Put on a record by Rush, and make him listen to Neil Peart.
Then ask him to go home and PRACTICE A LOT.
If he has talent, he'll get better in time, and will then sound more professional.

the bane of my existence is drummers. I tell the bands, theres three parts to a song: the kick drum, the snare drum and the rest of the song. It doesnt matter theyll still play all icky like. Theyll flim flam the toms, tip tap the toms, show up with missing lugs and cracked heads, play parts that dont fit the song, play parts that dont fit ANY song...........the list goes on.

Drummagog can make up a bit for inconsistent hits, in fact, if it werent for drummagog, Id still be console and tape. I make a lot of samples for it, if theyre hosted anymore. It can be a big help, but for timing...ouch

Zero-x has a new "beat quantizer" standalone. The demo I tried sounded pretty nasty, but maybe if some of us buy the thing and yell at the makers long enough theyll get it going good?

Vegas/Acid's time stretch and crossfades would be the ideal way, but I'd hate for them to take time off from the REALLY necessary things Vegas still needs.

I send out an email something like this to new client's drummers a few as soon as they book time so they can prepare

It is of CRITICAL importance that the drum part be looked at. I warn people time and time again, but they dont always listen, till its too late. Yes, I CAN edit your stuff till the cows come home, and usually create a decent take out of whatever. Sometimes it is beyond even editing. And when it is played WELL, with maybe a few tiny edits, it sounds a zillion or so times better than an edited together take. EVERYTHING in the song depends on those drum parts being good.

They are the reference for the tempo, the timing, when to come in, when to go out, where the " 1 " is, etc... This cant be stressed enough

So here are some specifics: There are ALWAYS exceptions to these but you get the drift

1: Hit your drums like you MEAN it. tip tapping and flim flamming on your drums, ESPECIALLY toms, is going to make for a crappy recording. Dynamics are one thing, poor control is something else entirely. If your hi hat is louder in your snare mic than your snare is, we have a MAJOR problem. Slower and harder is always better than fast and crappy. For a GOOD example of fast and hard, see " Scott Travis "

2: Dynamics AGAIN. Be aware of your dynamics at all times, keep it STEADY when it is supposed to be steady, and build it up when it needs to be built up. If you are holding the rhythm, dont go tip TAP tip tip TAP TAP tip. you are being distracting and not helping the feel of the song at all, in fact you are ruining it in most cases

3: GOD DAMN TOMS...toms are like artillery. They can have a MAJOR effect, especially if they are pinpointed accurately and used sparingly. If they are dropping down like rain, you get numb to em and just ignore them, hoping that you dont meet the " one that has your number"
I wince when I see a drummer bringing 5 or more toms into a session. Sometimes they use them all, and make everything sound great. Most of the time though, it becomes a flim flamming mess and a nightmare. Unless you are really in control it is possible that every tom that you can to add a few hourss to your mixing time. Toms are a BITCH. If they are hit HARD and steady, they add killer accents to the song, and are no problem at all. If they are played lightly and sloppy, you gotta spend the rest of your life trying to find some electronic fix to make them work in a mix, whether it be triggering them, or gating or some radical EQ'ing, whatever, its better to just WHACK them when they are supposed to be hit.
Many times a band will bring a CD of a group to show what they want their toms to sound like. You will nearly always notice, those toms were played HARD and SLOW, giving them time to build up all their energy...AND they are in a point in time in the song where they are not interfereing with anything else and nothing is interfering with them. So of course I say " no problem"
The drummer then goes on to do some tip tap flim flam rolls using every drum in the drumset 60 times in a 250 BPM fill in a 120 BPM song, AND the cymbal is louder in the tom mic than the tome is! You think Im kidding...

If in doubt, Leave it out!

4: Fills. You really dont need to be playing fills at all times do you? At LEAST let a rhythm be established SOMEWHERE in the song. Somehow Minor Threat pulled fill after fill off AS a rhythm on the out of step album, but still....Fills should ACCENT not take away. Its like the little boy who cried wolf, do it too much noone pays any attention. Sticks flying looks great live, but * Tape cant see your tattoos*

Be DAMN SURE where beat one is and make sure the timing on your fills isnt at some godawful weird tempo that makes it impossible for the bass and guitars to fit. AGAIn be DAMN SURE you come back in on one

AVOID AMBIGUOUS FILLS AT ALL COSTS!!!!

AVOID AMBIGUOUS FLIM FLAMMING ON THE TOMS AT ALL COSTS

there should NEVER EVER EVER EVER NEVER be a question of where another instrument is supposed to play, EVER. Cant stress that enough. Remember you are competing with thousands of other bands out there. Loose, sloppy timing will get you the axe for SURE, 100 % EVERY time, make NO mistake about it.

Fills are great, they really make you look forward to hearing the next part if done right. They can really accent a mood change in a song, or herald in a new part. Done wrong, they will multiply your studio time and associated costs, and no matter how much money is thrown at it, will still sound a lot worse than it should.

OK now, DRUMMERS!!!!

anyone who has worked with me knows what a drum nut I am ( tho Im actually a guitarist )

Drums will usually be the most expensive part of your recording session. For the most part the drummer MUST play the whole song right all the way thru, tho we know there are exceptions. Drums take the longest to mic and get tones for. If your drums arent up to snuff, or your drumming skills arent up to snuff, right then and there at the very beginning of a session, your album is already compromised. There is precious little to do to possibly make up for bad sounding drums or poorly played drums

ok first of all AVOID like the plague, drums that have matching dimensions. That means, if the kick drum is 22" diameter AND 22" deep, there are going to be problems. Not going to get into the accoustic theory, but matching dimensions are usually VERY bad news! VERY VERY bad news. The waveforms generated by such a drum tend to cancel each other out and have no " throw ". Even at the tuning point of maximum resonance these drums dont have much to say. A very popular manufacturer ( DW ) who used to, and many times still does, make excellent drums, is guilty of this time and time again lately. I dont know whats going on over there, but just because it says " DW " on it is no guarantee of anything! I've seen many sets over the years of drums with matching dimensions, so this isnt always true, but if it can be avoided, avoid it.

Next, THROW AWAY the factory heads. I dont care if theyre on the bottom where they dont get hit, doesnt matter. These glorified pieces of Saran Wrap need to GO!

Unless you REALLY got confidence in the distant mic sound of your kick drum, make DAMN SURE theres a mic hole in it, and make sure it isnt too low to get a mic in...your live sound guys will also thank you for this

Take a VERY careful look around the drum for cracked screws, hardware, missing lugs, and loose anything...I kid you not, on more than one occaision drums have come in missing lugs, with the drummer unaware....I am NOT joking

http://www.drumweb.com/profsound.shtml

that link is great. You may agree or disagree with many of his findings and techniques, but they DO work, so its a good start...PLEASE if you are a drummer read that link "

I'm with former speaker on this one. Although I don't consider drums being so important as "the kick, the snare, and the rest of the song" it is really the backbone of most POP/ROCK songs. In jazz you don't smack it hard, it's all whispers, but mostly good ones, so it works anyway.

One more thing to mention is as drummer you really should learn to TUNE them right. More then once I've had drummers come in with their set complaining it sounds crap. So I go look, and are often appalled by how the heck they un-tune them. Toms that sound all the same, snares with only half of the screws tightened (only on one side mind you!) taped up broken skin (or whatever you call it in english).... the list goes on.
I usually give them a few moments of my mind then show them some fast recovery of their set. Then tell them to hit hard. A good sound always start at the source.

pipeline,
i downloaded that "zero-x" program. i cant even get the thing to go without crashing on my system... it doesnt seem like this should be very difficult to make. have you ever used beat detective?

A ways back. Not sure if its gotten better by now but in the Beat Detective I tried, anywhere near cymbals it would make some funny sounds, if there were an edit. A swooshy, phasey thing. But you would just go to that section and futz around by hand and it would end up pretty good.

Regarding that zero x thing...the guy is doing it in RAM!!!!! NUTS! so for the multitrack version, you gotta have a LOT of RAM to work it or it starts crashing. They need to look into that. For stereo tracks, RAM should be fine but for multitracks? NUTS.

Nice rant on drums, Pipeline. A lot of good stuff in there.

"AVOID like the plague, drums that have matching dimensions. That means, if the kick drum is 22" diameter AND 22" deep, there are going to be problems. Not going to get into the accoustic theory."

Basically true, although a common standard for floor toms is 16 X 16. Very popular size going way back.

It's amazing how a good drummer can lay into a kit (even one that is tuned marginally), and make each drum resonate in an appealing fashion. And more often than NOT, the musician drummer also knows how to tune a kit. I would say the majority of drummers neither hit musically and consistently, and compounding the problem, they a) don't know how to tune their instrument and b) their kit is usually a POS to begin with.

In a nutshell, "You can't polish a turd".

-j

>>Basically true, although a common standard for floor toms is 16 X 16. Very popular size going way back. <<

A very popular size, yes, but NOT in the recording studio. A 16x16 tom has always been the hardest drum to get a good sound on. I don't know of ANY studio drummer that has used one as part of their regular studio kit (Ringo and Bonham don't count here). If there's a 16x16 tom in a session drummer's kit, its rarely used. The best "floor" tom sound typically comes from a 13 or 14 inch (11 or 12x13, 12 or 13x14). These sizes have a wider range of tuning options which record well and tend to blend in with the rest of the kit better than any 16". I've used dozens of 16" toms over a 35 year period and the best one for recording I've found is a 14X16 (16" head). Even this one is marginal and I most always end up using some 14" for the lowest/deepest tom.

drbam

No argument here on the point that there are plenty of drummers with bad tone and chops, but my attitude is record them and then if they're unhappy that they don't sound like a pro then charge them the time it takes to fix the drum timing and to replace the bad tones with good sampled tones.
Sure it's drudgery, but It's easy enough to do in Vegas.

Larry Crane had a funny article in a recent issue of TapeOp about the box of percussion (shakers, tambourines, etc.) he keeps in his studio that he called his "money maker". Pull that out during a session and before you know it someone in the band (and usually not someone who actually knows how to play percussion) will have an "awesome" part that just HAS to be on the track. After a couple of hours of overdubs they've just about got the part down. ;)

www.yamaha.com/apps/drumartists/artists_list.asp

Sure Gadd, Weckl, & Erskine and others are using smaller toms, but you can't say the 16" x 16" is stigmatized in the studio.......click around on Cobham, Aldridge, Skip Hadden, Manu Katche, Prairie Prince, etc....I know these are general gear lists.....If the drum sounds good, it sounds good and I've heard plenty of square floor toms that sound fine recorded.

-j

Yeah like I said, it isnt always true that matching dimensions are going to be ugly, but still. if it can be avoided, avoid it...unless you KNOW you get good sounds out of that particular combo. Most bands that pass this way still have the facotry heads on and the drums have never seen a tuning

I have come to the conclusion that unless a drummer can:

a) play to a click and make it disappear, even in fills
b) tune his drums
c) read charts
d) know how to hit the drums and where

loops, drum machines, drumagog all prevail.

As a now retired circuit and studio drummer for over 25 years I will say I agree with most of what has been posted here especially Pipe, the gist of larryo's post and the drumweb tuning site (save double-ply/hydraulic heads). Reading, tuning, "there's beauty in simplicity" and gear maintenance (acoustic and electric) are drums 101. Coming back on "1" should be a non-issue, should be a given.

That said, I haven't seen anything in the last bunch of years in the Pop realm other than Los Lonely Boys and a couple of others on the tube or elsware that resembles a group of players. It seems to be circling the drain year after year to the LOL point.

I've always said to my fellow musicians looking for a good drummer is to look at his gear, if it's shoddy... see ya, if his heads are old and dented... see ya. Often you can tell a good drummer by the wear pattern on his heads, if it's larger than 3" beware.

The issue I have is that many/most drummers don't know/think they are the foundation for everything. If it doesn't groove all else is insignificant to the public. Only players of a given instrument will appreciate a killer player in his area but that's not going to sell and of course if it won't sell say bye bye.

Another sad thing is non-drummers like to bad mouth drummers with "drummer jokes" either out of insecurity or ignorance which can stifle a young drummer's advancement. Even in my mature years when I would point out that the keyboard player or guitarist played a bad note during auditions I would often get a remark like "What do you know, you're a drummer?". Well I worked with the same bassist for many years and he would reply "Oh, he knows, he plays keys also". Even if I didn't, drummers need to realize they are the conductor, they set the rhythm, the groove, they command the entire performance and everyone plays to them whether they studied music theory or not.

Drummers need to know the piece better than all the others, drummers don't have the luxury most other players have of hiding, they must know the tempo, the intro, all the changes and the ending NOW!, play with and command authority. They must be as or more knowledgeable than any other musician.

More bands and sessions than not, I've had to chart out other player's parts, program the MIDI including the routing and patches, even naming them internally for keyboard players who I must say are generally intelligent and are willing to learn. I will also say have fortunately played with excellent keyboard players too who I have learned from myself.

I was seldom able to solve stage volume wars or the importance of eliminating noise in their chain or to play at full volume during sound check or to NOT play when they are NOT supposed to with guitarists though.

MJ

As a drummer, I can offer this advise for those of you confronted with a bad one. Strip him down...to a kick, snare, and hi hat. If he still can't control himself...try removing one stick.

He will get the picture.

PS
good drumming has nothing to do with neil peart.

"PS
good drumming has nothing to do with neil peart"

- Oh, howcome? Can you develop that "thought" you have on his bad technique?

"I was seldom able to solve stage volume wars or the importance of eliminating noise in their chain or to play at full volume during sound check or to NOT play when they are NOT supposed to with guitarists though."

LOL That is SO true! The nightmare is two guitarists on a rant to prove to eachother that they can play better, louder, faster AND without ever being silent!

wow some great advice guys...I have given up on acoustic kits unless live. The easiest way to record is electric drums...I am convinced. I record on the side and i admit i do not have a first class professional studio, but I have gone round and round with acoustic drums...what a pain!!!! Listen to all the musicians of the last ten years....REM,Metallica...etc...It is all electric!! Once I bought a electric set for the studio...I noticed that all along the BIG bands were using electric drums...However if one can mic acoustic drums...do it!! because they have more character! Peace!

Neil has great technique, he's awesome, but not everyone needs to be him.
The Groove matters. I've seen tons of great drummers who technically can't compare, but they felt good.

It's unfair to make any average (but tastefuland thoughtful) drummer like myself compare myself to someone like Him.

What is your instrument? How do you compare with the best in that field?
Why aren't you that good? Will any amount of practice make you that good?
It's doubtful...and i don't mean that in a hurtful way...it's just reality.
You either get it or you don't...of no further matter to me.

Nice chatting.
Pete

Great advice on getting a few extra bucks from an otherwise hurried session.
thanx!
pete

I've recently gone from 10-12-16" toms to 8-10-14" in my studio and out live.
when mic'd the little drums sound fine, and they are easier to lug around and nicer for pulling a set in close. Also went from a 22x18" kick to a 20x16" and the added punch and clarity for recording is amazing, even using a solid (coated Evans EQ/perforated) on the resonant (mic'd 8" out front with an Audix D6).

I miss the "feel" of a big 16" floor tom out live when i'm in a minimal or unmic'd situation though. The 16 still has a place in my heart, but not in my trailer.

As recording a 16" goes...I can't tell a "lot" of difference between it and my 14", there is some. The only place a 14 seems to lack is when actuall "riding" it. Just my opinion...could be wrong.

I remember an old story about Neil Peart showing up at some Modern Drummer event or something and trying to play Jazz-and supposedly he didn't really "swing" and he took a lot of heat for it.

I'm not familiar at all with Drumagog. Perhaps Pipeline can share a short description of it's functionality......I know I should search before asking, but short on time........
-j

Drumagog is like a software version of DDrum, or Alesis DM5/4/Pro, or the FORAT. It listens to your tracks on tape, and when a sound exceeds a certain level, like the others, it fires a sample.

However, Drumagog is unique in that, in the early versions, you could have 8 different samples, for velocity, and 3 each of those 8 for random samples. That means each trigger could cal up any one of 24 songs. This way rolls wont sound hokey, as the same sample will never play twice

Drumagog 3 lets you play even more samples!

Any time a really excellent drum kit comes in, I have the drummer hit three sets of 8 velocity levels each of his drums, so I have a pretty good sample selection going, but always looking for more!

Thanks for the info!! Sounds like a VERY cool tool. What does Drumagog 3 cost?

-j