This allowed me to chop up the stock MIDI loop that had tons of feel and color to it and make it fit my very specific chord progression. You can just click on chunks of your MIDI after putting it into EZKeys’ built-in arranger and select a chord from a handy menu that pops up: More than just a virtual instrument, EZKeys has a fantastic MIDI arranger section that allows you to take a MIDI loop from its library that’s close to what you want, but further allows you to slice it up, change the chord structure, and make it fit your track perfectly without diving into deep MIDI editing. I couldn’t really transpose it much without losing too much sound quality. See, after writing the bass-line, I found a funky guitar riff on Splice (from the Nu Disco House 2 library) that worked perfectly with the key, vibe and practically everything else. I could have easily gotten the sound I needed from Ableton’s stock instruments or any other virtual piano out there, but EZKeys’ MIDI loops came in really handy. Make sure to group the channels too, so you can easily organise your session and process the whole bus if you like. I’ve pulled out almost any reverb or room-type mics and only brought the overheads in judiciously so I can maintain a tight, punchy tone. Notice my fader positions in the Ableton session. At this point I recommend pulling every fader down all the way, then building the mix from the ground up, starting with the kick, snare, and overheads. Right off the bat, it will sound terrible. This allows for plenty of signal to work with and I can make all the volume, pan, and processing changes in my DAW rather than the plugin. It will look a little like this in Ableton Live:įinally, notice that I set the mixer in EZDrummer up so that every channel is at zero, also known as unity gain. Make sure the channel is set to monitor incoming audio. Then, create a new track in your DAW for each channel, and set the audio input for each track to EZDrummer and the corresponding channel number. Assign each channel to its own output as pictured. But, you can click on it and change the assignment. By default, everything goes to output 1 so you can hear the whole kit on one instrument track in your DAW. That indicates which output channel/bus you’re sending that part of the kit to. Then notice above each channel name there’s a small orange number 1 in a dropdown menu. To do so, click on the mixer tab in the plugin. This is critical if you want to shape your tone beyond the handful of macros that Toontrack provides. Step 2: Break drums out to multichannel in Toontrack EZ Drummer 2ĮZDrummer also allows you to break out individual mixer channels to their own stereo audio track in your DAW. EZDrummer’s includes loops that were recorded in the studio by great session drummers, so their MIDI files do not sound as stiff compared to if you programmed the data yourself. Here’s what it sounds like for starters.Īs you can hear, there’s a lot of life in that MIDI. I found a loop I like, so I’ll drag that into an empty clip slot. I’m using Toontrack’s Seventies Rock expansion for the sounds, specifically the “Camco Toweled” kit and some MIDI from the Disco Grooves MIDI pack. In most DAWs, that’s the default so you don’t have to do a thing.įor the drums, I will be using EZDrummer. Let’s get cracking! As ever, click on any image to enlarge! Step 1: Basic Drums This is what you could do with your new homemade disco music using only a couple of minutes, some drum loops, some EQ, and a heap-full of side-chained compression.
How to add ezdrummer midi track software#
Today we’re going to dive into producing disco music using Toontrack’s software suites - EZDrummer, EZKeys, EZbass, and EZmix. If you’re going to produce old-school house music or create something with a French flair in the vein of vintage Stardust, Cassius, Daft Punk, and the other usual suspects, you’ll need a good disco sample.īut what if you don’t want to be connected to somebody else’s stuff? Or… what if you just want to produce disco music for disco musics sake? The answer – you make your own.
How to add ezdrummer midi track how to#
Have you ever wondered how to create a disco track? Learn how from this tutorial on producing disco music using Toontrack’s EZDrummer, EZKeys, EZbass, and EZmix.