Hi all,
 
Been trying the EZDrummer 2 demo and the search function has possibly highlighted the limited number of grooves I have despite owning most of the EZ expansions (Nashvile/Latin/Funk/Jazz/PopRock/Vintage).
 
Any recommendations for Toontrack or 3rd party groove packs with the most variety and bang for buck? I do Pop, Rock, Country, Jazz and Folk mostly...the songwriter packs for example?
 
Cheers!
M

GrooveMonkee is a maker of fine midi clips. :-)
http://groovemonkee.com/collections/midi-loops
 
I've used some of their stuff for a long time. If you browse for a bit on their site, they will give you a 25% off coupon on the right hand side if you let them send you junk mail. Their midi packs come designed for lots of different drum synths including Addictive Drums. They work great.
 
The midi clips I've gotten otherwise have come with Session Drummer Expansion Packs and Sonar itself. Addictive Drums comes with beats, and you can buy beat packs, but they don't let you use them with other drum synths without a considerable struggle. Addictive Drums is more about making money than helping you make music. For example, you can't pull in your own samples or record your own samples to use with Addictive Drums like you can with Session Drummer and most other drum synths I know.
 
Eli Krantzberg has some great videos on how to build up your own drum loops in Groove3.
http://elikrantzberg.com/Music_Theory.html
 

After you have the full version of EZDrummer 2 installed you then update all you EZX and and Midi packs to make them visable to the new EZD2 search functions.
 
Unfortunatly all third party loops cannot be detected by "tap to find" but they will appear in the browser once you define your user content folders. I contacted Groove Monkee to ask about this and they said Toontrack is not releasing the information required to make their loops detectable.
 
The following suppliers provide Toontrack mappings.
 
Platinum Samples have some very high quality MIDI that will work in Toontrack. (There is 15% off promotion on now if you buy more than one pack).
Groove Monkee is another good source.
Oddgrooves are well know for their Prog and odd time signature loops but they have some more conventional stuff as well.
 
 
 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH9W1MD80kk
This is a cake video on mixing drums too.

Thanks for the replies guys - very useful info, especially about the tap2find and 3rd parties! I'll get round to watching that drum mixing video too.
 
Soooo....how are the in-house Toontrack midi grooves? for example:
 
http://www.toontrack.com/product/songwriters-drumpack-collection/
 
or
 
http://www.toontrack.com/product/essential-drums-midi-6-pack/
 
at 79 Euros each?
 
Cheers

I don't get any mileage out of the Jazz midi.  I guess it's because I can't imagine Jazz "planned out" that much.
 
I would say that anything with "Extreme" in the title isn't a good fit either.  The songwriters packs are very good.
 
The Backbeats and all of the Rock collections are good.  I'd stay away from the Metal grooves.
 
Anything that Chris Whitten played on is good.

I totally love playing along with a wildly varied set of beats. It stretches me. I definitely have a certain attack to the way I play guitar, but as I entrain to all the bazillion midi clips I've got, I have to work to swing with them.
 
I think it helps me become a much better player.
 
It also helps me become better at playing with strangers. Always those out of towners have some extra vibe that none of the people I regularly jam with seem to hit... some odd accent or crazy rush in one spot or another. It helps to use midi clips that are random --- or make your own random loops.

As good as the Toontrack midi works in the EZ Drummer 2 browser, it's going to be hard to buy other loops. I love that you can drag your main groove onto the midi deal in the search tab, set the browser for fills and get a load of fills from lots of different midi packs. Sometimes I go for a high percentage match. If I want something different, I go for one of the lower percent matches. If you like the kick and snare from 1 match and the high hat from another, you can copy what you want to build a new groove. CCLarry posted a great little video on that about a week ago. My enthusiasm for EZ D2 has not yet peaked. If you are wondering what midi packs you might like, set the browser so it shows loops from packs at the Toontrack website and see what shows up the most. I like the Session Drums, Basic Rock, Backbeats and Songwriters. Hope there was some help in there.