All user reviews for the Toontrack EZdrummer

No problem to install, you'll need an internet connection to authorize it. You can install it on two different computers at once but the number of swaps you are entitled to is limited.

The manual is a .pdf file which provides all the informations you may need.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I have a Intel Dual Core processor with 2Gb RAM. I don't yet have a proper sound card but using Asio4All makes up for that (yes it DOES work with a basic, default multimedia soundcard). I use it with Cubase Studio 4 and Toontrack's new tool "Toontrack solo" which allows to use either of Toontrack's compatible drums samplers (EZ drummer or Drumkit from Hell Superior) in standalone mode, with no incompatibility yet.

Depending on the available resources on your system you can choose to have the drumset come out either as a single stereo mix or 8 tracks (corresponding to the virtual microphones on your virtual drums room), which allows you to apply your effects seperately on each item from the kit (e.g. compression on the snare, distortion on the kick, flange on the toms etc) and to adjust the volume of each element (as in a real-life studio you can't isolate each cymbal but you can turn off the recording of the rest of the kit by the overhead). The most common kits eat up approximately 250Mb of RAM, but you can easily alleviate the burden to your system by unloading the individual elements which you don't intend to use.

OVERALL OPINION

I started using it a few days ago, I really like the way it sounds (both the basic pop/rock kit and the DFH extension pack are awesome) and the fact that its use is intuitive. I used to work with free drum samplers or drum machines such as Blue Noise's MyDrumsets, Loopazoid (a great tool but you have to find your own samples elsewhere) or Cubase's default drum machine (which name I can't remember), but EZ drummer is definitely way ahead with the number of different combinations it offers.