What’s in your Bag?

I’m finally back after an extended break due to a lot of personal things going on in my life. Which involved a lot of changes.

I am planning to get back to making drum covers as well as continuing to come up with new drumming ideas and writing more articles like this one which will include some reviews on new purchases I have made.

Please if anyone has any questions on anything I use or has any questions about drumming be it beginner or advanced please don’t be afraid to ask. If I don’t know the answer I will go away and learn it for you. Also with the same breath if you have any ideas for my future covers/ articles or my word press site please let me know.

Ok so this is a quick article to get me back into the swing of things, it has been a long time since I put pen to paper so to speak. To expand on the title if you haven’t guessed already is to let you know what I think every drummer should have with them for every gig, practice or audition they attend

2nd cover of the year

Which brings me up to date with my plan of 1 per month for the year.

As I stated in a previously blog I wasn’t happy with my personal timing in my cover of LITs “my own worst enemy” so I have re-visited the song and this time round I’m much happier with the time keeping.

This was also the first video that we did recording with a duel cam placed in a over the shoulder position. I’m very happy with the outcome for our first attempt. I say our because the audio was mixed and edited by myself. The video part was edited by my photographer and best friend James Grice.

James isn’t a musician so there is a slight delay on the over the shoulder shots because he cant hear the see the slight delay between my hits and the music, But then again unless you were a trained musician could you tell? But as you can see by the video James has an enormous amount of creative talent and his head is full of amazing ideas (to tell the truth he’s the one that pushes me to do all this, I’m quite lazy so this is a thank you to him), He added in the original LIT music vid and chose the transitions between cameras. He also made the ending sequence for the video not to mention his time he spent on a Saturday doing this for me 🙂 .

All in all I’m happy with our first attempted dual cam cover, and I will be attempting to educate him on when the a actual drum hits occur. I should mention though that we are both using a piece of software in adobe premiere that we don’t know how to use and is a very complicated piece of kit. So it’s a huge learning curve.

you will also notice me check the height of the ride cymbal(the big 1) at around 2:35. It had slipped down and was catching on the 3rd rack tom. I put this down to the heavy 5AB Vic Firth sticks i was using 🙂

First cover of the year

Finally managed to finish the first Drum Cover of this Year. I’ve also recorded another but just waiting on the Video Edit for that 1. This is the 2nd instalment in my Michael Jackson mini-series and its titled “thriller”

FACTS:

• “Thriller,” the biggest-selling album ever, wasn’t the only Michael Jackson work released in November 1982. A few weeks before it was set to hit stores, MCA Records released an album of Jackson reading the story of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and performing the original song “Someone in the Dark.” The album promotion, which featured posters of Jackson and E.T. looking very friendly, angered CBS Records, which felt it was stealing the thunder from “Thriller.” Lawsuits ensued. Both albums ended up winning Grammys the following year.
• “Thriller’s” phenomenal success led to a breaking down of traditional racial barriers on FM radio at the time. New York’s WPLJ, a “white” station, played Jackson’s “Beat It” because of Eddie Van Halen’s appearance on it. The song caused a wave of protests from some listeners who didn’t want “black” music on their station. MTV also had a reputation for flavoring white performers at the time, and its heavy rotation of Jackson videos helped alleviate the criticism.
• The music video of “Thriller” played in a Westwood theater for one week in 1983 to qualify for an Oscar nomination. It opened for Disney’s “Fantasia,” much to the dismay of unsuspecting parents.

I hope you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to play. Only part I’m not happy with is the timing issues at the start.

Why you shouldn’t purchase instruments from eBay.

Just a quick post as to why you should avoid eBay for second had instruments. I have to admit the lore of purchasing such items from eBay is a massive one. Quite often they can be less than half the RRP price.

I will admit I have in the past purchased a few smaller cymbals from eBay. I have purchased a8” and 10” Zildjian A Custom cymbals with out any issues. I have also brought a 6” Zil-Bel only 2 weeks ago. But this is a really thick cymbal and pretty much unbreakable. So I wasn’t worried about that one at all.

Re-cap on a year gone bye. (part 1)

I just thought id shear this little re-cap with you all on what Ive accomplished during the year past since I posted my first ever Drum Cover up on youtube on the 19^th of October 2010.

Halloween Special

Morning all. As you know today is Halloween, and to mark the occasion I thought id do a little Halloween themed drum cover. Now this was a toss up between Thriller and Ghostbusters, But as im in the process of making a Michael Jackson mini series which I will be incorporating Thriller into. Which means for my Halloween Special Ghostbusters was chosen.

With it been a Halloween Special I also decided to dress up my room and kit. In accordance with the day. I managed to recruit my good friend James Grice to help me with the themed project.

Latest cover of “salvation is here”

This was 1 of my favourite songs to play with my Church Band. There are lots of deferent beat styles used, And all in all a lot of fun to play.

The original song is by: Hill song united.

Hope you enjoy it.

If you have any questions about the video. Please leave a comment.

Behringer USB 2442fx

Hello all.

As I promised in a previous blog I will continue to look at the equipment I use for recording and editing my drum covers.

Today ill be looking at the Behringer USB 2442fx sound mixer. This is the heart and soul of my setup as without this the Mic’s, PC and even the drum kit its self is pretty much useless for recording.

I will at some point be doing a drum tour of my kit and recording setup. Until then pictures of the unit will have to do.

Ive owned this unit for a little over 8 months now. And Ive go to say it’s a good steardy piece of kit. It’s got a decent weight to it and nice and bulky. Ive had only 1 problem and annoyance with it since Ive had it, and that is Channel 3 has stopped working when using the XLR input. Unfortunately I do not have any other equipment to test the other types of inputs on the channel (really should get around to doing that)

Its Finally Here

Bellow is a link to my new cover of Michael Jackson’s “black or white”. It was recorded using my new EQ settings. I hope you like it. Any questions please leave a comment and ill answer then ASAP. ( a tad rushed though i must say)

 

 

Recording LIT “my own worst enemy”

Morning all.

First off id like to start by sharing a quote that arrived in my inbox this morning, “The only place you find success before work is in the dictionary” May V.Smith. I think this is definitely a quote to live by. What do you think?

Above is my latest Video Drum Cover of Lit’s “my own worst enemy”. I had a lot of fun playing this song. It was released in March 1999, Just as I was going through the exam stage at my secondary school, (Seems like a lifetime ago now) and thus holds strong memories for me. As it was my favourite song of the time.