Celebrating the arrival of the latest two EZX kits – Claustrophobic and Twisted – I decided to run a Spotlight special on the three first EZXs. Here it is, Drumkit From Hell, Vintage Rock and Latin Percussion, that should be something for everyone, right?
The basics
So what are EZXs? It started out as sort of a stripped down alternative to the other drum libraries out there. When they were all getting bigger and bigger, covering more and more DVDs, EZ Drummer just covered one. The samples are compressed but still manage to sound very good. More importantly, EZ Drummer was also “EZ” on your computer CPU. The idea evolved and now you basically buy “style packs” instead of paying for all those kits you’ll never use. Pretty smart, huh? That has in turn made them popular as song writing tools.
All kits have three windows: one showing the drums, one showing your MIDI beats (that can be dragged n’ dropped into your sequencer), and finally a very basic mixer. It’s in the mixer you have the possibility to route your drum tracks, so for instance if you want to mix the kick from a separate track in your DAW that’s not a problem. Here are some of the packs that are out there…
Drumkit From Hell
Have you been living under a rock the last couple of years? If not, then you’ll know what this is about. Drumkit From Hell, or DFH short, is pretty much what started this whole drum circus that’s now inhabited by freaks such as Strike and BFD.
DFH EZX contains both the original and the later released add-on, and if you’re a metal fan this will give you what you’d expect – a frickin’ spaceship of a drumkit! The kit itself is played by drummers from Meshuggah, Nocturnal Rites, and a band I used to listen to back in the day – Naglfar. If you don’t know who they are, well, prepare to hear those double kicks work.
The included midi files are extensive and covers even the most brutal metal out there. The sounds are processed but unfortunately sometimes reminds me of a slightly outdated 90′s metal sound. Despite this, if you’re recording metal or hardrock and are looking for drum software you should definitely check out DFH.
Vintage Rock
After all my ravings about how I like Naglfar and the other metal guys playing on the DFH EZX you might think I’d throw this directly in the garbage can. Wrong boy, it just happens that I’m a big fan of early rock, blues and garage rock as well, which this kit just happens to be perfect for. I would give this kit ten out of ten for including the single best drumbeat in the history of music – Alice Coopers Billion Dollar Babies. Unfortunately for Toontrack I don’t rate the products I review with a grade.
There are other good beats as well and many of them are labeled so you can easily understand them, or how about “Stoogie” or “The King”? What a coincidence, I’ve only mentioned beats that Toontrack refer to as “double tempo rock”. It’s not hard to see where my passion lies, eh? Besides from rock you also get a couple jazz/fusion loops, some funk and of course a bunch of shuffle beats.
Like DFH the sounds are processed and are mainly useful for rock, pop and blues from the 50′s-70′s. All in all a very good collection that I’ve used a great deal for song writing.
Latin Percussion
Alright, so I’m a metal-head, a vintage rocker and, guess what? A Latin percussionist! No, that my friend, I’m not. This is by far the pack I’ve used the least. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just mean that I don’t write a lot of latin-based music. I did come up with an incredibly cool tune by using a Latin Percussion loop and play it back with the Pop/Rock kit though.
The rhythms (and the samples of course) included in this pack could be useful to you even if you don’t intend to be the latino heat. The rhythms are grouped in “congas”, “cajon”, “bongos”, “udu”, “shakers”, “guiro”, “tambourine”, “triangle”, “timbales”, “cowbells”, “woodblocks” and “fx and cymbals”. If you know all those, and the groups underneath as well, then you know more about percussion than I do.
Conclusion
I find it incredibly hard to see someone enjoy any of these styles of music and NOT enjoying the corresponding pack. I mean, what’s not to like? They sound good, the grooves included are good, they’re cheap and all in all they are good song writing tools that are incredibly easy to use. I think Toontrack struck gold with this concept. Stay tuned for reviews of the latest EZXs.
