# Ezdrummer expansion or GGD?



## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

So I am currently using the stock ezdrummer 2 kit with an alesis edrum kit to create my drum tracks and I originally just wanted to expand the kit to add a china and a splash since the kit just comes with a bunch of crashes. I was looking at getting the Duality kit, which looks pretty nice. But considering the cost, and also considering how many people have switched from EZD to GGD, for about the same price I could get the modem and massive set from GGD. I'm not particularly skilled at processing drums but I'm very willing to spend the time to learn how to tailor sounds for my needs (right now, I'm really into that 80s gated reverb sound, which is pretty easy to accomplish with my current kit and some extra plugins). 

I scoured the internet trying to listen to comparisons and reading people's opinions of which is better, but I'm still torn. For about $80 or less, what would be my best option to have a nice sounding but flexible kit? I'm happy to consider the convenience of pre-processed drums against the flexibility of less processed ones. What's going to be the best bang for the buck? Which sounds less robotic? Which will mix easier? What is your opinion? Am I missing better options out there?


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

You'll probably find that you're going to need more than one expansion pack. They all have things that sounds good, some that don't. The kit i use for SD3 is a mix of the Metal! expansions and Dark Matter. Either on their own sounded pretty good but blended they sound fucking killer.


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## Roberto Djentz (Apr 13, 2022)

I was literally about to post something similar

I've been using Perfect Drums (sampler) that comes with a free kit and added slate digitals free kit on top (only for the china and splash). I dig the sound, but I'm limited being that it's the free demo option, I dig it none the less. However, I have noticed that majority of the artists I listen to use GGD invasion on their tracks... I'm tempted to get it, but I'm fearful that it will be a ton of tweaking compared to what I already have.


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## Roberto Djentz (Apr 13, 2022)

Not sure if Perfect Drums interests you, but it's almost always on sale for $75
(And free to try)

Here are two example test tracks I have made.

Forgive my mixing quality 




This one has a lot more drum dynamics going on.


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## MetalheadMC (Apr 13, 2022)

Expansion pack. I've used ezdrummer for years with results. Made the mistake of buying GGD two months ago, and it did not work out for me. One it killed my cpu usage, and two it uses kontakt. 

Ezdrummer is it's own interface, very easy to use, and manipulate as far as what I want when writing drum parts. Plus, I feel it has more variety. 

I will say I am a little biased just because of all the years I've used ezdrummer. I didn't really put the time in to learn GGD, but after the initial few times, it was just too much of a change for my process.


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## CanserDYI (Apr 13, 2022)

Ez drummer=sounds great, ez

Ggd=sounds great, not ez.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> You'll probably find that you're going to need more than one expansion pack. They all have things that sounds good, some that don't. The kit i use for SD3 is a mix of the Metal! expansions and Dark Matter. Either on their own sounded pretty good but blended they sound fucking killer.


Yeah, I did buy the jazz kit awhile back designed by Roy Wooten and it's pretty fantastic and it scratched that jazz itch. But I'm getting back into rock and metal and need something more versatile than the stock kit. And it's been awhile since I've really played a lot of drums, you can mix and match all the kits, right? I might be best to build a collection of my favorite EZX kits and stick with that plugin for now instead of starting with an entirely different plugin. To be honest, of all the rave reviews about GGD sounding so much better, I honestly either don't have a trained enough ear or just subjectively think that both sound very good in their own right, but I feel like GGD somehow manages to sound more robotic for some reason. Maybe there aren't as many variations of samples?

Thanks for your input! This might influence my decision.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

MetalheadMC said:


> Expansion pack. I've used ezdrummer for years with results. Made the mistake of buying GGD two months ago, and it did not work out for me. One it killed my cpu usage, and two it uses kontakt.
> 
> Ezdrummer is it's own interface, very easy to use, and manipulate as far as what I want when writing drum parts. Plus, I feel it has more variety.
> 
> I will say I am a little biased just because of all the years I've used ezdrummer. I didn't really put the time in to learn GGD, but after the initial few times, it was just too much of a change for my process.


Thanks, this is useful as well. My process for writing drums has been to physically play them on my edrum kit and then modify the midi in my DAW (Reaper) which has worked pretty well because the drums have a more organic feel that is my own style. (And also not unbelievably more complex than I'm capable of creating as a fairly novice drummer ) 

I honestly don't really care about the ease of creating patterns within the plugin itself because I don't really use it. I get the impression that EZDrummer is largely designed to be a drummer replacement and I'm using it more for the samples than anything else. (Which is also why I don't see myself upgrading to EZD 3 as I feel like the existing version has plenty of features for my needs.) 

I'm also a little leary of moving from a plugin that I know to one built into kontakt that I hear can be a little clunky. With the vast selection of kits that toontracks has to choose from, it just feels more comprehensive to me, where GGD really is more specialized for a few particular sounds right out of the box, ESPECIALLY the one kit wonder libraries. I think I might be sticking to EZD for now.


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

tom1986ca said:


> Yeah, I did buy the jazz kit awhile back designed by Roy Wooten and it's pretty fantastic and it scratched that jazz itch. But I'm getting back into rock and metal and need something more versatile than the stock kit. And it's been awhile since I've really played a lot of drums, you can mix and match all the kits, right? I might be best to build a collection of my favorite EZX kits and stick with that plugin for now instead of starting with an entirely different plugin. To be honest, of all the rave reviews about GGD sounding so much better, I honestly either don't have a trained enough ear or just subjectively think that both sound very good in their own right, but I feel like GGD somehow manages to sound more robotic for some reason. Maybe there aren't as many variations of samples?
> 
> Thanks for your input! This might influence my decision.


I can't comment on GGD although i wouldn't be opposed to trying it lol. But i feel like the EZX kits are plenty versatile. At least for my needs. I've got tons of EZX kits but i always come back to the Metal! pack just for the shells. Literally, my preset is just the shells from the Metal! expansion and the cymbals are all from Dark Matter. I think i may have like 1 or maybe 2 from Metal Machine in there, but not enough so that it would break the kit if i didnt have them lol.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> I can't comment on GGD although i wouldn't be opposed to trying it lol. But i feel like the EZX kits are plenty versatile. At least for my needs. I've got tons of EZX kits but i always come back to the Metal! pack just for the shells. Literally, my preset is just the shells from the Metal! expansion and the cymbals are all from Dark Matter. I think i may have like 1 or maybe 2 from Metal Machine in there, but not enough so that it would break the kit if i didnt have them lol.


Great feedback. Have you checked out the duality sets? If so, how do they compare to metal! and dark matter?


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

Haven't tried out Duality. The sounds i get are in the vein of BLS/Pantera/Megadeth, that deep, snappy sound if that helps. The Dark Matter kit gets REALLY close to those sounds on its own, but i've found that mixing and matching like i have (which was VERY recently btw, as in like the last week or 2) fits *my *sound the best. Id say if i had to pick say 3 expansions to cover the spectrum, id choose Metal!, Made of Metal and Dark Matter. Metal Machine while it sounds good on its own, IMO in a mix doesn't sound as good to my ears considering all the praise it gets. Not to mention the fact that a huge amount of Ezdrummer/Superior Drummer uses it exclusively. It's literally like the V30 of the Toontrack Drum world lol. Just my 

EDIT; if you'd like, if you can send me the stems to a track with the guitars/bass, the drum midi and the BPM i can run it through Reaper through a few kits i have if you'd be interested. May save you some $$$.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> Haven't tried out Duality. The sounds i get are in the vein of BLS/Pantera/Megadeth, that deep, snappy sound if that helps. The Dark Matter kit gets REALLY close to those sounds on its own, but i've found that mixing and matching like i have (which was VERY recently btw, as in like the last week or 2) fits *my *sound the best. Id say if i had to pick say 3 expansions to cover the spectrum, id choose Metal!, Made of Metal and Dark Matter. Metal Machine while it sounds good on its own, IMO in a mix doesn't sound as good to my ears considering all the praise it gets. Not to mention the fact that a huge amount of Ezdrummer/Superior Drummer uses it exclusively. It's literally like the V30 of the Toontrack Drum world lol. Just my


Nice. I do tend to really enjoy a bit of lighter sounding stuff that is more airy and crisp. (like Plini or Caskets) I may just have to sit down and listen to some kits and see what I like the sound of.


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

tom1986ca said:


> Nice. I do tend to really enjoy a bit of lighter sounding stuff that is more airy and crisp. (like Plini or Caskets) I may just have to sit down and listen to some kits and see what I like the sound of.


Made of Metal may be more up your alley. Light sounding but punchy in the right places.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

WarMachine said:


> EDIT; if you'd like, if you can send me the stems to a track with the guitars/bass, the drum midi and the BPM i can run it through Reaper through a few kits i have if you'd be interested. May save you some $$$.


That would be amazing!


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## Crungy (Apr 13, 2022)

I've have GGD Modern and Massive and OKW Fusion. I program everything, haven't tried any groove packs. Both work and sound great in my experience, I use M&M 99% of the time for rock/metal stuff and Fusion for lighter or acoustic stuff. I would absolutely buy more GGD because it sounds killer without a ton of post processing. Kontakt Player for GGD or any other virtual instruments has been flawless for me, I wish I had starting using it ages ago. 

If you know how to use a piano roll, it's really not that difficult. I'm using reaper on a modest windows 7 machine and have little to no issues with CPU usage. If anything, changing out drum pieces may take a moment to load but that's really been the worst of it for me.


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## MetalheadMC (Apr 13, 2022)

tom1986ca said:


> Thanks, this is useful as well. My process for writing drums has been to physically play them on my edrum kit and then modify the midi in my DAW (Reaper) which has worked pretty well because the drums have a more organic feel that is my own style. (And also not unbelievably more complex than I'm capable of creating as a fairly novice drummer )
> 
> I honestly don't really care about the ease of creating patterns within the plugin itself because I don't really use it. I get the impression that EZDrummer is largely designed to be a drummer replacement and I'm using it more for the samples than anything else. (Which is also why I don't see myself upgrading to EZD 3 as I feel like the existing version has plenty of features for my needs.)
> 
> I'm also a little leary of moving from a plugin that I know to one built into kontakt that I hear can be a little clunky. With the vast selection of kits that toontracks has to choose from, it just feels more comprehensive to me, where GGD really is more specialized for a few particular sounds right out of the box, ESPECIALLY the one kit wonder libraries. I think I might be sticking to EZD for now.


I would do similar if I had a kit. I don't necessarily create patterns, but I do alter them, mix and match certain parts from one to the other and so forth to make them as real as possible. The upgrade to 3 does seem like it's going to make what is already good about Ez better. Adding the ghost notes, and the bandmate feature to create new grooves. 

I recently bought the Modern Metal pack engineered by Will Putney and I can't give it enough praise. It is definitely the best of all the packs I've used over the years.


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

tom1986ca said:


> That would be amazing!


Shoot me a PM with the files whenever you get a chance and i'll run it through for you dude


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

Crungy said:


> I've have GGD Modern and Massive and OKW Fusion. I program everything, haven't tried any groove packs. Both work and sound great in my experience, I use M&M 99% of the time for rock/metal stuff and Fusion for lighter or acoustic stuff. I would absolutely buy more GGD because it sounds killer without a ton of post processing. Kontakt Player for GGD or any other virtual instruments has been flawless for me, I wish I had starting using it ages ago.
> 
> If you know how to use a piano roll, it's really not that difficult. I'm using reaper on a modest windows 7 machine and have little to no issues with CPU usage. If anything, changing out drum pieces may take a moment to load but that's really been the worst of it for me.


Thanks for tipping the scales back towards GGD again... 

I'm really just looking for a good sounding versatile kit. If the initial kit is versatile enough, I don't really have any need for an abundant library of kits, but what worries me is not having many options with GGD to customize my own kit to my liking as there seems to be a lot of room for this with toontracks. As WarMachine mentioned, he has the shells from one kit and cymbals from another. This is really appealing I will admit. That's maybe the biggest downside that I'm seeing with GGD right now. What are your thought?


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## Crungy (Apr 13, 2022)

Hehe sorry about that! I have nothing against EZdrummer, no experience with it sadly. It's hard for me to say what you would prefer, you might like the flow of EZ better than programming everything. Hell, I might like it better!

I've never felt limited with Modern and Massive, there are plenty of good sounding pieces in there. I'm not sure if they do trials of their stuff but I'd recommend it if so.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

Crungy said:


> Hehe sorry about that! I have nothing against EZdrummer, no experience with it sadly. It's hard for me to say what you would prefer, you might like the flow of EZ better than programming everything. Hell, I might like it better!
> 
> I've never felt limited with Modern and Massive, there are plenty of good sounding pieces in there. I'm not sure if they do trials of their stuff but I'd recommend it if so.


They don't. That's something I really like about Neural DSP, but then again, I've found that I've downloaded a 14 day trial only to realize how well my existing plugins hold up and realized it was more hype than anything and decided against a few purchases. (Damn Plini Architype is so versatile...) Maybe free trials actually work against them in this way sometimes, haha

From the sounds of it, it looks like I might be happier long-term to stay with toontracks. I think GGD is great solution for some, but I unfortunately do like to tinker with my set. It's been awhile since I've owned a real kit, but I spent a lot of time hand picking each cymbal for a specific tone and the ability to change out pieces like this appeals to me, especially if I were to ever move to superior drummer. 

Again, really appreciate your input either way. I'll keep GGD open as an option. I may still yet prefer the sound to any of the EZD kits.


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## tom1986ca (Apr 13, 2022)

Ok, so something I didn't originally realize is that with expansions, when you add the new instruments to an existing kit, that instrument gets incorporated into the preset that you're using in that existing room, which is cool because (as silly as this might sound) I actually liked the 80s preset that I had tweaked on the standard modern kit. I ended up really liking the Sabian cymbals included in the Duality I expansion and encorperated them into my own preset and I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with. (You really don't know exactly what you'll get until you do and then actually hear it in your mix.) All I went looking for originally was some additional cymbals for a sound I was already pretty happy with and I've found just that without having to rebuild from the ground up the sound I had already tweaked. I would have had to do that with GGD, so I am happy with the decision I made. Maybe I'll start adding more expansions as I can afford to, but for now I'm pretty happy with the additions. Now I can slowly add more pads to my edrums as I practice more and slowly build up some good presets that I like. Thanks everyone for the input! It's pretty fun to build a drum kit again many years after the last time I owned some acoustic drums. It's crazy how many options there are now and just how good they all sound!


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## WarMachine (Apr 13, 2022)

tom1986ca said:


> Ok, so something I didn't originally realize is that with expansions, when you add the new instruments to an existing kit, that instrument gets incorporated into the preset that you're using in that existing room, which is cool because (as silly as this might sound) I actually liked the 80s preset that I had tweaked on the standard modern kit. I ended up really liking the Sabian cymbals included in the Duality I expansion and encorperated them into my own preset and I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with. (You really don't know exactly what you'll get until you do and then actually hear it in your mix.) All I went looking for originally was some additional cymbals for a sound I was already pretty happy with and I've found just that without having to rebuild from the ground up the sound I had already tweaked. I would have had to do that with GGD, so I am happy with the decision I made. Maybe I'll start adding more expansions as I can afford to, but for now I'm pretty happy with the additions. Now I can slowly add more pads to my edrums as I practice more and slowly build up some good presets that I like. Thanks everyone for the input! It's pretty fun to build a drum kit again many years after the last time I owned some acoustic drums. It's crazy how many options there are now and just how good they all sound!


It's crazy how something as simple as a cymbal swap can turn your mixes into what you want isn't it? lol. That's all it took to get mine breathing just right.


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## Jamey36 (Apr 14, 2022)

The other great thing about EZD is there are so many expansion packs you can add whenever you like.Sweetwater will occasionally run really good sales on EZD expansion packs(usually about half price).


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## mcleanab (Apr 14, 2022)

Jamey36 said:


> The other great thing about EZD is there are so many expansion packs you can add whenever you like.Sweetwater will occasionally run really good sales on EZD expansion packs(usually about half price).



That's good to note... late on this bus, but you can use individual instruments from one pack and place them in another? i.e. I can use a specific kick drum from say my Modern set with the rest of the set in say a Vintage kit? How does one do that?


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## tom1986ca (Apr 14, 2022)

mcleanab said:


> That's good to note... late on this bus, but you can use individual instruments from one pack and place them in another? i.e. I can use a specific kick drum from say my Modern set with the rest of the set in say a Vintage kit? How does one do that?


Yes, you just need to click on the instrument drop down and then inside the menu, choose the kit you want to select from and it will bring up all the options for that kit. Just keep in mind that whatever processing is applied to your current kit will also be applied to the new drum as well. (unless you're using the original mix) So if there's a preset you like (such as the 80s preset on the modern kit for example) that reverb will be applied to any drums you bring into that kit as well. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a way (that I'm aware of) to use a preset for one kit inside a different kit.


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## Jamey36 (Apr 15, 2022)

Also even though I am mainly a hard rock/metal guy, i have expansion packs in MoTown, Country, Progressive and more.I am always pleasantly surprised at how often I use patterns and grooves from those packs in my own metal/rock recordings.Just drag, drop and go.I also love EZD song creator function.Find a pattern you really like for a riff and the song creator tool will give you a variety of compatible options for verse, chorus, bridge, fills, etc..Very useful for quickly fleshing out an actual song from just a riff without a ton of tweaking the drums.I am a guitar player, not a drummer, this allows me to concentrate on writing the guitar parts.


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## WarMachine (Apr 15, 2022)

Jamey36 said:


> Also even though I am mainly a hard rock/metal guy, i have expansion packs in MoTown, Country, Progressive and more.I am always pleasantly surprised at how often I use patterns and grooves from those packs in my own metal/rock recordings.Just drag, drop and go.I also love EZD song creator function.Find a pattern you really like for a riff and the song creator tool will give you a variety of compatible options for verse, chorus, bridge, fills, etc..Very useful for quickly fleshing out an actual song from just a riff without a ton of tweaking the drums.I am a guitar player, not a drummer, this allows me to concentrate on writing the guitar parts.


Slow Rock and Halftime Push get used more than most anything else in my expansions and i think those are the Rock! or Rock Solid packs.


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