Cover Story

Tech Tips: How Computers Handle Timing

It happens to most of us sooner or later. You put headphones on and start overdubbing a new track into a computer-based recorder, but you can’t catch the feel because the headphone mix is distracting. There’s a time lag between when the stick hits the head and when you hear it in the headphones.

Cover Story

Trashy Reverb: A Cool Way To Mess Up Your Sound

Ambient miking can enhance the recorded sound of a drum kit, but there are also novel approaches to ambient miking that can color the sound of the kit if you wanted to, say, mess things up and get all gritty and grimy – but on purpose. This article will explain how to don your mad scientist getup and think inside the can if you will, to get a truly trashy reverb/echo effect.

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Studio Secrets: How To Record Toms

Looking for that big, boomy tom sound that launched a million hit songs? You’ve found the answer in Mike Snyder’s in-depth article that covers everything from microphone selection, drumhead choices, preamps, mixing, and beyond.

Cover Story

5 Steps To A Better Live Monitor Mix

Learning to improve your live monitor mix is part art and part science. But live sound engineer Ron Parker and technology guru Bob Durkee add that it doesn't hurt to also throw a dab of psychology into the process. ... MORE »

Cover Story

Remote Recording: Beats From Afar

There was a time when the idea that studio drummers could literally phone-in their parts seemed like nothing less than science fiction. Now it’s an everyday reality in the world of jingles and soundtracks. Learn how to lay down drum tracks in your pajamas for producers around the world, and actually get paid for doing so!... MORE »

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Reamping The Snare

If you want to give a lifeless-sounding or monodimensional snare track a bit more pizzazz, there’s an organic way to go about it.

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Tweaking For Touch

A drummer’s touch is a serious part of his or her personality and sound. Compare any two topnotch players and you’ll realize that their distinctive sounds are produced not only by a particular combination and selection of drums, cymbals, heads, tunings, and sticks, but how the drummers actually strike their instruments. Is touch something that really matters when playing electronic percussion instruments? For that matter, is touch even possible on electronic drums? The answer is an emphatic “yes!”... MORE »

Cover Story

Inside The Art Of Drum Looping

First we review the pros and cons of the most popular looping programs, and then take advice from top drummers like Pat Mastelotto and Crhis Vrenna about the creative solutions they have enjoyed by applying loops to their repertoire.... MORE »

Cover Story Feature

Create Your Own Electronic Percussion Duo

For more than 12 years, CrossTalk, the Electronic Percussion Group at the University Of Arizona, has been creating music that is performed entirely on electronic percussion controllers. The group doesn’t try to emulate traditional percussion ensemble music. Nor does it play “world music” styles using electronic instruments. Instead, it performs new music in new ways that expand the experiences of the students and the audiences that hear them. Perhaps it’s now time for the general drumming community — outside the hallowed walls of educational institutions — to take the plunge and create their own groups for fun, profit, and creative expression.

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Tracy Broussard: Mic Tips From The Road

When Tracy Broussard moved to Nashville from his native Louisiana 13 years ago to pursue his musical dreams, he had no prospect of a steady gig. Now, his career is going full-bore with a steady gig as drummer for country star Blake Shelton and a very successful web site devoted to country drumming called Road Dawg Online.

In 2009, this Sennheiser drummer/endorser went from playing in small Nashville clubs to being on the road with Blake Shelton with a drum kit full of Sennheiser evolution microphones.

Cover Story Feature

Bosphorus Cymbals Goes Digital: The Interview

In 2009 Bosphorus Cymbals hooked up with FXpansion to release the Stanton Moore Signature Series BFD Expansion Pack in its popular BFD2 Format. The entire line of hand-made cymbals was recorded and produced by John Emrich, capturing them in high-definition audio. Effectively this gives the full power of the Stanton Moore cymbal line to any producer or composer anywhere.

Gear

Getting The Details: Alesis DM-10 Pro

Last year we interviewed Alesis engineer Jim Norman, at a time when he was hard at work on the DM-10 Pro Kit and other new models they have since introduced. One of the great features of this kit is the ability to download new sounds to the module, direct from your computer. Alesis has produced one of the best product demos, we've seen lately, so we thought we'd share it with you here. (By the way, that's Alesis VP Gregg Stein behind the kit--still playing great.).