Recording - June 2018 - 42

Soundware Showcase

Toontrack
EZKeys Dream Machine
and Melancholic Pop
MIDI Pack
By Mike Metlay
Toontrack's EZkeys platform combines beautiful sampled
virtual keyboards with an easy block-based track assembly
system that works standalone or inside any DAW as a plug-in.
You can play the instruments by hand or load MIDI files (yours
or Toontrack's) to create an arrangement. It's easy to use,
straightforward to program, and offers authentic and beautiful
sounds. The newest EZkeys instrument is called Dream Machine,
and I have to say that despite my good experiences with other
EZkeys products, this one instantly became my favorite.
Until now, Toontrack has taken a "depth before breadth"
approach to sampling keyboards for the EZkeys line. When
you buy an EZkeys product, you get one instrument, presented
with a variety of tonal tweaks and miking/processing and
deeply sampled for maximum authenticity. But whether it's a
grand piano, electric piano, organ, or other keyboard, you're
still only getting one or maybe two instruments in the box.
Toontrack teased a different approach with String Machine,
an ARP Solina that could be blended with elements of other
string-ensemble keyboards for more sonic variety. But with Dream
Machine, they've finally gone all in on the hybrid-instrument
approach, and the results are just fabulous.
Dream Machine is a previously unheard-of blend of a
Rhodes Mk7 electric piano, a celeste, a marimba, and a
xylophone. For each of the 47 factory presets, you're given a
set of macro controls relevant to the sound-sometimes they'll
be relative levels of different instruments, other times they'll be
effect parameters and wet/dry mixes-so you can dial in your
perfect tone and save it for future use in a User preset bank.
The sounds range from dry to drenched with reverb, chorus,
autopan, tremolo, and more, and all are intended to provide
a deep, dreamy atmosphere for your compositions. A bit under
half of the sounds are in two special submenus: Mallets, for
sounds that rely more heavily on the xylophone and marimba
than the keyboards, and Soundscapes, where the tones have
been processed with slower attacks and massive sustain to
create rich padlike tones. There's a little bit of everything, from
fairly straight Rhodes patches to sounds so processed that they
sound almost like organs with percussion stops!
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RECORDING June 2018

Prices: EZkeys Dream Machine, $179 ($89 for owners of other
EZkeys instruments); Melancholic Pop MIDI Pack, $29
More from: Toontrack, www.toontrack.com

When I reviewed the Dream Pop MIDI Pack for EZkeys some
time ago, it worked well with the instruments I had on hand, but
Dream Pop really came into its own when combined with Dream
Machine! Even more perfect was the matchup between Dream
Machine and the new Melancholic Pop MIDI Pack, which
contains nine song structures ranging from 68 to 126 BPM in
4/4 time plus one song in 6/8 at 87 BPM, all with beautifully-played
chord progressions to evoke a thoughtful and meditative mood.
Either this or Dream Pop would be a no-brainer to add to Dream
Machine as a jump start to your compositions.
I'm not a conventional pop songwriter; my tastes lean
toward sound design, soundtracks, and ambient music, and
this combination of instrument and MIDI landed squarely in my
happy place. This is the first EZkeys instrument that I can really
enjoy tweaking and twisting to fit my cues and songs, and
because it's so unique in tone, it doesn't leave me thinking,
"Well, maybe I should build my song in EZkeys and export
the MIDI to play another piano/electric piano/Mellotron/
whatever." I found myself just playing away and enjoying
Dream Machine, and taking inspirations from the complex
and well-thought-out chord progressions in Melancholic Pop.
Times sure have changed. Call up the Mystic Movie preset,
play it with a Melancholic Pop progression like "Feeling Cold,"
and you've basically got a movie soundtrack from the 1980s...
minus the rat's nest of cables, jittery old-school MIDI sequencing,
and piles of cranky synths with D/A converter noise, that is.
And with a turn of a knob or two, the sound becomes all yours,
ready for your next audio-for-video or game gig.
I've always been a fan of the compositional tools built into
EZkeys and an admirer of its excellent sampled sounds, but
Dream Machine is the first of the Toontrack keyboards that I've
really fallen in love with. It's sheer magic.
http://www.toontrack.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2018
