Scott said
Hi,I've purchased EZDrummer 2, and am hosting it in the most recent Windows build of Reaper at the time of writing.
I'm totally blind, so I rely on keystrokes rather than mouse movements, and screen reader software speaks to me in a synthetic voice as changes take place (kinda like having Professor Hawking providing a running commentary on your production skillz). I also use the automation parameters of the DAW in conjunction with hardware control surfaces to modify the settings of many plugins, which brings us to my question.
Currently in EZDrummer 2, there don't seem to be any keystrokes that trigger the menus, and none of the functionality seems to be adjustable via automation, so as things stand, I'm unable to interact with the majority of EZdrummers functions. Needless to say, requiring sighted assistance every time I need to do something more advanced than changing preset is a PITA.
So, now I'm writing in the hope that this might reach the EZDrummer development team. I'd really appreciate the opportunity to provide more in depth feedback and discuss whether this situation can be improved in future updates. There are encouraging signs here that EzDrummer could become very usable for blind producers without big changes. For example, once triggered, every menu I've tested so far is navigable from the keyboard, and the options are read perfectly by every Windows screen reader... it's getting to the button that triggers each menu using the keyboard in the first place that poses a problem.
If this seems niche as a request, consider the vast number of drummers, songwriters, producers etc who already either use hardware control surfaces or would add one to their rig in order to have more control from their recording position when engineering themselves. any work that goes into being able to interact with EzDrummer through automation parameters would be a benefit to all of those users too.
Thanks, hope to hear back from someone at Toontrack HQ soon.
Scott
Hi,
Thanks for your post!
It’s possible to automate some functionality in Ezdrummer 2. Right click the control in Ezdrummer 2 that you like to automate and select Midi Learn, then assign this control to your midi controller. Now you should be able to create the automation curve.
I’ll look into how we could implement the features you request. Would you mind if I contacted you with some questions using the email adress that is registered to your Toontrack user account?
Andreas,
Interaction Designer
Toontrack Music