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peepsaudio
Published on 09/08/08 at 07:50
This is an expansion to the great ezDrummer line of drum sample plug-ins. It is designed to open up in your normal ezDrummer interface, and the samples can only be used there. So the samples are some kind of proprietary format for ezDrummer. They are multi-sampled instruments, but you are also provided with a bank of MIDI grooves to get you started in programming.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
The sounds for this expansion are kind of hit or miss. I feel that a lot of the time once you get these sequenced they don't sound very fluid or realistic, I think that may be because there are not enough layers to the samples to keep them very dynamic sounding. The drum types and crashes tend to sound better than the shakers and tambourine type of instruments. Also a lot of the instruments are very bright, so I almost always have to cut some of the highs to get them to sit in a mix without sticking out like a sore thumb. The expansion is aimed at making Latin style percussion and music, but you can use this for just about any style that has any kind of hand percussion which is almost every style. Don't let the name fool you!
OVERALL OPINION
I have had this for about 8 months or so. I like the huge amount of choice when it comes to the instrument types, and then the different kind of instruments they have sampled. For example, there are probably 10 kinds of tambourine to choose from. I am kind of disappointed in the MIDI library they have provided this time. It is very limited compared to previous offerings from the other EZXs. They basically just give you 8th notes and 16th notes for a lot of the percussion types, and you frequently end up having to just create your own MIDI pattern. This is a little annoying because part of what makes the ezDrummer line great is how fast you can usually get a good pattern up and running due to their extensive libraries. Not so in this expansion unfortunately. However, you do get a lot of instruments that sound fairly good, so it ends up being an okay value. I do still use it a lot, so I would get it again.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
The sounds for this expansion are kind of hit or miss. I feel that a lot of the time once you get these sequenced they don't sound very fluid or realistic, I think that may be because there are not enough layers to the samples to keep them very dynamic sounding. The drum types and crashes tend to sound better than the shakers and tambourine type of instruments. Also a lot of the instruments are very bright, so I almost always have to cut some of the highs to get them to sit in a mix without sticking out like a sore thumb. The expansion is aimed at making Latin style percussion and music, but you can use this for just about any style that has any kind of hand percussion which is almost every style. Don't let the name fool you!
OVERALL OPINION
I have had this for about 8 months or so. I like the huge amount of choice when it comes to the instrument types, and then the different kind of instruments they have sampled. For example, there are probably 10 kinds of tambourine to choose from. I am kind of disappointed in the MIDI library they have provided this time. It is very limited compared to previous offerings from the other EZXs. They basically just give you 8th notes and 16th notes for a lot of the percussion types, and you frequently end up having to just create your own MIDI pattern. This is a little annoying because part of what makes the ezDrummer line great is how fast you can usually get a good pattern up and running due to their extensive libraries. Not so in this expansion unfortunately. However, you do get a lot of instruments that sound fairly good, so it ends up being an okay value. I do still use it a lot, so I would get it again.