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EZ Products Q&A

Lesson 11 from: Songwriting with EZdrummer 2

Rikk Currence

EZ Products Q&A

Lesson 11 from: Songwriting with EZdrummer 2

Rikk Currence

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Lesson Info

11. EZ Products Q&A

Next Lesson: 9 Wrap-Up

Lesson Info

EZ Products Q&A

Matt wants to know the same track have any plans of releasing easy guitar program because he's, he said, there's, not really any good guitar programs, is that top see, I see it's sort of like I'm getting ready to talk to matt through the camera, like, down off the record, yeah, so you're not here anymore, so you don't you don't hear this that it's the deal hard, his guitar like, seriously, you need it can't get any easier, grow your hair long, don't get a job, it's easy guitar player, there you go. No, but seriously with but seriously, am I right? So with with all and we get this it's a fair question, because we get this a lot and we get. So are you going to do easy this? And are you going to do easy that most of that question will never be answered by us with a straight face? Because obviously, if we tell you that there's no fun in that, then we can't do this a year from now only release easy, june, but what I'm saying is, think about the process that really needs to be made less comp...

licated. So, for instance, well, as we discussed earlier, a multitrack drum recording session with a multi million dollar studio and I platinum producer those things are a little harder to orchestrate then you know drop dy tuning and you know whatever it is you crazy kids do with your twang hours today so it's really a matter of sound design team can use it and it's a guiding principle of our company and this is really cool the founders of our company are pretty awesome about the way they go about designing products and it's really simple if we don't need it or we won't use it, we won't make it we don't it's not about flooding the market with the whole series of easy this and superior than awesome and any other you know, complete adjective we can use to describe what the product is it's about is this going to have an effect on the people that use it? Are we going to use it? That's the other thing a lot of questions all the time from a lot of and users and fans that are totally legitimate and we know that you guys just are to attract fans and were humbled and flattered that you would even elect us to do easy guitar or easy whatever but just know that there's a level of integrity to the product design and the implementation and overall the way that it works inside minutes pride internally not only are we proud of the way that others use it, but if the guys that work for our company won't use it if we won't make music with it if we don't use it by choice is opposed anything else and there's really no point in it. So as far as other easy products go, I can't see any reason why to track wouldn't continue its lineage of trying to take technology and innovate ways for musicians to make better higher quality, more efficient music that's really all I can say with any other questions I think that's good I think we're good on questions that we got one right here my man oh oh first of all, let me start by saying coming in this completely blind or, you know, ignorance too easy drummer any products that you guys have, I'm impressed I'm very impressed and being a musician and being a spy or whatever in entertainment this is open my eyes a lot and I really like the products what they see it with having easy drummer too does that make easy drummer one obsolete or to replace him it or it's a great question actually and it's a valid, very valid question so if you're an easy drummer one owner this is probably the part you definitely want to listen to so is your mother one again from two thousand six to may sixth, two thousand fourteen right had a great run twenty one expansion libraries eighty thousand many groups so there's a lot there, so if you're still currently using easy drummer won everything you have and everything you've purchased works fine is going to work fine is going to be great nothing changes he's a drummer too, however is the new generation of the product, so we won't be designing anything new building anything new or really even updating anything from the original easy drummer one anymore. All of our energy and attention is a company's on easy drummer too, so one of the things that we've done has tried to really encourage easy drummer one users toe up date an upgrade because way understand that when you get comfortable with gear, you don't want to let it go and a lot of times software updates and upgrades are scary and we get that so there's a couple of things we've done to try and facilitate this number one if you are a customer that's never owned easy drummer ever and you buy easy drummer two right now in united states of america with us being broadcast through retail its one hundred forty nine dollars ninety nine cents if you're an existing user of easy drummer so you do already have easy drummer, but you want to upgrade these drummer too there's a discounted price you're not paying one hundred forty nine point nine you're only paying eighty nine nine so we're trying to make it financially appealing as well, something that's super cool that's really does bring up a great point that we haven't talked about yet is the core libraries that we've been discussing an easy drummer, too. So the modern library in the vintage library, those come with easy drummer, too that's what you get with it. But if you were an easy drummer, one user, you had a different core library. It was called the pop rock library it's kind of a standard. It was recorded in avatar studios in new york it's a brilliant sounding library, so people that just get into easy drummer, too, that never had you don't have that library. If you weren't easy, drummer one user, you keep that library when you upgrade, so you actually when you upgrade these drummer to not only have the modern, the vintage, but you still keep your pop rock library that you've had, and it goes along with everything else that's been updated and remodeled, actually, let's, get out of this pro tools session. Why we're discussing this, and we will show you I'm going to save this because it's pretty awesome, and then we're going to wait, mike, appear ultimately yellow me, your crash, or do something, but what you'll get then is as easy drummer to users will have the opportunity to buy the pop rock expansion library as a separate library we're going to be releasing and actually next week, but if you're already and he's a german one, you already have that which is kind of a kind of an added bonus, so you're paying less for the product upgrade and you get to keep the libraries you have and it's really cool for those of you out there that have the easy drummer one experience and are used to the pop rock library, let me kind of show you what it looks like we've been looking at this guy all day, but if you come in here and you go to the pop rock library, let me find it pop rock basic it's been updated the graphics renew the sounds of been tweaked everything's fantastic so pretty cool stuff so that's kind of it also a really need incentive for people to get involved if they've been waiting and I know too, with any sort of update or upgrade whether it's an apple product or windows product or whatever it is I know people are always kept that was wait well, let's wait because but the new version is just all the bugs and we've I think you can probably check and a lot of chat rooms on the forms a lot of users we've been had a very successful run with the with the new product, and we haven't really had any major issues or anything out of the ordinary that any small software would have so it's safe. So if you're if you're waiting from easy germany's drama to don't wait any more, the only person that's missing out is you this is this is where we want you to be. This is what we want to do. I mean, we updated the graphics, we give you new free sounds, we're trying to keep everything relevant and we're going to continue making expansion libraries. We have new expansion libraries planned all throughout the year they're going to utilize this new technology and be available. We want you to be excited about it and if you're still trapped and easy drummer one land that's a great place to be if you're comfortable there, but it has reached sort of the end of the road we won't be developing freed the german one platform anymore got a question? Actually, a couple of people are asking this starbucks and a, um what's the future of superior drummer will it add too easy to functionality superior fans? So we get this question a lot too, and this is very valid the future of superior drummer is just a secure as the future of easy german, all of our other products clearly we have an affinity for that program as the original d f h and superior germ or the first two products that are company design so superior drummer was released in two thousand eight spirit number two point oh way say this all the time sapir drummer to point I was still ahead of its time it's still more relevant as a drum production tool than a lot of its friendly peers and competitors and we mean that in all sincerity it still has features and functions that set the standard and kind of develop the trends around them so for us that's one side of the coin the other side of the coin is its superior drummer now stop periods of period summer that means that's it it's this is it this is your drummer so to do an update disappeared drummer for instance a superior three point oh it really has to maintain that high caliber of it needs to be the be all end all that being said if you are a current superior to point oh user you should know that last week I believe some time at the beginning maybe the middle we released the latest update for superior to point out which actually brings it to superior two point four and that update is important because what it does is allow you is a superior drummer user to utilize the new easy ex format in superior drummer so for instance your superior to point oh user and you're thinking to yourself why would I invest one hundred fifty dollars an easy drummer too and that's a valid question because it's a lot of money I would remind you first and foremost that the expansion format for superior drummer the stx those libraries are one hundred forty nine ninety nine all the time every day that's just what they cost unless they're on sale somewhere which we do from time to time so essentially for spending one hundred forty nine ninety nine dollars and he's drummer too you're going to libraries that work in superior drummer that have great sounds from british grove but that also bring the new technology over I want to see the new technology I mean for instance if you were to open the modern this let's go to modern let's go to the eighties kid if you were opened this kid and superior two point oh you would get all of these effects to open with it now you won't have control over them and superior to point out because well they don't live there they live in these drummer too but the kind of the pre set the vibe everything else will open with it which is pretty great so it's a value for the superior drummer user because quite frankly we know that our superior uses air like die hard production fans they love the program nothing else will do and were immensely grateful for that but superior to point out was never designed to do this it wasn't designed to run this race it was designed to do something completely different so it is literally like having two separate tools it's it's they're very similar right I mean you can go to a lot of analogies and a lot of things that are very similar to a hammer ball peen hammer framing hammer they do different things you build a house with one email on a you know ah picture with the others there's the same kind of mindset that you need tools at different levels of your game and your trade to accomplish what you want to sow with easy drummer to again as we've been discussing all this about song writing it's about getting in and writing songs and you know why you're here wouldn't it be great if what you did here was good enough maybe you don't have to go to superior now we're not trying to encourage you they're not you superior but we're just trying to give you the options to say hey listen we all know that it's appeared to point out there is a control over the drum sound and the actual production aesthetics that is way deeper than anything I showed you today in these drummer too and it's going to stay that way so if and when we kind of approach the next level of superior just know that we're going to do it with trepidation in respects and again eight years it took us to get here and it was worth it. I think anyone would agree that's a fan or user of the original program to where we are today that eight years was very well spent with us develop we didn't just kind of change the pictures and hears the same thing it's it's a new program and I would suspect if and when we start to approach the period that way would be the exact same thing do you know how long I just talked? Did you hear all those words that came out of my face? It was a lot it wasn't like one period in there this poor guy's like I just wanted to yes or no and I'm like and then he descended from the mountains insane but he clearly knows he's in the loop now he's informed do we have any other questions before I sort of go into a this is code for overview we're going talk we're just going to recap we're gonna bring it all home land the plane we're gonna make sure everybody understands what sound yeah good man we good all right, so where does that leave us? Well, kind of leaves us right where we started on the title of this class was song writing with easy drummer too and we would like to think that now that we've kind of gone through a number of different components in the program and where we're at, how it works in a couple of different real world scenarios, hopefully it's painfully apparent how cool of a tool this is for the song writing process and it's the simplest again opening your laptop, pulling up the program and starting to write music, and it can be a simple as being inspired and moving in the moment like we did with drew of putting things together and, you know your mind could we could still be working on that track just kind of doing what we wanted to deal with variations or even just playing around, even just sitting down to practice there's something intrinsically really, really, really fun about not having to worry about a lot of buttons and bells and whistles to get the result there's something really cool about a drop down menu and then going in and saying, ok, I want that kit and then come into a browser and then looking through many and just not even thinking about what you're doing and grabbing it and looping it, and now it's play guitar, let's, play let's, do what just happened it was that simple you can start in the moment there's something really organic tow us anyway about that process and it was a three steps just click, click, click and we're ready to go. And then again, once you've been into that process of changing things to meet your need, lowering the simple back to the seventies, we go so that's what you want to hear their or you that's, how it works and then going in and saying, you know what, that's a great starting point, but man, I don't really know much about drums, but I want it to do this. How do I tell it to do this and clicking on a tom? Because that's, my favorite thing to add that's the joke in our companies that add tom's everything. I don't know why I do it, but I'm going to do it again because I know people from the company are watching and I want them to realize that I haven't lost my edge. That's how I roll tom's on everything and it's just that simple it's a different groove and that took me if again, if I wasn't talking less than a minute and it's calm it's, I don't have to remember what I did it's here it's saved for me it's I can drag it to the desktop I could say that is a many file. I can write a song I could say that's fantastic, you know what I want to do? I want a whole song based on that groove, and I could see what other groups that I have that are available to write this song. So this one little part now becomes this ridiculous way for me to just drag and drop and add things nothing like a phil straight into the ending that's song, writing at its best folks and then drop things in places that don't go on experiment and really just all within minutes again. I don't know if you have worked with any other virtual instruments or work specifically and does the things that we're doing from a creativity and inspiration standpoint used to take half hour, twenty minutes a set this up do this, get ready, you have to get ready to be creative and that's not fun. Being creative is this spontaneous organic? It just happens. I feel that I want to sit down with my guitar and right, what can I do? I want to sit down with my keys and one of you could play violin and you could do any thing to this. If you have a computer and you've used the same speakers that are in the laptop, you don't have to have a rigorous of it just you can get up and go so we're really inspired by the way that we feel this inspires people and that really changes our company perspective we want mohr things like this we want we want to make it easier for you to make music because making music shouldn't be something that is relegated to a select few I'm all for the craft an arts manship off playing, and I don't want to take anything away from that people that sit down and become virtual so that their instrument or hit a level of technical proficiency in their skill that is something to be admired and being off, but anybody that has the thought that they want to express themselves musically as it as access now and to us that's massive who so who's the program for its for everybody clearly the immediate folks musicians, producers, writers, engineers, post got people that are in the music business in the music industry or live in that world it's ideal you already there you already get why this is awesome, but to a young person it may be watching that's thinking about being a drummer to an old person that was playing for a long time and stop because they just couldn't handle anymore now they want to get back into it it's a great time to do this and he's drummer to hopefully will be a part of the way you look at and work with your music moving forward so one of the other really cool functions about easy drummer too that I don't talk about a lot because they're different sorts of scenarios is there's an educational component to everything we do a tune track based on the way we design our interface is so the ability to sit behind the drum kit and I didn't know if you see it or saw it just like you would have in in easy keys but the ability to have this happen and see what's going on you have a visual representation of what's happening on the fact that you can slow it down that's hot that's really you see what's going on you see how these changes happen and we always encourage drummers I mean drummers I think appreciate the program the most in some aspects because it's not always easy to sit down and move all four of your limbs by yourself and be in that creative zone so we have is we have a large constituent of drum artists that work with our product because it's like they're creating their workload for the dinner like ok well I'm going to do this I'm gonna put this phil here and then they take it and then then that's their practice routine that's how they go learn that's their contribution and you know what I keep thinking back to session three word drew and I are working together and I'm a drummer and I literally was like, well, I don't have to be behind the kid, I don't have to be I could just do this, and then we've got I can go teach my son my angle plaque and get that group get that feel get that vibe and move forward and that's pretty cool that's, really, that keeps that spark going and keeps the energy happening, and we all know, I think if you've been creative or you are creative it's really important to not jeopardize that spark because we all know what it's like to not feel creatively like I don't feel like doing anything and, you know, most of the time, my creativity is sapped, I'm not gonna lie is when I in my mind can projected the process out, so I got open this I gotta armatrading I'm gonna mike upon him. Oh lord, that we get and it's like, oh, I don't want to make music anymore. I want to do other things like watch television because it requires no effort, and I'm hoping that one day the two will combine where music and watching television are synonymous, not watching music on television, but literally there'll be a tune track implant like this was the group, and it would just do everything while I'm watching my stories on tv. Because how else will I know what happens with lizard lick towing? I won't know unless I'm watching it in real time in time from music, so the idea again really simple we've talked about it a lot I don't necessarily know that there's a lot of mme or detail it's easy drummer too it's pretty deep for an easy program but at the end of the day it has limitations it does one thing it does one thing really well and within the confines of that one thing you have more options and accessibility than anyone else has ever given you so before I kind of wind down and then just kind of do one more last overview do we have questions? Concerns, comments anything from inner space? Yeah, my man speak about dull. Yes is the whole program um digital auto audio workshopping workstation is that with what is that within the easy drummer who never it's a great question and a lot of people don't know this so he's drum or two it would be considered a plug in its that's what we would call it it's a software plug in and it's called that because it has the ability to interface in another software environment now a dog or a digital audio work station would be a much grander software environment first, like pro tools or q base or studio one or innuendo these are these air software programs that they're designed to record and capture audio and blend the best of recording riel world audio and sources with virtual instruments and it's sort of a big workshop it I mean that the digital audio workshop is way better than workstation so it is really a place where you take all of your ideas and kind of meld them together so they will be separate program so what you have in this song track here is very doll like though in the in the fact that you have and can edit your grooves and move through things and work at a capacity without worrying about that where when you're done here is dragging into your dog you can do whatever you want with it at that point time it's a finished product great question oh ok so I'm just going to kind of wrap it up then and sort of bring things to a place where I think everyone feels good my name is rick and I have the pleasure and privilege of working for a company called to track we make a program called easy drummer too that's the sequel to believe or not the number one selling product of its kind in the history of the software industry so we have a good idea on how to do this and why to do it and what to do and I think we've done it today we talked about a lot of things and I want to thank creative lives because they give us an opportunity to go deeper with the program that we've been able to go in any other environment and that's one of the really unique things about creative live and what they offer as a resource for musicians is that they're willing to do things and invite people out and take a look a tw processes and products and things that just don't happen anywhere else I get it youtube get it other people that do instructional videos but I'm telling you just like every musician is different every content provider is different and we've worked and I've personally worked in a lot of scenarios and this is probably one of the coolest and most conducive environments to be creative in so it's very aptly titled creative live so they gave us the time to talk you guys about easy drummer too we've asked a million times if there's any other questions because we really want to answer him and hopefully there aren't a million questions because you guys were busy making music and not listen to me amber that would be ideal so with that I want to conclude my little diatribe if you will about easy drummer too I want to encourage you to seek out all the information you can ask questions, hit up your local retail or check stuff out online download the demo if you haven't tried it out and makes a music and see if it doesn't change the process for you in the best way possible, because I would really be surprised if it didn't. I can't thank you guys enough for everything. So I'm just going to shut up now, and I'm going to turn it back over to drew. And as you guys have a great day.

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I can't think of a better guy to present this course. Rikk is fantastic. Knowledge delivered in a clever and often self deprecating manner. Highly recommend this for anyone.

Student Work

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