When I select Jazz Essentials in Groove agent…
… the patterns (colored pads) in the left side pane all sound very “poppy” for every of the 10 sets that I can select in the right side pane (in above screenshot “Band Conversation SE” selected) Absolutely none of the patterns sound even remotely jazzy.
Am I doing something wrong?
Yeah, I don’t find this collection very useful either. Too many specific grooves and not enough (or any?) general swing patterns. You can drag and drop a swing MIDI pattern into Dorico and playback with one of those kits though. If you have Kontakt already, I think SA! Jazz Drums is very good and is pretty affordable at $59.99. That’s what I usually default to anyway.
Yes @FredGUnn, at this stage I’m looking for something low-budget. SA drums is an option but unfortunately it requires the full Kontakt version, so that would make it very expensive (no plans to buy other full Kontakt VST’s for the moment).
Another option I’m considering is Gorangrooves jazz drums and jazz loops. Looks like good quality for the money, though it has no dry samples, so not sure if that could become a problem mix-wise.
On longer term I’m considering buying Toontrack EZ drummer with expansion packs EZX jazz and/or EZX big band.
EZDrummer very good choice! What’s cool, is that you can (if there’s no tempo changes, at the moment at least…) prepare your score exactly the way your live drummer needs to see it, without worrying about playback, and sync EZD’s built-in MIDI track to your score.
That way, you let EZD and its superb performance adjustments handle the playback part.
The Basic Jazz Midi pack is actually the nicest, since it’s played fairly straightforward for the most part.
Cheers,
Benji
@YourMusic.Pro That built-in midi syncing feature sounds interesting. Tried to find some information about this on the Toontrack site but no success (maybe because of terminology). Could you point me to it, or maybe a youtube video that demonstrates this?
@YourMusic.Pro Is the sync feature you are referring to what is demonstrated in this video?
The guy is preparing a drum track in the “Grooves” and “Grid editor” tabs. This custom built-in track then magically plays along with the tracks in his DAW.
How do you use this feature in combination with Dorico? Do you create a dummy track to contain the plugin? Do you tell it to playback Dorico when starting playback within the plugin? Or is it the other way round, can Dorico trigger the playback in the plugin?
I have Goran Grooves Handy Drums Jazz Standard and made a percussion map for it based on the default configuration:
Handy Drums Jazz Standard Map.zip (1.8 KB)
It’s a good sounding and affordable kit, but doesn’t have a sample player. If you are just using it to play back Dorico files, or MIDI you’ve dropped into Dorico then that doesn’t matter, but you can’t trigger a sample like you can with SAJD or EZD3.
I don’t know what your needs are, but I generally either care about drum notation for an actual player, or I just want to trigger a sample, but rarely need both. If you want to trigger a sample, it’s now really easy directly in Dorico as long as there aren’t tempo changes. Here’s a playalong file I made for students to practice with a week or so ago, where I triggered SAJD once at the beginning, and then a little final fill at the end. Audio is directly out of Dorico.
Probably not going to fool anyone into thinking it’s a live band, but serviceable to practice along to.
Nice, may I ask what you’re using for the guitar and bass?
Sure, the bass is Ample Bass Upright. I actually spent some time really tweaking the settings of it a few years ago and think it’s great! Guitar is Ample Guitar L (Alhambra Luthier classic guitar), pretty much with the default settings as I’ve still never gotten around to investigating all the capabilities of it.
Thanks for sharing your percussion map. Good to hear it’s good sounding, I think that will pull me over the line, at least for direct control from Dorico. Do you know if their midi grooves can be “drag/dropped” into the midi lane of a Dorico staff just like the Groove Agent loops?
Ok so I understand now that you trigger the plugin sample with a keyswitch. I guess it will be the same mechanism for EZdrummer 3. Does it also mean one can chronologically trigger different samples with different keyswitches, say for example one on the intro, one on the theme start etc?
I have the same bass, very happy with it. Still looking for a jazz guitar VST for comping. Ample Sound and Accoustic Samples both have a semi-hollow ES335 but I don’t know if that guitar would allow me to create that typical warm full body jazz guitar strum without too much EQ-ing.
Edit: Shreddage 3 Archtop looks like close to what I’m looking for (video)
@YourMusic.Pro I found out via the EZ drummer manual that the sync feature you are talking about is the “Follow host” button in the plugin.
However, related to that feature @dspreadbury in July 2022 reported in this post that this feature at the time was not yet supported in Dorico. Has that changed?
Like this. But not via keyswitches, Dorico has the capability now that Daniel hinted at, but only if there’s no tempo changes. I’m still down with the flu, but will outline a quick video maybe tomorrow…
That would be kind of you @YourMusic.Pro , thanks in advance. But health first 
Yeah, once you have the percussion map loaded, you can just drop the MIDI file into the track in Play mode and it will play back correctly.
Yep! I often use it that way. EZD3 has even more capability as you can arrange the samples chronologically right in EZD3 too.
Hey, let’s hope this is useful, first time I’ve done this, was a little nervous…
Thanks a lot @YourMusic.Pro for making time to produce this video! It’s very clear now how the “Follow host” and SD / EZD sequencer can practically be used in combination with Dorico. I think your video will not only be useful for me but for anyone else interested in speeding up creating drum playbacks in Dorico. Maybe you should give your video a proper name so others can find it
Indeed the feature in EZD / SD which allows to adjust the character and complexity of the loops is very useful. It makes me think of the “Drummer” track in Logic pro which has similar control features (not sure how they exactly compare). I can see this becoming more and more sophisticated with AI.
The way I see all this working in my workflow is a two phase approach:
Theoretically one could do the finalization in the EZD sequencer as well, but I think visually it would be easier to do it in Dorico as all the other parts are there.
Does this approach make sense?
Glad you like it, it was less work than I thought after all… 
Your suggested workflow seems great, however is dependant on the intended complexity of the notation. That is to say, how much actual notation your drummer needs to see, and of course on the style of the music. If in a jazz context he’s used to just seeing slashes, some rhythmic cues above the staff and the overall form, then you don’t need to drag much or anything over from EZD3.
If it’s more orchestral or the piece needs to be performed to a sequencer or the drummer is just used to play notated parts, then yes, by all means use the MIDI from EZD3 in the part. Obviously, there are also plenty of fills and whatnot in EZD, so you wouldn’t need to write much yourself.
A proper Percussion Map becomes critical here as well, of course.
Cheers,
Benji
Yes, I would only use this 2 step approach for the purpose of creating a “realistic” playback, either on a separate dummy “playback” staff, either on the original drums staff and covered with staff regions.
I find a separate playback staff for (jazz) drums more practical, I gives me full freedom on the (muted) notation staff for slashes, cues and the occasional detailed notation. No need for slash regions in that case.
Sounds good!
One thing: I feel as if the playback directly from EZD is better, more subtle and dynamic than the pasted MIDI into Dorico. If it is about realistic playback in this case, I would leave as much of it in the “Toontrack Box” as possible, so to speak…
They might have some magic going on behind the scenes that doesn’t translate to Dorico!
Have fun,
Benji
Yes, I thought about this as well as a possible downside of the method. Practice will prove…
