New EzDrummer user here, still learning it, and I was just trying to use the humanize button a couple days ago and not understanding why it wasn’t really changing the built in grooves, and now I know why, thanks!!!! Your toontrack videos are great. 🤘
Great tip, really explains a feature that I’ll bet many have never thought much about or truly understood, so glad to learn it this early in my EZ3 experience 👍
You're not the boss of me! Kidding. Great overview, and caution. I acknowledge it. (You should have a T-Shirt with that slogan) Too often I get frustrated by a problem and just fume and complain that "It SHOULD work!" Rather than just acknowledge the issue isn't going to change it's behavior because I whine about it. Just acknowledge it and move to a solution. Thanks for all the tips!
Ha I totally missed the humanize button. This was a light bulb moment for me. I was working in the grid editor and noticed dots being slightly off grid, and just thought oh well whatever. But makes so much sense now. Thanks
Makes so much sense that it hurts. And wow, I must have some messy drumbeats, as I've likely only humanized whatever drum I was working on. But not anymore!! Great video Shawn!
Wow!!! Thanks so much for that tip! You are an excellent teacher I recommend your channel to anyone I am so appreciative to have you available for my toontrack drum lessons!
Okay, makes sense. I knew the midi grooves weren't snapped to the grid because I have looked at them. However, I didn't know how to use the humanize button.
Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. I like to compose my own grooves from scratch most of the time and that's when I'll use it. Although, I tend to like to do my own touches to snare rolls because I can do better at getting what I'm going for. I did figure out the "don't" part and had a good chuckle at the results.
This is a good lesson; I remember hearing this from you already, and haven't used it since unless I put in the notes in. Very valuable as you can tell by looking at all the notes in any section that they're not identical in terms of volume and placement; humans aren't this perfect. Right on!
Great video once again! I'm a pretty new and basic user of EZ Drummer3 but I actually had the same thought about this button. I thought "why would I want to humanise a pro drummer that already did a great job?" But for a few beats that I had written in GuitarPro and transferred to midi, the humanise feature worked like a charm on my beats, that are far from pro haha I thinks it's really great you have acknowledged all the skills and time involved by Toontrack and the performers to provide awesome beats that sound amazing!!!
Awesome, good points all around. The only thing I wish you would have mentioned is that if you're editing a groove and the humanize button is on, if you add a note at the beginning or end of that groove it'll merge it with the groove adjacent to it. As far as I know the only way to prevent the merge is to turn the humanize option off.
Thank you, Ian! I think that's a bug that will be worked out in an update sooner or later. If I say anything about it now, it will just confuse people later.
Hey Shootie, just want to thank you for this video. Although I never humanise drum patterns performed by humans, I was unaware of the other points you made about the humanise button switching on if I alter part of the drum pattern. You have enriched my understanding of the amazing plugin we know as EZDrummer 3. Love your videos.
This video is a duh moment. Duh I can't believe how simple of a message it is and duh that makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for the info it's gonna help me going forward and I'll make sure to not hit the humanize button, lol.
Great video and topic - I really dig the EDM grooves on acoustic and vintage kits, but sometimes they could use a little bit of that humanization feature
I feel like as a drummer you get a different perspective - for instance my double kick (and most peoples) is never uniform.. and if you really want to go precise my right foot is my strong foot always leading and also tends to accent with cymbals and on every "click" in a 4/4 beat. So you can really go deep humanizing that kind of feel into your kick drum. But when it comes to an open hi-hat it's almost always pretty uniform live and any noticeable humanizing will actually make it sound terrible, maybe a tiny bit is needed but not a lot at all. It's kinda fun to really go deep and edit the velocities manually for me personally, but i'm not great at setting humanizing up gently so that is probably why.
I just upgraded to EZD3 from 2, and I haven’t explored the humanize feature yet. I’m glad I came across your video first, bc you make a good point. I could see using that feature with quantized midi files, but one of the biggest factors that drew me to EZ Drummer is that Toontracks hired so many talented drummers to provide contribute to their content. It seems like the humanize feature could negate the personal touch from these musicians.
Thanks for a great video, it raises some interesting points for intellectual conversations in this crazy world of simulation, computers , sampled sounds, and indie music! Many true drummers & musicians will KNOW what sounds right , humanize, no humanize,.or other, and hopefully most creators know , If it sounds good , it IS good, regardless of the source or buttons pushed - just my 2 pennies - Cheers
Not trivial, it had to be told. Thanks for taking the job! I found an exception: the high percussions (for everyone: the 3 slots up there on the right in the drums tab): they were there since v2, but now they are multiplied by 3 in samples and have finally some midi in the v3 database, yet these midi are all programmed quantized - I find this lazy, since real shakers have a lot of human timing. For these midi, I would push that humanize button. I spent one morning to audio-2-midi my shaker audio loops and populate a personal database under user-midi for those, who knows if a future EZX will come out with dozens of high percussions and hundreds of human midi..
Thank you. Great observation! The EZD2 Percussion midi does look gridlocked in the Grid Editor. I'm not sure if Futurehit is humanizing this, I'll have to play with it in the future.
The only time I use the humanize function, and I do think that it's a valid use, is when I import drums from guitar pro from our writing sessions, which have no dynamics in them at all, or when I write a beat in the editor myself because sometimes the synchopations need to be so specific that none of my bought grooves fit.
The caveat is that it you keep playing the same drummer's midi is that you don't get variation, if you're using the same short groove repeated over and over. There's a lot to think about in there ... And lots of subtle creative ways to play with it. Though i would trust the humanize feature set in my DAW more..... To do very subtle adjustment..... And you could go in one bar at a time and actually tweak it to other elements in the track
A great point about short loops. Which daw are you using? When you say you use humanizing in your daw, are you not talking about manual timing controls? I’m curious which daws have automatic humanization features like EZD3. EZD3 also has the typical timing adjustments to achieve manual humanizing edits. Thanks!
Great video , Thanks, didn't know that either, If you make a beat using the Band mate tool , It looks pretty much locked in to the grid me, is that right? you might want to humanize it then after?
Notes added by Bandmate get humanized automatically. The micro timing adjustments are very small, but enough to make the beats sound less robotic while keeping them tight enough to be useful in most songs/contexts.
If I understand you correctly, this only applies to the midi grooves/loops. However, if I were to use the Bandmate function, this would need to be humanised, or is it just where I insert drum beats?
Some Bandmate files are from your TT library. In that case this video is very valid. But in some cases Bandmate autogenerates a beat. When this happens Bandmate applies a slight humanization to it. In this situation, if it still sounds stiff, you may want to try and Humanize it a second time with the button. You need to trust your ear in what is right at this point.
Hey Brother, I'm considering picking up Superior Drummer 3 (if/when) it ever goes on sale. If I may ask, do the "Hip-Hop" MIDI & SDX add-ons from ToonTracks come with it (I ask because i'm thinking about buying those while on sale right now, but I don't want to spend it if they'll be coming with SD3 anyway)?
I write and record music at home, but can't play the drums to save my life. I know exactly what I would like to play, but I just haven't trained the coordination that is required to play what it's in my head. So I rely on midi. I find that it is easiest to make a drum tab in guitar pro, then I export to a midi file. This is what I end up importing into the EZ drummer plugin. Guitar pro is kinda bad at taking whatever dynamics are shown in the guitar pro file, and adjusting midi velocity accordingly. I mean, sure.... fortissimo will be a higher velocity than forte. That makes sense. But a drummer who is going off of sheet music doesn't see fortissimo, and then play every hit at the same velocity until they see a change in dynamics haha... The result is a midi track where every midi hit is going to be 1 out maybe 8 predefined velocity values. This is where ez drummers humanization kicks major ass. The midi from guitar pro will at least be accurate enough to show that some parts are louder than other parts. When humanizing in ez drummer, this gets taken into consideration. In other words, the changes that occur when you select humanization are relative to the source midi file. Which, as you point out, can be problematic if the source was already capturing a human performance.
Maybe you can answer this: I've been lucky to play with a lot of great drummers. When they start a groove I always react almost physically to it. You know, it "grooves". It puts a smile on my face and makes me want to play to it. I never get that feeling from the grooves in Ezdrummer and I own many, many of their expansions and grooves. Why is that? Is it a volume thing? I can also think of so many recordings where the drums start the song and just make me want to dance. Maybe Toontrack's drummers just don't do it for me? Has anyone experienced the same thing and maybe has an answer?
I think only you can answer that for yourself. I wonder if you mean all drum midi or specifically Toontrack. If you're a veteran player that didn't grow up recording to a grid, it may just be that, which is understandable. That's the only thing that comes to mind without a ton of elaboration and examples. There's a lot of music examples and a lot of Toontrack midi to compare.
Thanks for getting back. I only have experience with Toontrack regarding midi and they are supposed to be leading, so I guess it's not the quality of the product. I just wondered if anyone else experiences this. Maybe it's a mental thing where you experience the groove visually because it's on a screen. Maybe that takes something away. I also work with sampled beats and they easily provide the sense of groove. Odd, indeed.
@@henrikhansen6617 I'm not really on one side or the other. But I will say this. If I had my favorite drummers and beats in mind as I was growing up, "my classics", I certainly wouldn't expect EZ to be able to reproduce that. I'm certainly satisfied generally though. I'm not sure if you're new or not, but take note that there is an "original Tempo" button on the Grooves tab (upper left). Make sure you know what that is before you sign-off on the topic.
I guess that's the core of the subject. What is it about your "classics" that you won't expect EZdrummer to be able to reproduce? The sounds are there, so I suppose it can only come down to timing between notes and velocity of each note. I guess that's also the core elements of differences between various grooves. Ofc there's the personal aspect of preference, but essentially it's timing, velocity and sound of the played instrument. And those are also the tools EZdrummet provides. So, what's "missing" if anything? A finer grid? Micro timing on an impossible level? Maybe something happens in the process of making the grooves interchangeable that removes the overall experience of groove per se. It seems at least that we both find that the "classics" are dipped in a secret sauce that EZdrummer does not provide in the same way.
@@henrikhansen6617 For me getting into music in the late 80s and 90s, there was no grid and in a lot of cases, no metronome. So for my classics, the grid is extremely foreign. True classic rock, even more so. That's my example though and about all I have. If you're saying sampled drums is better, I'm not sure exactly what that means to you, but if it's software on a grid, then it sounds like 'that' software has it. If it's not software on a grid, then maybe my example is valid. I'm guessing you already played all this stuff as original tempo since you didn't mention it.
Cool info. With all due respect, Toontrack are perfectionists: their drums sound too expensive as well as their players do. That's one of the reasons why ppl looking for "humanizer", "deviator" etc tools especially for drums. The goal is to match the drums to the rest of untamed cacophony of true (sorry Swedes) rock'n'roll.
I believe all those professional midi tracks have been quantized so that they are on time. No one can play perfectly in time all the time. The reason for the humanize is to create a non robotic beat.
I would guess that Toontrack midi is not quantized. I interviewed Darby Todd who drummed on EZD3, the Big Stage EZX, and many Midi Packs. He says he's only quantized the first note of the midi file when necessary for looping purposes. And after examining TT midi for a while now myself, it seems that is how their midi is. I'm not sure why you would say a pro session drummer would need to be quantized. Maybe I missed your point?
@@ShootieSchool My thought was that if it is perfectly on time then the humanize function would make it more like a non pro made the track. I could be wrong though lol. Also the humanize function makes it so every hit to the drum skin does not sound exactly the same. Great video by the way! I just stumbled on to your channel and i subscribed!
@@frankaguiar4189 Thank you, Frank and welcome! I'm just reading your terms very literally is all. So you know Frank, Toontrack uses a process called Round Robin. Unless you go into the preferences and turn it off, you will never hear the same sample played back to back whether you hit the Humanize Button or not. Hope that helps!
When you say stop humanizing, should we not adjust the velocity also? I took a course where they suggested putting all drum velocities to 110 and the hi-hat velocity at 100. Do you agree or best to leave it at its default? Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I cover it in this video. You should do whatever you want. People simply need to acknowledge that their Toontrack midi is already humanized, so clicking on Humanize again disrupt the intended performance. For Hard Rock/Metal I start everything at 115, there are no rules. Only preferences. Hope that helps.
Is Humanize a global setting for the whole song? Or just on or off for each groove? So if you have Humanize on for each groove in the song because you misunderstood what it does like me lol, do you have to turn it off for each groove individually? I mean, my song sounds good with it on, it didn’t make the grooves weird or off. But I see what you’re saying in this vid so now I know how to use it or not use it in the future.
It works on whatever is selected on the Song Track. So it can be one, many, or all Grooves. I would say it's more destruction on fills, so do keep you ear out for that.
Toontrack midi is not quantized: ruclips.net/video/9gm3mv4nekY/видео.html
Well that’s a detail I would not have noticed had I not watched this vid! Thanks.
You got it!
I kind of figured this out myself but It was lot of confusion and frustration :) its good we have you ! thx
Thompa!!
Thanks, Shawn. I learn from everything you post and I appreciate it.
No, thank you. You're a great contributor, Rocky!
New EzDrummer user here, still learning it, and I was just trying to use the humanize button a couple days ago and not understanding why it wasn’t really changing the built in grooves, and now I know why, thanks!!!! Your toontrack videos are great. 🤘
Thank you for saying!
I was making this mistake. But no more :) thank you Shootie !
You got it, Dom. Thank you for your support lately!
Thanks for teaching another area that was an oversight for me!
Awesome! Thank you for the support, Paul!
Thanx Shootie! I learn something every vid!
Awesome!
Great tip, really explains a feature that I’ll bet many have never thought much about or truly understood, so glad to learn it this early in my EZ3 experience 👍
Thank you and awesome!
Very good tip !
I finally picked up Scaler 2. I'll be watching your vids soon.
Great advice and clarification. Toontrack has really thought this stuff out, and as a user I'm not used to that lol.
Thank you!
thank you!
You got! it
Outstanding presentation, and previously impressed because I'm already subscribed.
Awesome! Thank you, Geoff!
Yeah hello! I thought the exact same thing quite some time ago. Thank you for bringing this out. ✌🏻
Thanks for commenting, Rick!
You're not the boss of me!
Kidding. Great overview, and caution. I acknowledge it. (You should have a T-Shirt with that slogan) Too often I get frustrated by a problem and just fume and complain that "It SHOULD work!" Rather than just acknowledge the issue isn't going to change it's behavior because I whine about it. Just acknowledge it and move to a solution.
Thanks for all the tips!
You got it. Thank you for the support, Spokansas!
Ha I totally missed the humanize button. This was a light bulb moment for me. I was working in the grid editor and noticed dots being slightly off grid, and just thought oh well whatever. But makes so much sense now. Thanks
Spyder!
Excellent tip, thanks a lot for the advice! I've only recently upgraded to EZdrummer 3, so I'm looking forward to checking our your other posts :)
Great to hear and welcome!
Thanks for this. Makes so much sense and seems obvious to me after the fact. You explained the rationale perfectly.
Thanks for saying, Agent!
Makes so much sense that it hurts. And wow, I must have some messy drumbeats, as I've likely only humanized whatever drum I was working on. But not anymore!! Great video Shawn!
Great to hear! Thank you for the support, Buzz!
Wow!!! Thanks so much for that tip! You are an excellent teacher I recommend your channel to anyone I am so appreciative to have you available for my toontrack drum lessons!
What a great message, Allan! Thank you.
Okay, makes sense. I knew the midi grooves weren't snapped to the grid because I have looked at them. However, I didn't know how to use the humanize button.
Great to hear, Frank!
Super video as always ... you present information so clearly with applicability ... thank you!!
Thank you, DC. It's been a bit. I hope you're well!
Love this video. Just got EZ Drummer 3 with six of the drum MIDI packs, so I have much to learn and you’re helping. 😉
Great to hear! Welcome to EZD3
You freaking rock man, thanks so much for all your videos and contributions. Has been game changing for me. And I’ve been a user since 09 😬
Great to hear, Docta!
Great job in 2022 man. Staying tuned for 23. 👍🏽🎸
Thank you, Reginald.
Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. I like to compose my own grooves from scratch most of the time and that's when I'll use it. Although, I tend to like to do my own touches to snare rolls because I can do better at getting what I'm going for. I did figure out the "don't" part and had a good chuckle at the results.
I do often just turn snap off and draw away myself.
The only reason why you should have Humanize on or off, is whether one sounds better.
Can't argue with that!
@@ShootieSchool 😅 have a great life.
I literally just noticed both things you explained last night haha! great point!
Perfect!
Always look forward to your detailed info. One step closer to knowing more! Thanks 🙏
Thank you for your support, Intimo!
Thank you for this info man, and Happy Holidays!
You got it, Michael!
This is a good lesson; I remember hearing this from you already, and haven't used it since unless I put in the notes in. Very valuable as you can tell by looking at all the notes in any section that they're not identical in terms of volume and placement; humans aren't this perfect. Right on!
Ron!!
I’m still learning EZD3 and recently started using the ‘nudge’ feature. It can make a hit late, early, etc. It’s great for flams.
You know it!
BAM! Didn´t know that ( but also never used the Humanize button anyway). Great explanation! Thanks!
Thank you, Henry!
Great video once again!
I'm a pretty new and basic user of EZ Drummer3 but I actually had the same thought about this button. I thought "why would I want to humanise a pro drummer that already did a great job?"
But for a few beats that I had written in GuitarPro and transferred to midi, the humanise feature worked like a charm on my beats, that are far from pro haha
I thinks it's really great you have acknowledged all the skills and time involved by Toontrack and the performers to provide awesome beats that sound amazing!!!
Thank you for saying, Shred!
Awesome, good points all around. The only thing I wish you would have mentioned is that if you're editing a groove and the humanize button is on, if you add a note at the beginning or end of that groove it'll merge it with the groove adjacent to it. As far as I know the only way to prevent the merge is to turn the humanize option off.
Thank you, Ian! I think that's a bug that will be worked out in an update sooner or later. If I say anything about it now, it will just confuse people later.
@@ShootieSchool that makes sense. Thanks again for all the great info dude.
@@iancruickshank9287 Thank you!
Hey Shootie, just want to thank you for this video. Although I never humanise drum patterns performed by humans, I was unaware of the other points you made about the humanise button switching on if I alter part of the drum pattern. You have enriched my understanding of the amazing plugin we know as EZDrummer 3. Love your videos.
Great to hear. Thank you for saying, Arthurmee!
Good info.
I doubt that more than a few of us users had delved that far into the selectivity of the Humanise feature.
I certainly hadn't ... 👍
Thank you for saying, Koz!
Just learned something new, again. Thanks👍
Great to hear, Flash!
Super helpful. Thanks Shawn.
You got it!
Great lesson. Learning so much from your videos.
That’s great to hear, Drew! Welcome!
This video is a duh moment. Duh I can't believe how simple of a message it is and duh that makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for the info it's gonna help me going forward and I'll make sure to not hit the humanize button, lol.
Great to hear!
VERY informative! Thank you.
You got it!
Oh my God....... I must be an idiot.
I've just had a light bulb moment!!!
Makes perfect sense.
Thank you.
Awesome!
i haven't tried but glad to know now thanks shawn
You got it!
Great video and topic - I really dig the EDM grooves on acoustic and vintage kits,
but sometimes they could use a little bit of that humanization feature
Certainly, Magus.
This is excellent information. I had no idea about this, but now I've learnt something new. Thanks so much for the tutorial.
Awesome, you got it!
Ahh thanks Shawn, that help lots to understand humanizing
You got it, Colleen!
Good advice.. FYI, your videos are looking really professional these days.. Good job.. and as always..I enjoy your vids..
Harley! Thank you! I put up for a nicer camera a few months back.
Great video! This was new information to me. Thank you!
Thank you for saying, Eric!
Thanks for the info, im guilty of hitting that button everytime! lol
lol! You're not alone!
Very useful info here! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, Jammin'!
Watched this yesterday, but got wrapped up working! Very informative, as per the always! Thanks for posting, man!
You're the best!!
I think yhay now u are more expert than the Toontrack creators...
lol... I wouldn't go that far! Thank you.
Fantastic information and makes perfect sense .. good call 👍
Thank you, Paul.
Humanize is not human it's computerize ❤️
You're up late!!!
Then it should be called what it is
This ☝🏻...is 'exactly' what I was wanting to know about ...thank for that, new subscriber incoming
Awesome! and welcome!
Thank you for the excellent clear video! Super helpful!
You got it!
Thanks for that info! That is great to know!
Great to hear!
I feel like as a drummer you get a different perspective - for instance my double kick (and most peoples) is never uniform.. and if you really want to go precise my right foot is my strong foot always leading and also tends to accent with cymbals and on every "click" in a 4/4 beat. So you can really go deep humanizing that kind of feel into your kick drum. But when it comes to an open hi-hat it's almost always pretty uniform live and any noticeable humanizing will actually make it sound terrible, maybe a tiny bit is needed but not a lot at all.
It's kinda fun to really go deep and edit the velocities manually for me personally, but i'm not great at setting humanizing up gently so that is probably why.
When I program from scratch, I dive deep as well. Though the humanize button is great for basic backbeats.
Thanks for the tips. Just learning the thing. It has some interesting features, and you just clarified one of them.
You got it. Come back for more when you're ready!
Love this. Cheers geezer. ✌️
Thank you, Paul!
What a brilliant explanation, thank you!
You got it, thank you!
Thanks 🙏 duse, brilliant video! New sub! Thanks again, Happy New Year 🎉
Awesome, thank you! Welcome.
I just upgraded to EZD3 from 2, and I haven’t explored the humanize feature yet. I’m glad I came across your video first, bc you make a good point. I could see using that feature with quantized midi files, but one of the biggest factors that drew me to EZ Drummer is that Toontracks hired so many talented drummers to provide contribute to their content. It seems like the humanize feature could negate the personal touch from these musicians.
Welcome to EZD3!
Thank you
You got it!
Thanks for a great video, it raises some interesting points for intellectual conversations in this crazy world of simulation, computers , sampled sounds, and indie music!
Many true drummers & musicians will KNOW
what sounds right , humanize, no humanize,.or other, and hopefully most creators know ,
If it sounds good , it IS good, regardless of the source or buttons pushed - just my 2 pennies -
Cheers
Very valid. I wish I said some of those things in this video.
Not trivial, it had to be told. Thanks for taking the job!
I found an exception: the high percussions (for everyone: the 3 slots up there on the right in the drums tab): they were there since v2, but now they are multiplied by 3 in samples and have finally some midi in the v3 database, yet these midi are all programmed quantized - I find this lazy, since real shakers have a lot of human timing. For these midi, I would push that humanize button.
I spent one morning to audio-2-midi my shaker audio loops and populate a personal database under user-midi for those, who knows if a future EZX will come out with dozens of high percussions and hundreds of human midi..
Thank you. Great observation! The EZD2 Percussion midi does look gridlocked in the Grid Editor. I'm not sure if Futurehit is humanizing this, I'll have to play with it in the future.
Great tip!
Latte!
Great tip. Thanks!
Thank you, Darrell!
Bro this man looking like he needs to be humanized. He looks like a beautiful painting! haha thanks for the tip btw!
Lol!! Thanks!
Thanks for very helpful video!
You go it!
The only time I use the humanize function, and I do think that it's a valid use, is when I import drums from guitar pro from our writing sessions, which have no dynamics in them at all, or when I write a beat in the editor myself because sometimes the synchopations need to be so specific that none of my bought grooves fit.
Exactly!
Thank you, very good video!
Great to hear, thank you!
I used to “humanize” my drum programming…… never did it with Toontrack midi packs…. Already humanized!
Bernz!!
Very helpful!
Great to hear!
well explained
Thank you, Big!
totally informative bro thx
Great to hear!
👍🥁 Great advice thanks,
You got it!
Great video
Great video. You may have a video on this what is your process in mixing EZE Drummer?
Thank you. I don't do a lot of mixing related video. I route out any channel I need to treat and use 3rd party EQ compression.
very interesting ----- good video
Thank you, Thomas. You've been going through these vids lately!!
hahahahaha exactly what I was thinking when ready the video title! all midi clips/patterns are recorded from real drummers people!
Oh yeah!!! lol
ever the lighthouse ... thanks!
Thank you, Joe!
The caveat is that it you keep playing the same drummer's midi is that you don't get variation, if you're using the same short groove repeated over and over. There's a lot to think about in there ... And lots of subtle creative ways to play with it. Though i would trust the humanize feature set in my DAW more..... To do very subtle adjustment..... And you could go in one bar at a time and actually tweak it to other elements in the track
A great point about short loops. Which daw are you using? When you say you use humanizing in your daw, are you not talking about manual timing controls? I’m curious which daws have automatic humanization features like EZD3. EZD3 also has the typical timing adjustments to achieve manual humanizing edits. Thanks!
Great video , Thanks, didn't know that either, If you make a beat using the Band mate tool , It looks pretty much locked in to the grid me, is that right? you might want to humanize it then after?
Notes added by Bandmate get humanized automatically. The micro timing adjustments are very small, but enough to make the beats sound less robotic while keeping them tight enough to be useful in most songs/contexts.
Neo is correct.
@@neospora6678 thanks !
@@ShootieSchool thanks!
If I understand you correctly, this only applies to the midi grooves/loops. However, if I were to use the Bandmate function, this would need to be humanised, or is it just where I insert drum beats?
Some Bandmate files are from your TT library. In that case this video is very valid. But in some cases Bandmate autogenerates a beat. When this happens Bandmate applies a slight humanization to it. In this situation, if it still sounds stiff, you may want to try and Humanize it a second time with the button. You need to trust your ear in what is right at this point.
Definitely helped so thank you 😎
You got it, Duncan!
Great elaboration!
Thank you, Shank!
Thank's
You got it!
are you from Toontrack? 😂 awesome video!
Thank you! I am not.
Hey Brother,
I'm considering picking up Superior Drummer 3 (if/when) it ever goes on sale. If I may ask, do the "Hip-Hop" MIDI & SDX add-ons from ToonTracks come with it (I ask because i'm thinking about buying those while on sale right now, but I don't want to spend it if they'll be coming with SD3 anyway)?
Nothing comes with SD3 except it's excusive midi library and sound library. Everything else is a separate purchase.
Im still using EZD One! I play heavy stuff...black metal mixed with Death/Thrash metal.
Is there relly that big of a diference?
My hat is off to you for keeping it alive! Check my channel, you can decide for yourself. I would say, certainly.
I write and record music at home, but can't play the drums to save my life. I know exactly what I would like to play, but I just haven't trained the coordination that is required to play what it's in my head. So I rely on midi. I find that it is easiest to make a drum tab in guitar pro, then I export to a midi file. This is what I end up importing into the EZ drummer plugin. Guitar pro is kinda bad at taking whatever dynamics are shown in the guitar pro file, and adjusting midi velocity accordingly. I mean, sure.... fortissimo will be a higher velocity than forte. That makes sense. But a drummer who is going off of sheet music doesn't see fortissimo, and then play every hit at the same velocity until they see a change in dynamics haha... The result is a midi track where every midi hit is going to be 1 out maybe 8 predefined velocity values.
This is where ez drummers humanization kicks major ass. The midi from guitar pro will at least be accurate enough to show that some parts are louder than other parts. When humanizing in ez drummer, this gets taken into consideration. In other words, the changes that occur when you select humanization are relative to the source midi file. Which, as you point out, can be problematic if the source was already capturing a human performance.
Well said!
7:49 "Edideded".
;)
Maybe you can answer this: I've been lucky to play with a lot of great drummers. When they start a groove I always react almost physically to it. You know, it "grooves". It puts a smile on my face and makes me want to play to it. I never get that feeling from the grooves in Ezdrummer and I own many, many of their expansions and grooves. Why is that? Is it a volume thing? I can also think of so many recordings where the drums start the song and just make me want to dance. Maybe Toontrack's drummers just don't do it for me? Has anyone experienced the same thing and maybe has an answer?
I think only you can answer that for yourself. I wonder if you mean all drum midi or specifically Toontrack. If you're a veteran player that didn't grow up recording to a grid, it may just be that, which is understandable. That's the only thing that comes to mind without a ton of elaboration and examples. There's a lot of music examples and a lot of Toontrack midi to compare.
Thanks for getting back. I only have experience with Toontrack regarding midi and they are supposed to be leading, so I guess it's not the quality of the product. I just wondered if anyone else experiences this. Maybe it's a mental thing where you experience the groove visually because it's on a screen. Maybe that takes something away. I also work with sampled beats and they easily provide the sense of groove. Odd, indeed.
@@henrikhansen6617 I'm not really on one side or the other. But I will say this. If I had my favorite drummers and beats in mind as I was growing up, "my classics", I certainly wouldn't expect EZ to be able to reproduce that. I'm certainly satisfied generally though. I'm not sure if you're new or not, but take note that there is an "original Tempo" button on the Grooves tab (upper left). Make sure you know what that is before you sign-off on the topic.
I guess that's the core of the subject. What is it about your "classics" that you won't expect EZdrummer to be able to reproduce? The sounds are there, so I suppose it can only come down to timing between notes and velocity of each note. I guess that's also the core elements of differences between various grooves. Ofc there's the personal aspect of preference, but essentially it's timing, velocity and sound of the played instrument. And those are also the tools EZdrummet provides. So, what's "missing" if anything? A finer grid? Micro timing on an impossible level? Maybe something happens in the process of making the grooves interchangeable that removes the overall experience of groove per se. It seems at least that we both find that the "classics" are dipped in a secret sauce that EZdrummer does not provide in the same way.
@@henrikhansen6617 For me getting into music in the late 80s and 90s, there was no grid and in a lot of cases, no metronome. So for my classics, the grid is extremely foreign. True classic rock, even more so. That's my example though and about all I have. If you're saying sampled drums is better, I'm not sure exactly what that means to you, but if it's software on a grid, then it sounds like 'that' software has it. If it's not software on a grid, then maybe my example is valid.
I'm guessing you already played all this stuff as original tempo since you didn't mention it.
good info, thank you.
You got it!
Cool info. With all due respect, Toontrack are perfectionists: their drums sound too expensive as well as their players do. That's one of the reasons why ppl looking for "humanizer", "deviator" etc tools especially for drums. The goal is to match the drums to the rest of untamed cacophony of true (sorry Swedes) rock'n'roll.
I believe all those professional midi tracks have been quantized so that they are on time. No one can play perfectly in time all the time. The reason for the humanize is to create a non robotic beat.
I would guess that Toontrack midi is not quantized. I interviewed Darby Todd who drummed on EZD3, the Big Stage EZX, and many Midi Packs. He says he's only quantized the first note of the midi file when necessary for looping purposes. And after examining TT midi for a while now myself, it seems that is how their midi is. I'm not sure why you would say a pro session drummer would need to be quantized. Maybe I missed your point?
@@ShootieSchool My thought was that if it is perfectly on time then the humanize function would make it more like a non pro made the track. I could be wrong though lol. Also the humanize function makes it so every hit to the drum skin does not sound exactly the same. Great video by the way! I just stumbled on to your channel and i subscribed!
@@frankaguiar4189 Thank you, Frank and welcome! I'm just reading your terms very literally is all.
So you know Frank, Toontrack uses a process called Round Robin. Unless you go into the preferences and turn it off, you will never hear the same sample played back to back whether you hit the Humanize Button or not. Hope that helps!
@@ShootieSchool Wow thanks i didn't know of that ability. Thats good to know!
When you say stop humanizing, should we not adjust the velocity also? I took a course where they suggested putting all drum velocities to 110 and the hi-hat velocity at 100. Do you agree or best to leave it at its default? Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I cover it in this video. You should do whatever you want. People simply need to acknowledge that their Toontrack midi is already humanized, so clicking on Humanize again disrupt the intended performance. For Hard Rock/Metal I start everything at 115, there are no rules. Only preferences. Hope that helps.
Is Humanize a global setting for the whole song? Or just on or off for each groove? So if you have Humanize on for each groove in the song because you misunderstood what it does like me lol, do you have to turn it off for each groove individually? I mean, my song sounds good with it on, it didn’t make the grooves weird or off. But I see what you’re saying in this vid so now I know how to use it or not use it in the future.
It works on whatever is selected on the Song Track. So it can be one, many, or all Grooves. I would say it's more destruction on fills, so do keep you ear out for that.