I had the idea to open this thread 'cause I noticed there is very little discussion about the EzMix2 Expansion packs.
Here you might want to write about your experiences with any of them.
It can be useful to any user interested in knowing which expansions are the best option for them.
I've used these so far: (can't say I used extensively every single patch yet, these are mostly subjective impressions. I reserve to do some further updates any time)
Core Expansion:
I think this is good to have. A general purpose set which complements the factory's basic set very well. I admit I wasn't very interested in getting it at first (the magics of a bland packaging and marketing), I bought it in Toontrack "Xmas" week at less than half price.
Considering you can find it at about 15$ dollars used here on the marketplace, you can't go wrong. A must have for such a low price.
Lead Vocals:
Useful pack since it covers the most mainstream genres and clichès historically heard on records. Absolutely needs a better doubler and totally lacks of a de-esser though (the de-esser is there actually as part of the chain in some presets. A dedicated tweakable de-esser preset is missing.)
Other than this, I find some presets to be redundant and some others to be almost useless, especially those artistic ones with the crazy spacey effects which seem to be there more as a bonus. Toontrack should have merged the best/most useful 25 patches from the Vocals Toolbox pack to the best/most useful 25 from the Lead Vocals one to create a Vocals "all around" expansion set. That would be killer.
Not that common to find used.
Here's an audio demo found on Youtube of all its 50 presets:
The Vocal Toolbox:
Found it used and snagged it since it is not that common on the marketplace, plus, I wanted to try it. Now that I did, I can confirm what I said in the previous review: they should have merged the best of both Lead Vocals and Vocal Toolbox EMXs into a single Vocals expansion. This one is more versatile anyway, so I suggest to go with it first if you have to choose only one, also it complements the factory library better.
But, let's talk about content. I would divide it in four categories:
Sung vocals
Just complements what you can find in the Lead Vocals pack; Vocal Toolbox has one 80s Rock preset, Lead Vocals has the 70s' (you can find the 90s one in the EZMix factory library), VT has many choir and background vocals presets and very few lead vocals ones , LV well.. the name says it all.
They sound ok, can't remember anything special about them.
Voiceover/Dialogue/Spoken material
The voiceover presets, usually divided by gender, sound just perfect and give a professional touch to any spoken audio material. Compared to the ones in Nectar 2, these sound way better. You can obviously experiment and use them as foundation for further processing to normal sung vocal tracks.
Tools
These here are just possible solutions to specific vocal mixing needs and issues. Haven't tried all of them yet. I was mainly interested in the De-Esser and Doubler chains; the first works better than the other De-Essers in my EZMix library, the latter though, just as disappointing as any other EZmix Doubler.
Artistic and Special FX
If you read what I thought about the artistic presets included in the Lead Vocals EMX, well, here I'd say the opposite. These are somehow useful and sound good. The Cosmonaut Noise is my favourite.
Vocals EMX packs conclusions
To sum it up, I like these more than anything you can find in the Nectar library, except the Doubler and the De-Esser. And I'm including Lead Vocals EMX in this. Sure Nectar offers so much more (harmonizer, de-breath and every possible tweakable parameter), but if you're not into tweaking and only interested in presets, these EMX may have something good for any situation especially if you find 'em used for 15$ each.
Amps:
Don't own it personally but these videos I found are pretty much self explanatory:
Chuck Ainlay:
I had very high expectations on this since I know it is considered to be one of the best EzMix expansions. Actually it has a very well thought palette of presets, which you can read on the product's webpage.
Crafted mostly towards mainstream pop/country/rock music, it covers drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals plus some effective rooms, groups and master track inserts, all organized in a very smart way. Everything is just there with no frills or unnecessary experiments.
At first, I was very attracted by the "Acoustic guitar with Doubler" preset but was immediately disappointed, cause I expected a more pronounced doubling effect; a few months later, I like it anyway and think it sounds good if you leave out the "doubling" expectation. There are no guitar amps in this pack; all guitar presets are actually mixing tools for already amped tracks.
One thing you might not like: effect chains are too complex for just 2 knobs here. Many presets in this pack have Filters, Delay, Verb and Chorus all assigned to one knob, resulting in a very "wet" effect which I usually end up keeping at low values or even off.
I guess this was the first Ez Mix producer pack 5 or 6 years ago. Maybe not an essential expansion to have, still a very good one with some "flaws" of its relatively old age.
Neil Dorfsman:
Got this since I really like the ROCK! EZDrummer pack by the same sound engineer. As much as I have been trying it, I'd say it surely offers a different flavour compared to the other EMX presets I own, being it somehow more "organic". Infact, compared to most Ainlay presets which can be very wet, the Dorfsmans's sound much less "processed" and can be very subtle, giving some effective polished character at the same time. This anyway makes it very dependent from source material; don't expect "tone magic" on everything, but when audio source and preset match it sounds perfect (i.e. acoustic guitar, lead guitar presets).
Talking about specific content, included drums presets are very detailed and were crafted mainly after 70s vintage tone; I'm usually not into that but the offered choice in this category is impressive (21 drums presets). I've been disappointed by the "Rock Snare" preset though, I expected it to sound like an iconic snare or some typical 80s rock snare, but it's none of those.
Bass amps use lots of overdrive and parallel distortion here, use with caution.
Guitar amps are very nice; there's a pretty generous selection of them (11 amp presets including Fender Deluxe, Fender Silverface, Orange amps), mainly classic rock oriented, covering from clean to crunchy tones, plus some mixing tools and group inserts. One mandolin preset stands out from the list being the only mandolin dedicated presets in the entire EZMix library, but don't buy just for that or you might be disappointed. There are also four master bus chains, all different from each other, a very nice bonus.
What I like the most are the piano and the background vocals presets: they're just spot on.
In conclusion, its strong features are: drums (vintage/70s rock), electric guitar (classic rock), background vocals, acoustic guitar, acoustic piano and master bus presets. The Dorfsman EMX does not win on versatility but its own strong personality can be perfect on some mixes.
Peter Henderson:
You might think this expansion has a lot to do with "The Beatles", "Supertramp" or some kind of vintage vibe.. well, that's not the impression I had. It sure has some but can suit modern mixes even more.
Bought it cause I was mainly interested in its choir presets; I actually don't mind the most of them (there are 5) but the "Choir Bright Doubler" preset is awesome. Can't remember anything special about the lead vocals presets, except the "Lennon" one, which is nice if you're after that sound.
Henderson included 3 interesting bass presets: one alluding directly to McCartney, which I think it would match if you were processing a Hofner kind of bass recorded after that style.. it won't work as intended on a modern pimped up Jazz bass obviously; another one is designed around a sweepable midrange eq/boost which can be a very useful tool, especially for rock bass tracks; a third one, the "Deep Bass" preset, is my favourite and sounds HUGE on modern pop-rock mixes. There's a similar bass preset in the Core Xpansion anyway, the "Bass Head 8x10".
Acoustic guitar presets here are somehow unnecessary: the few bread and butter ones are redundant compared to what you can find in the two Core libraries. Also, I don't get the 12 string simulator, it's just a chorus effect and doesn't do the trick in my opinion.
Guitar amps are lovely, I like these very much; there are six of them (including Vox AC30, Orange, Mesa Boogie amps), covering from clean to high gain guitar tones. The clean ones are very nice. Some of these amps can be similar to the Dorfsman's.
Drums presets sound good and somehow in between the modern and the vintage vibe. There's no hats or toms presets anyway; just kick, snare, overheads, some rooms, and a tape bus.
A big part of what's left, comes from the Supertramp era: Wurlitzer and Elka Strings presets (The Logical Song anyone?) and the Sax Solo preset also. Other keyboard specific presets include a few acoustic pianos, a few electrics and some vintage organs. There are also two good movie score acoustic piano and strings inserts (go to the general consideration paragraph where I mention keyboards presets).
In conclusion, the strong features of the Henderson EMX are: choir, bass, electric guitars, drums and the "Supertramp" signature presets. Not a must but a very good EMX to have, even if there is some redundancy with other sets.
General considerations and other things I noticed later:
- In many expansions you'll find a bunch of keyboards and string ensamble presets which use big verbs or modulation effects; these are mostly useful if you're mixing the real deal. I don't find them as useful on virtual instruments since they already come with very similar presets included, unless you usually keep samples dry for later processing.
- I think they forgot to put reverb on the second knob of the "Home Acoustic Guitar" preset included in the Dorfsman EMX; it still sounds dry even when you crank it up.
- One of the 3 Ainlay bass presets (Bass DI + Amp) has a bad rattling noise that you can even hear on their soundcloud demo on their website. Don't know if it's a bug or just as intended.
This was my experience so far. Let's read yours!
Disclaimer:
My opinions are based on the fact that I find the factory set to have almost everything you would need to get the job done and even more (the "amped pedal steel" preset is a real gem, soooo Nashville sounding). To me every other expansion pack should be a complement and should have new specific tools, not only different flavours of usual things.
when they released the Progressive EZX and SDX packs; I don't even know how those sounds/drumset/midi packs are even considered "progressive". Maybe because I think more about Mike Portnoy and Gavin Harrison when I hear that word.
