The EAD Launch
When Yamaha released the EAD 10 in November 2017, there was nothing else like it. As well as being able to record the sound of a whole drum kit with just one box, it also showed the world a new app called Rec'n'share.
Rec'n'share was unique, and still is, and allowed drummers to use songs in their music library, stored on their phones, play along with them and record themselves, and also film videos as well. It was totally radical.
For drummers who wanted to make YouTube drumming videos it was absolutely perfect.
Apple iTunes was the perfect source of music. iPhone users could buy any tracks they wanted, they were stored on their phones, and because they had bought them they had a right to use them in the Rec'n'share app.
For a few years, everything went perfectly.
Enter Apple Music
Then in 2019 Apple decided to end iTunes and move everyone to Apple Music. This was something totally different and unfortunately was the start of problems for EAD users who used iTunes for their music.
iTunes worked because the users bought the tracks. Apple Music is actually a streaming site (meaning the tracks are not stored on your phone but are stored on the Apple servers and are fed through to be played on your phone). So all those tracks that you used to listen to on your iTunes account, are not on your phone anymore and are now streamed from the Apple servers.
Apple’s reasoning for this was that some users had their phones completely full of music, but if they moved over to Apple Music, all that space which was being used for music, could be freed up and all music, if it was streamed, would take no space on their phone.
Why this is a problem
Legally, this became a bit of an issue. The EAD was heavily linked with iTunes and that worked OK legally, because iTunes users had paid for their tracks. In effect they 'owned' them.
However, with a streaming site such as Apple Music, the users do not own the tracks, they are merely 'borrowing' them from Apple to listen to, and they are not storing them on their phone, and they have not paid for them.
This was against the licensing agreement for Rec'n'share and any other device and apps (of which there are many) which allowed people to use their music files.
So overnight, people found they could not use their EAD10 with iTunes anymore.
This is where it gets a little bit hazy. Some users reported not being able to use iTunes at all, some reported that they could use some tracks but not all, and some people had full access to all their tracks as though nothing had changed.
If users signed up for Apple Music then they instantly lost the ability for Rec'n'share to access all the tracks they had previously purchased in iTunes.
So all the issues with EAD10 and Rec'n'share were actually not caused by Yamaha, but were caused by Apple discontinuing iTunes. Yes, there might still be an iTunes icon on your phone (if you haven't updated for a long time) but when it can, your iPhone is streaming tracks from the Apple Music servers rather than playing tracks which are held on your phone. You now don't own all those tracks you bought IF they can be found on the Apple servers.
The reason it doesn't work anymore
Importantly, the reason for this is very simple. If you were able to stream any track you wanted from Apple Music onto Rec'n'share, you could “forget” to play drums over the top and then you would have a perfect, hard copy of that track on your phone for you to do with whatever you wanted. In effect it would promote music piracy, which is exactly what all the record companies do not want. THIS is why it does not work anymore.
How to do it now
So if you want to use Rec'n'share in the traditional way, you now have to use Dropbox (or iCloud but I would recommend Dropbox as it is totally cross platform).
Create a Dropbox account (which is free) @ www.dropbox.com
Inside your Dropbox you need to create a folder and call it something like 'Rec'n'share' or 'EAD10'.
Into that file you need to put all the tracks that you might want to play along with on your EAD 10. The great thing about Dropbox is you can do this from any device – phone, PC, Mac etc
Go to the Rec'n'share app on your device and you link it with your Dropbox account. Touch the area where the name of the song is shown – top left of the screen. Press Local Songs, press Copy From Dropbox and follow the instructions.
Then need to find your EAD10/Dropbox folder and inside will be all the tracks you have put in there. You'll be able to use these so you can play along with them, and record yourself playing with them, and also film yourself with them.
Sorry this is such a long answer but that is the reason. It’s not a Yamaha problem, it’s a legal problem caused by Apple discontinuing iTunes, and this is why you have to now use Dropbox or iCloud if you want to play along with your song collection.
Simon Edgoose