While the Transition and Play Style controls are 'macro' in operation, the Grid Editor provides all the nitty-gritty MIDI editing your bass-playing heart might desire. As a means of adding dynamics and expression to a performance, it's powerful, flexible and very easy to use.
Again, all these controls can be applied to whatever level of Song Track content is currently selected. Once opened, you can adjust the octave, velocity (velocity is scaled), the amount of notes (more or less), damping (degree of finger/palm muting) and length (MIDI note lengths are adjusted). You can add further 'human' via the Edit Play Style panel. It's a brilliant feature and instantly adds additional character to the performance. What's more, transitions can be applied as a single operation to whatever events you have selected within the Song Track, be that a single chord, a whole song section, or multiple song sections.
There is an excellent range of transition styles, from short to long and including swung, triplets and slides. When applied, EZbass adds passing notes to help the chord changes flow. While entering chord sequences is, inevitably, something of a repetitive process, EZbass's toolset does its best to ease the process.The Transition options are available top-centre of the Song Track panel. There are three key elements to this: the Transition options, the Play Style controls and the Grid Editor. These top-level editing features of the Song Track are impressive enough, but it's the additional, more detailed, editing tools that really emphasise just how well thought out and powerful EZbass is from the 'virtual performer' perspective.
This is really very neat and makes it easy to experiment with different grooves as you build a full performance. However, if you hover over the bottom lane before dropping, the current song structure and chord data is retained and just the new bass groove is dropped, at which point, its note pitches are automatically adjusted to fit the chord sequence. If you hover over the song section/chord lanes, all three lanes are highlighted and, when you drop, you get a new song section (overwriting anything beneath it), a new chord sequence (many of the grooves have a chord structure embedded within them) and the bass groove itself in the lower lane. When you drag from the Groove tab, you get two options upon dropping. The bottom lane of the Song Track is where your EZbass grooves are placed. Incidentally, dragging and dropping from EZbass to EZkeys is possible, but I would guess that this cross-instrument communication might well be something that Toontrack will aim to enhance in subsequent updates to all of the SD/EZ line. This doesn't currently include all the chord extensions but, in my own testing at least, it did a pretty good job with major and minor chord roots and any lowest note inversions. This includes the option to drag and drop from EZkeys' own pattern browser and EZbass will attempt to pick out the chordal structure in whatever is dragged and dropped, although the piano MIDI data added into the bottom lane will subsequently need replacing with something more bass-friendly. Rather wonderfully, you can also drag and drop MIDI clips directly into the Song Track. Thankfully, you can copy/paste entire song sections to speed up your overall workflow. The Song Track provides a powerful environment within which to build your EZbass performance, with its Edit Play Style options making it easy to add performance variations.Īs with EZkeys, defining your full chord sequence is the one element of the EZbass workflow that can take some time. Once you select a chord box within the lane, double-clicking opens a chord wheel (similar to that found in EZkeys, but without the more complex chord voicings) to define each chord, with major, minor and bass note inversions supported. There is a comprehensive toolset available for adding chord slots, adjusting their length and for copy/paste operations. The middle lane is where your chord sequences are entered. The top-most lane within the Song Track allows you to define song sections (verse, chorus, etc). While the grooves allow you to find something that provides a rhythmic fit to your project, the Song Track enables your bass line to follow the harmonic (chord sequence) structure.