Pierre said
This is exactly the post I was looking for!
I've loved EZDrummer 2 since I bought it, but I'm tired of programming drums with a keyboard, and I've been searching for a good electric drum kit to trigger EZD2. I was leaning towards an Alesis DM-10 or Crimson, but just tried the Crimson at Guitar Center and wasn't impressed, so I tried the Roland TD 30, which is obviously awesome, as it should be for its price point. I don't want to spend $7500, so how does the TD 25 compare?
What interface are you using? Any issues with setup and getting EZD2 to trigger?
Thanks
Pierre
Hi
The thing worth noting about the TD30 (which is awesome by the way) is that it is the kit I would love if money were no object. In terms of playability for a drummer it is peerless. And there are many better drummers than I who vouch for it's quality in terms of sheer playability.
Which brings us to the TD25. It takes a lot of the playability of the TD30 and packs it in a very attractive smaller package. Playability is very good but after having teamed it with EZ Drummer 2 sonically it starts to really give the TD30 a run for its money. The TD 30 is very customizable soundwise, you have lots of options. By once you go down the route of using the interface as a midi trigger then those options become less important and in fact the built in Roland sounds have been occasionally criticized for their sometimes over synthetic sounds.
EZ Drummer 2 pairs so well with the TD 25. I was surprised to be honest. If you already love the sounds of it then I can't recommend trying this paring out enough. As I said in my post, it comes with a Roland preset and the curve Hi Hat settings to adjust for playing style. The only criticism of EZDrummer 2 is that you can't modify the triggering settings so some setups have drums that won't be triggered by the default Roland midi CC set up or different drums that trigger the same sound. You would need the upgrade to Superior Drummer for that. However as I said you do go down the route of endless fiddling and to me it's kind of counter productive. Beauty of EZ is if you get bored of the sounds or want to expand its fairly cheap to buy new libraries
Hope this has answered your questions
As to how I set up I have a MacBook Pro laptop connected by USB which allows me to trigger the drums. I monitor through the headphone output on the Mac Book. I also record directly to a HS5 Roland mixer by taking this same output and then monitoring through the HS5. It's perfectly possible to record each drum seperately as well via midi, or just record midi in EZ and export that