Toontrack EZdrummer 2

Before I bought this product, I downloaded the demo and tried it for 10 days--you can do this at the EZdrummer website. After the 10 days had elapsed, I listened to all of the stuff that I had recorded using the EZdrummer 2 demo, and it was a no-brainer that I should buy the full-fledged product. In EZdrummer 2, there are several different virtual drum sets you can choose from, and you can mix the levels of all of the drums. To me, the drums sound like real, studio-quality drums--way better than the drums that come with Cubase 7.5...the DAW I use. So...this product has made my music sound worlds better than it did with the Cubase drums. I am definately happy I bought EZdrummer 2 and would recommend it to a friend. In fact, one of my friends heard my music with EZdrummer on it and asked if that was my real drummer playing drums (ha ha!)--that was the moment I knew for a fact that the EZdrummer sounds are just like those of real drums. That made my day because i knew I had made a good purchase. I am very, very happy with EZdrummer 2!

This is ultimately my oversight, and I'll take responsibility for that, but I ordered this to be mailed to me so that I could have a CD for installation. My internet connection is painfully slow, and a 3.1GB download is no easy task. I saw the packaging and figured, "Installation CD," and did not think that anyone would go to all that trouble, and use so much packaging just to mail a download card with a serial number on it. I'm online! Obviously I can download stuff! I would have just bought the digital download to begin with!Yes, it's my oversight...and one should never assume...but the level of absolute stupidity that is represented by putting a tiny card into a branded packaging box, with ANOTHER box inside of it containing the actual download card...and THEN putting that into an Amazon box and then putting it all into a truck or a plane and using energy and resources to get it to me...WHEN I COULD'VE JUST DONE THE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD TO BEGIN WITH...that's just stupid.If there's only a digital download available then clearly label it in all caps: DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ONLY. The packaging looks like it will hold a CD.This was a monumental waste of resources. Also, I'm no closer to actually installing this program since the download is creeping along at a snail's pace over my crappy internet connection...WHICH WAS WHY I WANTED A PHYSICAL INSTALLATION CD TO BEGIN WITH!!!This product is great from what I hear. The Amazon headline and the manner in which this is packaged is horrible. Maybe I just missed it, which is ultimately the case, but this was very unclear to me. What do I know? I'm 42. I expect that you'd send me a CD or simply email me the download serial number. Who in the heck snail mails this much junk just to get me a serial number. Morons, that's who. Absolute morons. I know, I know...I should always assume stupidity if I'm going to assume anything. However, I let my guard down for a moment and the stupid found its way in.During the time I wrote this review, by the way, 0.3GB of the program have downloaded. I likely got dumber during that period of time, largely due to exposure to such gross idiocy.

This is a pretty extensive product, but IMO they've made it very hard to try to make your own beat without using someone else's. I've been through several product usage tutorials and such with little help. The best thing you can do is use a good audio workshop and then use this with it to make what you really want, rather than attempting to use someone else's beat.

There is a bit of a learning curve with this one. Not quite as easy as what they show in the videos, but the sounds is awesome and there are tons of options.

Only reason I give this a 2 instead of 1 is the audio is really good. Drum sound are close to live sounds. The app UI/UX is poor, not very intuitive and the FAQ page is not very comprehensive. Hard to find what you need for solving things in the forum posts, just not a lot of people posting there.Just finished a 2 hour session, part learning how to navigate the clunky UI, and then it crashed. Screen just disappeared and I lost the song i was creating. Nothing in forum about recovering after crashes. There was a post for auto-save settings but I never found the setting in Toontrack.Another problem i had is i couldn't get it to input into my Focusrite DAW and record in live time. I could not find a thread on someone else having same problem so maybe it is something only I am having a problem with. I could hear the sound go through it so i know i had an input signal but it would not connect to my SONY ACID software. So I had to compose the song in EZD2 then export a WAV file to import into my mixing app, not very good way to do this.Also annoying is the fact that the UI is only about 1000 pixels wide. Why would you develop an app that doesn't even cover a 1440 wide laptop? Would not recommend this product. If it were cheap i could see the lack of development $$ put into it, but this product is not cheap. You don't get what you pay for in EUX.