Musicians and composers have never had a greater choice of tools to make tracks with emotion and realism. Do great sounding drums have to be complex? We get our hands on EZdrummer 3 to find out.

Songwriters and composers have arguably never had it so good in the studio. Not only do they have affordable high quality gear to record and mix with, but also access to stunning virtual instruments that go far beyond having a passing resemblance to the thing they’re recreating. In the last few years, developers have pushed the boundaries with what can be achieved within a VI, with an increasing number of orchestral sounds making it all the way to Hollywood soundtracks. At the other end of the scale, these tools have the ability to afford songwriters and composers the finished backdrop to their creations, providing everything except the vocal (for now).

Easy And Good?

Given the depth of sound and functionality offered by these instruments, the challenge for developers is to strike a balance between this power, and an experience for the creator that is as transparent and intuitive as possible. While some creators want to be able to go into the finest minutiae of their sounds, others need a plug and play immediacy that does not kill their creative flow, yet delivers the sounds their music deserves. Toontrack is a developer that has built up a formidable collection of tools that satisfies the needs of both, however it is their EZ line of instruments that best caters for people who need ease and realism.

Your Drummer IS Your Bandmate…

Toontrack’s EZdrummer is the ‘musician friendly’ line of drum VIs that has been providing the backbone to productions for more than a decade, with its second incarnation being released in 2014. Rebooted for 2022, EZdrummer 3 is the long-anticipated release that brings more innovation and extra sounds to the company’s well-loved drummer.

Of the new features, its extra compositional features provide some welcome problem solvers to something that has always been the elephant in the room with drum VIs; what to tell it to play? Finally, here is a drum VI that does what a real drummer does, and that is to come up with something. The innovative Bandmate feature lets the writer show EZdrummer 3 how the song goes by giving it audio or MIDI to listen to. EZdrummer 3 then comes up with the part. Watch how Russ Hughes uses Bandmate to find just the right part for an acoustic demo, before showing how just how well its parts will sit with your bass player too.

EZdrummer 3 also brings a fully-fledged MIDI grid editor to the party. Writers can bring in existing MIDI for surgery, or draw in data from scratch if they really want to. Perhaps most useful though is EZdrummer 3’s expanded collection of bundled MIDI, which supersedes the previous offerings which were, it must be said, a little limited in their reach. Writers now get more than 2,500 individually played grooves/fills covering pop, rock, singer-songwriter, soul, latin, funk, metal, hip-hop, afrobeat, EDM, contemporary, R&B and more. As with previous versions, these were all played in by real drummers on electronic kits.

…And They’ve Got New Drums Too

EZdrummer 3 treats the mix to three new drum rooms, each featuring a choice of kits totalling seven. Continuing in traditional EZdrummer style, swapping or tweaking kit pieces is indeed easy, with instrument, level, and tuning all there. Users can even include their own hits too. Although velocity sample layers aren’t supported, sample playback level will respond to playing level.

The VI For Every Songwriter?

It’s true to say that EZdrummer 3 has been a long time coming, but its added songwriting functionality combined with expanded sounds and MIDI make it worth the jump. As a long time user of EZdrummer 2, the new version does not disappoint, and retains every bit of its winning combo of great sounds that are easy to use. That it solves a few of those perennial problems that songwriters have always faced with drum VIs will be the icing on the cake for many.

Wisely, Toontrack have allowed those with existing EZX packs to continue using them in EZdrummer 3 for free, and it should be noted that dropping an instance in in place of EZdrummer 2 maps perfectly, first time. Clearly, this is an update that has been worth the wait. If you’re a songwriter, it’s hard to see which other library can outrun EZdrummer 3 for sound and ease of use. The bandmate function epitomises this. Presumably the “VETO” button will come in a future update…