In Summary

Drum VIs can land with tonnes of expertly played MIDI, but marrying that to the song is another story. One solution out there can get the part right for composers who don’t know where to start. We show you how to get the best out of it…

Going Deeper

Great Sounds Need An Idea

Modern composers can create amazing mixes with virtual instruments. Although these sources can sound more convincing than badly written or played sounds from the real thing, the composer needs to have a surprising level of knowledge to get the best out of them. With the Big Three of sound, music, and style all going into selling the mix, the person in the chair makes or breaks virtual instruments’ success.

Until recently, one of the biggest barriers was telling these virtual musos what to play. Despite large libraries of expertly played beats, fills, rolls, and tricks on hand, simply dragging and dropping these into the arrangement is not always a quick way to getting things done well; it can also be the fastest route to giving the game away with a patchwork of hits that are only vaguely related to what a real player would choose to do. Composers with knowledge of drums do best with these instruments, but newcomers can’t be expected to know straight away what a real drummer does.

Using Toontrack EZdrummer 3 Bandmate

In the video we use Toontrack’s EZdrummer 3 to take a completely drum-less arrangement into full band splendour. We show how a more conventional tool such as its Tap To Find can work well, but only for those who know what they want. We then demonstrate how the instrument’s Bandmate feature can easily show the way from scratch. Taking the track’s final acoustic part, we show how just seconds spent adjusting the suggested part’s complexity is all that is needed.

Sound, Music, Style

Taking the three building blocks of a drum part that convinces, it could be said that aside from the drums themselves, Bandmate makes decisions that work for both sound and song. With an optional amount of input from the composer, its choices (with alternatives provided) know exactly how to draw upon EZdrummer 3’s comprehensive library that transcends any one style.

The parts that come out of Bandmate really go to confirm that great sounds need great playing. It’s not perfect, but then what is? Certainly not any human player. In fact, Bandmate’s work ethic will sound better than your drummer trying to shoehorn their latest trick into your song…

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.