The Classic EZX – Playmusic Pickup – April 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The idea of EZdrummer itself was to provide the same level of sound quality as Toontrack’s premium Superior Drummer software without the cost or the sheer size needed for such a powerful library.
The flexibility of the EZdrummer software also makes it that much easier for Toontrack to release expansion sets that are a little more, shall we say, niche. And this is where the new Classic EZX comes in. The software itself isn’t a standalone; it must be used as an expansion to either EZdrummer or as a Superior Drummer SDX expansion and in common with all of the other EZX libraries the Classic comes with a great set of pre-programmed MIDI drum patterns to get you started.
Following on from a similar idea that was employed in Toontrack’s previous Custom & Vintage set, the idea is to create a more Classic, old school rock vibe and to that end the drums in question have all been recorded through a vintage Helios console. The Helios analogue console is a legend in the recording industry and was originally designed for Olympic Studios back in the 1960s, being used by everyone from Jimi Hendrix and The Who, through to the Stone and Led Zeppelin! These days bit of dismembered Helios desks fetch obscene amounts of money from those who require its unique sound but Classic EZX offers some fantastic Helios-recorded drum tracks for only a relatively few quid! The strong sensation of continuity between the Classic EZX and Toontrack’s Custom & Vintage plug-in is probably due in part to the fact that both feature top session drummer Chris Whitten and producer Peter Henderson. One important different, however, is that the Custom & Vintage set was recorded using a vintage EMI console and the sounds were recorded very dry. In the case of Classic EZX things are a little different.
There are two sample sets to install: The first gives you the traditional stance on multi kit miking (IE one mic per drum with stereo overheads). The second set is where things get a little more interesting with its classic four microphone set up. This was a technique pioneered in the 1960s by both engineers at EMI Abbey Road and more famously the engineer Glyn Johns at the aforementioned Olympic Studios. In this modern world where everything tends to be recorded separately the concept of recording a drum kit with only four mics might seem a little antiquated but before you judge it listen to some classic 1970s records by The Who and hear just how big these four mic setups can sound!
The library itself takes up about 2 gigabytes of hard drive space and as you’d expect when compared to the huge libraries of the Superior line something has to give somewhere. In this case Toontrack have made the right decision by slightly reducing the amount of drums played and including a few less articulations. All the main hits are there, tough, with the snare featuring standard hits, rimshots, sidesticks and ruffs and although there doesn’t seem to be the same fanatical level of samples per hit the balance of features still seems to be pitched about right.
The main kits sampled are a Noble & Cooley five piece kit with two distinct head types, a Yamaha five piece and a Craviotto four piece. Believe me, these are all seriously high end kits which are then matched by a similarly high end selection of snares from Noble & Cooley, Craviotto and Ludwig. There are a maximum of fourteen different cymbals in the collection and we find a more than reasonable selection of hats, crashes, rides and splashes from the likes of Zildjian, Paiste and Sabian.
Firing up the first multi-mic’d kit I was immediately struck by the different tonality of the drums: Gone is the Hi-Fi sheen that normally distinguishes Toontrack libraries, but in its place is a very understated, dare I say ‘vintage’ sound. It’s easy at first listen to think that the drums sound a little unremarkable when compared to the more modern kit libraries where the snares sound more like explosions and the cymbals can remove the enamel from your teeth, but with a bit of use you start to realise that the vintage drum samples have a real low down ballsiness that makes them perfect for any sort of classic rock. The other interesting thing I noticed was how well these drums sat in a track. You don’t always want the drums to pop out of a mix and these drums gelled with the other instruments in the track in a way that many modern drum often don’t.
Switching over to the four microphone kit things got even more interesting, First up, it’s actually five microphones as there is an additional ambience mic for livening things up and making the drums sound even bigger.
It’s nice not to have too many faders to worry about with drums and again these drum sat nicely into everything I recorded them into, although these drums can get seriously ballsy when you need it! On a personal note, I wasn’t actually too keen on the sound of the ambience mic; I would have loved something altogether huger sounding (think When the Levee Breaks by Led Zep) but what you actually get may just be more useful in an everyday settings. I would have also expected to hear more of the whole kit through the kick drum mic but in practise this does not detract from a great selection of drum sounds.
Should I buy one?
So, whether you own Toontrack’s EZdrummer or a fully spec’d Superior kit, Classic EZX gives you a very useable collection of stunningly flexible and powerful vintage drum sounds that you probably won’t already have and at an admission price which almost makes this a no brainer.
You may end up using it all of the time or just occasionally but I promise you that is you record any form of classic Rock ‘n’ Roll you’ll be very glad you’ve got it! Program it right, close your eyes and you can almost see Keith Moon or John Bonham smacking the skins through the studio glass!
Click here for more details about The Classic EZX
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