Songwriting Tools

I wonder what that EZ keys would make of this thing.  It has exactly two chords, so I suppose it would come with something very depressed sounding, maybe with the flu.  Or you could call me, and i will drink some medicine, about three with coke, corn liquor being good for what ails ya, and then i will rip it in one take.  The slideshow took longer than the recording, but getting just the right photos of some iconic Hammond organs got me sidetracked.  And then when I found that pic of Goldy McJohn, well , I had to get a dose of ny first favorite band LOUD.....Pretty good sounding records, BTW, way ahead of the majority of their 15 minutes of musical relevance.  

Remixed and Mastered   

Another great tool for songwriters - that app on your phone that lets you record ideas before you forget them - surprising how quick they come and go ........

Does anybody here use Masterwriter?
Thoughts?

Paddy, please let me know what your drum recording and mixing process was. I like the realism on the drums.

lol, no. This is my unqualified opinion, and I will defer to the proper songwriters here. MW does seem to over complicate the process of writing a pop song. By the time Des'ree had finished the first line, the hook and the melody were in. Everything else then becomes less important lyric wise as "Life, oh Life" is on repeat in peoples heads.

It seems that it's more important that lyrics fit (rhythm / syncopation wise) the song / melody and perhaps rhyme more than the meaning of the lyrics themselves.

Although an exception is rap where the lyrical content is greater than the melody, and MW may be ideal.

What do you think of MW?

I've never used it, so that's why I'm asking for opinions. I've looked and passed a couple of times. Is the rhyming dictionary better? How about near rhymes? What you get from an internet search is pretty good, so does MW have other benefits? I don't know.

I use the first version of EZ Drummer, but if I understand correctly EZD 2 uses a similar engine to EZKeys.



Here's what makes EZKeys so powerful:



The basic package comes with a vst piano ( I bought the Grand ) plus some midi runs, arpeggios, or block chords. You can buy further midi packages from Toontrack, and there are also third party developers offering midi.



If you write a song on a guitar, you can then "write" those chords into the EZKeys browser window as block chords. You can change the Key, change the chords to extended chords, sevenths, diminished etc. with a couple of clicks.



You can then audition the EZKeys midi ( it lists in playing styles), and these then will change those block chords to arpeggios in the style of your choosing (in other word like having a very competent pianist playing your song!). You can mix and match different playing styles on the fly. For example, you could highlight the verse chords to play a country rock style, and the chorus to a heavy rock style. I bought a third party country rock midi package and it's amazing.



If that's not enough, you can then drag the whole midi sequence once finished into a DAW midi track. That way you can now use third party piano / keys VSTi's to play that midi if you have a preference ( plus you can buy further piano packages similar to the EZDrummer model).



Finally you can use it to write scores for string, horns, or whatever midi instruments you want to assign that midi to. Prior to this if I wanted to add midi instruments, I would either have to play the keys myself (to a very limited standard) or try and write the midi into the midi browser thingy.

It's a powerful writing tool in itself, plus you can use it as a piano tutor and learn to play the midi runs yourself if you want.

As a noob to DAW's and midi, to me, EZKeys is total midi freedom! 


(They should pay me for this lol)