano roll) or the drum editor and then add a cymbal hit right at the beginning of the event. It's really that easy.

I just got EZD a few days ago and I really love it. In just that amount of time I have mastered it. Now beaing as creative as some people are with it... well, I still need to work on that.

It's getting to the point to where people will no longer need drummers for recording. Heck, it's kind of already happened, really.

Good luck with it.

Ryan

[Epicus Furor]

haha yeh sounds that way

Meshuggahs new album -

'While live drums were obviously not abandoned, a unique decision was made to use programmed drum patterns using Tomas Haake's "Drumkit From Hell" sample library on the latest album Catch Thirty-Three, not only providing a more precise and mechanized drumscape, but also making drum beat creativity a more collaborative effort amongst all of the band members. It cemented the album as one of the band's most complex works to date. The band members have, however, stated in several interviews that the decision to use programmed drums was due to the lack of time given by their label to produce the record.

I think im gonna go for the EZ drummer and see how i get along with that, then if im happy i'll get the drummer from hell exp pack cos that sounds bloody killer. Cheers

[Ant1981]

I've been using Battery V2 with Cubase. Good sounding kits, but still uses Cubases programmer.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with EZ or DFH.

[LonePhantom]

I've got Cubase LE and cannot seem to drag the EZ Drummer midis on to any timeline, 24 track audio or midi ones. Any hints, or is it just Cubase LE doesn't allow you to do this?

[Epicus Furor]

I've got this problem but on halion drum loops, it won't let me drag any into the timeline. or for that matter adding an mp3 (i.e backing track) into cubase, it just rejects it...

[guitvai1]

You should not have this problem with MP3's and cubase. I'm using Cubase SX2 and I can quickly import MP3 files into a track by using the import tool. It's awesome for practice as you can loop a section over and over and record yourself doing tons of takes.