EZ Drummer practice

[Alison]

It's been a long time since I've used EZ Drummer (possibly over a year??) and since I am writing more up-tempo songs, I thought I'd practice my EZD skills with a really familiar song, and, actually one of my favorite arrangements. This is pretty simple but I'm hoping the balance and eq, especially on the drums, are okay. I KNOW you will let me know

Anyway, this is "Stuck in the Middle With You". A silly song but, when I perform it, I get a good response. This is very close to the way I loop it.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Stuck In The Middle With You.mp3

[CrowsofFritz]

Nice job, Alison. I remember your first post here. You’ve really gotten good at this!

Is it a production decision to have different types/levels of reverb between the vocals and everything else. The vocals clearly have more, from what I perceive.

[rayc]

Programming seems good...not three percussionists and two drummer overkill.
Steeler's Wheel gave us this & Gerry Rafferty - Britain's shame.
The ending could be tidier but other wise tres bon.

[Alison]

Nice job, Alison. I remember your first post here. You’ve really gotten good at this!

Is it a production decision to have different types/levels of reverb between the vocals and everything else. The vocals clearly have more, from what I perceive.

Thanks! I've learned a lot from all of you.
Yeah, maybe too much verb but I was trying to go for a different feel than what I normally do.
Thanks for listening!

[Alison]

Programming seems good...not three percussionists and two drummer overkill.
Steeler's Wheel gave us this & Gerry Rafferty - Britain's shame.
The ending could be tidier but other wise tres bon.

Thanks, Ray. When I perform this, I fade everything until there is only vocals on "You" but I couldn't get it to sound right. I'll figure something better out. . . or not cuz I don't think I'll do anything with it except maybe slap it on Soundcloud for my adoring fans

[JD01]

There's a cock up in your MIDI at 1:41, same at 1:46 - I think you have the hi-hat close way to quick and aggressive.

Given your style of music I think the drums and cellos are a bit dry. It all sounds very close and strident its like you've done a punk mix on a folk song.
Maybe ease back on the volume on the drums a bit and carefully add a touch of reverb to the instruments generally. Just see if you can make it sound more chilled. I don't know if you've tried to humanise the drums at all but it sounds like the hit velocities are very constant throughout - see if you can add a little more realism.

Vocal sounds ace!

[Alison]

There's a cock up in your MIDI at 1:41, same at 1:46 - I think you have the hi-hat close way to quick and aggressive.

Given your style of music I think the drums and cellos are a bit dry. It all sounds very close and strident its like you've done a punk mix on a folk song.
Maybe ease back on the volume on the drums a bit and carefully add a touch of reverb to the instruments generally. Just see if you can make it sound more chilled. I don't know if you've tried to humanise the drums at all but it sounds like the hit velocities are very constant throughout - see if you can add a little more realism.

Vocal sounds ace!

Hmm, thanks for that, I'll look into the "cock ups".
I put my usual reverbs on everything but may not have enough on the drums. It's a fine line between not enough and too much! I'll look into that too (and more "humanizing").
Thanks for the input, JD, I always appreciate it!

[JD01]

There's a cock up in your MIDI at 1:41, same at 1:46 - I think you have the hi-hat close way to quick and aggressive.

Given your style of music I think the drums and cellos are a bit dry. It all sounds very close and strident its like you've done a punk mix on a folk song.
Maybe ease back on the volume on the drums a bit and carefully add a touch of reverb to the instruments generally. Just see if you can make it sound more chilled. I don't know if you've tried to humanise the drums at all but it sounds like the hit velocities are very constant throughout - see if you can add a little more realism.

Vocal sounds ace!

Hmm, thanks for that, I'll look into the "cock ups".
I put my usual reverbs on everything but may not have enough on the drums. It's a fine line between not enough and too much! I'll look into that too (and more "humanizing").
Thanks for the input, JD, I always appreciate it!

Are you using Reaper now?

[Alison]

Hmm, thanks for that, I'll look into the "cock ups".
I put my usual reverbs on everything but may not have enough on the drums. It's a fine line between not enough and too much! I'll look into that too (and more "humanizing").
Thanks for the input, JD, I always appreciate it!

Are you using Reaper now?

Short answer is no. . . long answer is. . . I started messing with it a while back until life took a bit of a nose dive early 2022. They started bugging me for money so I uninstalled it figuring that IF I did any recording, I'd stick with what I am familiar with. I just reinstalled it (today) and am having a big latency problem and am trying to figure that out so, I'm back to square one and really not wanting to spend money on it. . .ugh!

[TripleM]

I thought it sounded pretty good. Good fidelity on the both the string instruments and the vocal. Good drum programming.

I thought the harmony vocal was soft, particularly in the chorus.

Pitchy note on the left side at :13? Sounded like it.

[vomitHatSteve]

There's a cock up in your MIDI at 1:41, same at 1:46 - I think you have the hi-hat close way to quick and aggressive.

Given your style of music I think the drums and cellos are a bit dry. It all sounds very close and strident its like you've done a punk mix on a folk song.
Maybe ease back on the volume on the drums a bit and carefully add a touch of reverb to the instruments generally. Just see if you can make it sound more chilled. I don't know if you've tried to humanise the drums at all but it sounds like the hit velocities are very constant throughout - see if you can add a little more realism.

Vocal sounds ace!

I'm hearing the weird hat clamps or whatever too. Also at 1:51 and when you repeat the same section (3:05 and 3:10). JD's probably right that you could vary the velocities down a lot throughout. Otherwise, programming sounds good.

Vocals are very nice.

When the right cello comes in at first, it's kind of hitting some loud notes in my right headphone. I got used to it by the end, but it threw me a little right as it started.

[Armistice]

Sounds like you need to move that Close Hat MIDI note one grid space to the right at the places JD mentioned.

[JD01]

Are you using Reaper now?

Short answer is no. . . long answer is. . . I started messing with it a while back until life took a bit of a nose dive early 2022. They started bugging me for money so I uninstalled it figuring that IF I did any recording, I'd stick with what I am familiar with. I just reinstalled it (today) and am having a big latency problem and am trying to figure that out so, I'm back to square one and really not wanting to spend money on it. . .ugh!

When they bug you for money you can ignore them indefinitely. I payed eventually... after years!

When you open Reaper up click on the latency settings on the top right of the screen. The post a screen grab of the box that pops up. @Tadpui will tell you what settings you need to sort your latency. What interface are you using?

[Alison]

I'm using my Presonus audiobox interface. What I get at the top right when I open Reaper is, Wave Out and some info. . . did find this though. . .

Screenshot (1).png

[Tadpui]

I'm using my Presonus audiobox interface. What I get at the top right when I open Reaper is, Wave Out and some info. . . did find this though. . .

Screenshot (1).png

Oh OK I see. Under "Audio System", choose ASIO and that should show you a slightly different assortment of drop-down boxes to choose from. For Drivers, choose the ASIO drivers associated with your AudioBox (hopefully they're clearly named so you can pick them out of the list). Then you can set your first and last inputs/outputs.

There are a couple of ways to set the next settings, but I'll just list one way for now. Check the box next to "request sample rate" and type in your preferred sample rate (probably 44100), and check the box next to "request block size" and type in your preferred buffer size (start at 128 and see how that goes). Once you click Apply, you should be in business with nice low latency.

The issue is that your Reaper is using the Windows Wave Out sound system. Of all of the things that I love about Windows, the Win sound system has always been outright awful. It's been so bad for so long that in the 1990s Steinberg went and wrote a special audio driver that basically bypasses all of Windows' overhead junk that slows it down. They called it ASIO. It was so awesome that now pretty much all audio interfaces' drivers for Windows use the ASIO standard.

[Armistice]

They called it ASIO. It was so awesome that now pretty much all audio interfaces' drivers for Windows use the ASIO standard.

Except RME, who reckoned they could do better themselves. One of the other reasons I have super low latency I expect.

[Tadpui]

They called it ASIO. It was so awesome that now pretty much all audio interfaces' drivers for Windows use the ASIO standard.

Except RME, who reckoned they could do better themselves. One of the other reasons I have super low latency I expect.

Theirs are actually ASIO as well. My UCX drivers were labelled something like "FireFace ASIO" and my UFX+ drivers are labelled "ASIO Madiface USB". So they're still fundamentally ASIO, RME just did a better job than anybody else when it comes to actually designing and coding around the ASIO standard. Definitely the best Windows drivers in the industry!

[Armistice]

Except RME, who reckoned they could do better themselves. One of the other reasons I have super low latency I expect.

Theirs are actually ASIO as well. My UCX drivers were labelled something like "FireFace ASIO" and my UFX+ drivers are labelled "ASIO Madiface USB". So they're still fundamentally ASIO, RME just did a better job than anybody else when it comes to actually designing and coding around the ASIO standard. Definitely the best Windows drivers in the industry!

Ah, interesting! I remember, as this was my first (and still only) dive into computer-based recording, reading the RME driver blurb and being impressed - without even understanding what it meant at that point...

What was this "latency" thing people were talking about????