I have been using EZdrummer for a while now, and it's great. In case you don't know what it is - it's a multi-microphone drum sampler designed for musicians and producers in need of a compact, affordable, easy to handle plug-in. In other words - a kick ass drum machine on your computer!
By the way, another great similar tool is Addictive Drums - I like i very much too.
Now, if you get any of these virtual drum machines, sooner or later, you'll be wondering how easily get good drum grooves. What I mean is, you may want to have realistic sounding drums for your songs or backing tracks. By realistic, I don't mean the sounds, but how the drums are actually played.
Here's what I'm getting at. You'll be wanting great midi drum patterns for your virtual drummer. Sure, you can sit and edit and mess around for a few days and get a decent sounding drum track. But if you are like me - a guitarist or bass player without years of experience playing drums - how easy is this do you think? I can tell you - it's bloody hard! Plus, it's time consuming and frustrating. So, what to do?
The answer is midi patterns for drums. There are several places to buy these online, but the one I use is called Groove Monkee. This company has many years of experience in creating professional sounding drum loops.
Groove Monkee provides premium MIDI drum loops in a wide variety of styles and popular formats: GM, Addictive Drums, BFD, BFD2, GURU, EZdrummer, Groove Agent, IMAP, Larry Seyer, Live Session Drums, Reason, Session Drummer, Steven Slate Drums, Superior Drummer and MIDI Groove Clip.
If you are in to blues, country, metal, rock - there are great packages of loops to buy from their website, and the PRICES are GREAT! It's super easy too - just put the folder with all the midi loops where your virtual drum machine will be looking, and you are all set.
For me, this has been a huge time saver. Frustration-saver too, I should add. Now I can easily load up a 12 bar blues or 8 bar rock groove, and build my tunes and backing tracks from that. You get tons of fills too, so can easily add fills and groove variations at any time and anywhere in your project.
These 2 programs have been a very worthwhile investment for my backing tracks, and for my song writing. If you need good drums but can't afford to hire professional drummers - get Ezdrummer and Groove Monkee. You'll be happy you did.
By Robert Renman - www.dolphinstreet.com
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