What are the "best" hard rock / metal drums for EZ Drummer 2?

bingefeller

I haven't bought any drums for EZ Drummer in ages and I have some cash in PayPal so I thought I'd treat myself.

There are so many metal packs that I don't know which one to get so I would like some suggestions.

I like classic metal and hard rock drum sounds, like these:

guitarfishbay

I'm going to assume you want to do as little extra to the samples to get close to those tones.  Though putting the snare through an appropriate 80s sounding snare reverb plugin would help a lot.  Of those ones I have hear are how I'd think they'd translate to what you like

The Colin Richardson pack - Made of Metal has a really nice sounding room, but the snares might be tuned a bit high for your tastes if you like a fatter snare.  It's a good all round metal pack though, better at the heavier stuff than the slower mid tempo 80s rock tracks  https://www.toontrack.com/product/made-of-metal-ezx/



The Andy Sneap pack probably has the snares tuned too high for you and the kicks are all fairly aggressively processed.  It sounds good but is better suited to more modern faster heavy music than classic.

DFH again, not tuned or EQ'd anywhere near what you'd like based on those clips, ditto the Metalheads EZX.  I'd probably skip both of those these days regardless as the Richardson and Sneap packs cover the metal drum sounds better than those.

If you're willing to do some post processing to get the kind of reverb-y sound you like then the best sample packs I've heard are the ones done by Forrester Savell - Progressive EZX and Progressive Foundry.  I bought the EZX thinking I might just use a couple of sounds from it and then liked it so much I bought the SDX as well.  From memory there's a bunch of stuff that'll work for the kind of sounds you need but the rooms themselves aren't as big as some of the other packs so you'll need to add some reverb in of your own.  They're excellently recorded drums though IMO, my favourite out of any company I've onwed (I've got a bunch of BFD and Slate drums too) https://www.toontrack.com/product/progressive-ezx/



Heart of A Lion is one of my favourite rock songs btw, such a massive riff.  It was a Judas Priest song originally IIRC.

bingefeller

@guitarfishbay thanks for the suggestions.  Logic Pro has some nice reverbs built in, there is one in particular called "Collins Gate", which you can guess what it sounds like.  In the new Chroma Verb there are a few other 80s drum reverbs.  

Which one would you recommend out of your suggestions?  I don't know anything about EQing drums or tuning them.  Like you say, I want to do as little post-processing as possible.  Adding reverb is fine with me, but I'm just doing this for my own fun so the quality of the overall mix isn't that important.  




I love Heart of a Lion too, especially the Racer X version, which has loads of reverb on it.  I first heard the Racer X version then the Halford version.  It was written by Rob Halford when he was with Judas Priest but wasn't recorded by Rob until one of Rob's solo albums.  It's a great tune.  

guitarfishbay

If you're happy putting reverb on yourself then I'd personally go for Progressive EZX.  I think it's recorded really well and isn't as pigeon holed as some of the other packs.  Most of the other metal ones have quite clicky sounding kick drums and the snares are often tuned fairly high, that sounds good for modern faster metal but can be a bit too much for something more mid tempo and classic sounding.  There are good sounding hard hits in Progressive EZX and they'll work great for all kinds of hard rock and metal, but it's overall a more balanced sounding pack in general vs the other metal Toontrack packs I have.

You can't really tune a drum after it's been recorded.  Well, you sort of can, but it's nowhere near as effective as tuning it the right way for the style to begin with.  It's a really deep topic and one I'm only a beginner at myself, not being a drummer.  But as a general rule if you hear a snare drum sample and it sounds really high and pingy you're not going to be able to get it to sound deeper and fatter by mixing it.

bingefeller

guitarfishbay said:

If you're happy putting reverb on yourself then I'd personally go for Progressive EZX.  I think it's recorded really well and isn't as pigeon holed as some of the other packs.  Most of the other metal ones have quite clicky sounding kick drums and the snares are often tuned fairly high, that sounds good for modern faster metal but can be a bit too much for something more mid tempo and classic sounding.  There are good sounding hard hits in Progressive EZX and they'll work great for all kinds of hard rock and metal, but it's overall a more balanced sounding pack in general vs the other metal Toontrack packs I have.

You can't really tune a drum after it's been recorded.  Well, you sort of can, but it's nowhere near as effective as tuning it the right way for the style to begin with.  It's a really deep topic and one I'm only a beginner at myself, not being a drummer.  But as a general rule if you hear a snare drum sample and it sounds really high and pingy you're not going to be able to get it to sound deeper and fatter by mixing it.

Thanks, I'll pick up Progressive EZX.

You can tune the built in Logic Pro X drums, but I never bother with that.  I just tend to leave everything as is!  Some of them sound pretty good.  

Thanks again.

guitarfishbay

Hope you like it, let me know what you think of it.  

Yes you can tune drums in Superior Drummer too (I don't own EZ Drummer).  However that's tuning the whole drum together via a pitch shifting algorithm. 

In reality the drums almost always have two heads, and the relationship of those heads - both the type and the tuning interval, and how they work on that particular drum are arguably the biggest determining factors to the sound.  Not just the pitch, but also the kind of character it has, be that tight and pingy or loose and fat, or somewhere in between.  And that relationship and core characteristic is baked in to the sound when the drums are sampled, you can only then affect the total pitch of that sound, not make it sound like it was tuned differently to begin with, if that makes sense.

duotone

guitarfishbay said:

Hope you like it, let me know what you think of it.  

Yes you can tune drums in Superior Drummer too (I don't own EZ Drummer).  However that's tuning the whole drum together via a pitch shifting algorithm. 

In reality the drums almost always have two heads, and the relationship of those heads - both the type and the tuning interval, and how they work on that particular drum are arguably the biggest determining factors to the sound.  Not just the pitch, but also the kind of character it has, be that tight and pingy or loose and fat, or somewhere in between.  And that relationship and core characteristic is baked in to the sound when the drums are sampled, you can only then affect the total pitch of that sound, not make it sound like it was tuned differently to begin with, if that makes sense.

You can tune individual parts of the kit in EZ Drummer 2

bingefeller

duotone said:

guitarfishbay said:

Hope you like it, let me know what you think of it.  

Yes you can tune drums in Superior Drummer too (I don't own EZ Drummer).  However that's tuning the whole drum together via a pitch shifting algorithm. 

In reality the drums almost always have two heads, and the relationship of those heads - both the type and the tuning interval, and how they work on that particular drum are arguably the biggest determining factors to the sound.  Not just the pitch, but also the kind of character it has, be that tight and pingy or loose and fat, or somewhere in between.  And that relationship and core characteristic is baked in to the sound when the drums are sampled, you can only then affect the total pitch of that sound, not make it sound like it was tuned differently to begin with, if that makes sense.

You can tune individual parts of the kit in EZ Drummer 2

What's the deal with tuning drums?  I don't touch the tuning ever, is there a rule to follow?

octatonic

For actual drums, you tune each lug so the tension is equal across the head.
There are a lot of things you can do with getting the top and bottom heads tuned differently for different sounds.

in a plugin, you can’t do this, it is a simple pitch shift, just tune until you like the sound.

guitarfishbay

It’s basically what sounds good, rather than necessarily aiming for a certain pitch.

With tuning via plugin - If you were mixing something and found the fundamental of your drum sample was in the way of the fundamental power of another pitched instrument (eg guitar) you could tune your sample up a little as one option of how to deal with it. 

Likewise if the bass guitar is fighting a lot with the kick you could try pitching it a little to help define where they each have power.

But to be honest if you have enough samples to choose from it’s often easier just picking a sample that sounds good to you from the start and not worrying about tuning it further.

bingefeller

octatonic said:

For actual drums, you tune each lug so the tension is equal across the head.
There are a lot of things you can do with getting the top and bottom heads tuned differently for different sounds.

in a plugin, you can’t do this, it is a simple pitch shift, just tune until you like the sound.

Ah right, I though it was something to do with tuning to specific pitches or something along those lines.  

guitarfishbay said:

It’s basically what sounds good, rather than necessarily aiming for a certain pitch.

With tuning via plugin - If you were mixing something and found the fundamental of your drum sample was in the way of the fundamental power of another pitched instrument (eg guitar) you could tune your sample up a little as one option of how to deal with it. 

Likewise if the bass guitar is fighting a lot with the kick you could try pitching it a little to help define where they each have power.

But to be honest if you have enough samples to choose from it’s often easier just picking a sample that sounds good to you from the start and not worrying about tuning it further.

Sounds Quite deep!  As you say, it’s unlikely I would mess with the tuning any further once the sample is loaded. 

guitarfishbay

Drum tuning is a deep topic and it’s not really comparable to tuning guitars where a note is a note. Each drum and even skin will work well at different pitches for different sounds.

I really want to get my own kit to practice tuning on, but in terms of samples all the hard work of tuning them right for the sound has already been done. 

Have you had a go on the pack yet?

bingefeller

guitarfishbay said:

Drum tuning is a deep topic and it’s not really comparable to tuning guitars where a note is a note. Each drum and even skin will work well at different pitches for different sounds.

I really want to get my own kit to practice tuning on, but in terms of samples all the hard work of tuning them right for the sound has already been done. 

Have you had a go on the pack yet?

Yes mate I got the Progressive pack and it sounds great.  It’s my first proper Toontrack metal pack.  Metalizer is my favourite preset so far.  I haven’t had a lot of time to play around with it tonight, but will over the weekend.  I want to learn how to set up multi outs so I can have each kit piece on a different track.  

octatonic

Dance producers often tune the bass drum to the song’s key.

bingefeller

octatonic said:

Dance producers often tune the bass drum to the song’s key.

I never knew that,that is interesting.  Was that done back with the old drum machines in the 80s As well as modern stuff?

octatonic

bingefeller said:

octatonic said:

Dance producers often tune the bass drum to the song’s key.

I never knew that,that is interesting.  Was that done back with the old drum machines in the 80s As well as modern stuff?

I don’t think so.