Pribek

How do you tell if the stage is level?
The drummer is drooling from both sides of his mouth.

How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb?
None, they have a machine to do that now.

Why do guitarists put drumsticks on the dash of their car?
So they can park in the handicapped spot.

What’s the difference between a drummer and a pizza?
A pizza can feed a family of four.

OK smart ass. Here’s a question for you; if drummers are such imbeciles, how come you don’t see any of them spending way too much cash on a set of “reliced” Ludwigs?

I’ve been on a Duke Ellington binge for a couple of days…early recordings. There are several songs that have prominent drum fills where the drummers is hitting the toms. Hmmm…that sounds different says I. I wonder how they got that sound.

Then it dawned on me; calf skin heads!

Since guitar wonks are hell bent on locating “vintage” tone, surely there are some drummers out there that would seek the warm, sonorous tone of real cow. Turns out that calf skin drum heads are readily available.

But did you know you can get fishskin heads?

And even goatskin? From Active Musician…

Flat round piece of goatskin without hair. Thickness: Medium- approximately 0.015 of an inch. This equates to the approximate thickness of 4-5 sheets of printer paper.

All skins sold “AS IS”. We do our best to eliminate skins that have possible defects; however, our prices are based on an “as is” basis. This means, on average, you can expect to lose one out of ten skins. Obviously the tightness during installation will alter this ratio, so figure this loss in your cost.

$12.90

Go figure…

Drummers, Get Your Goat On!

Death Cab For Cutie is raising pitch correction awareness. From MSN…

The indie rock four-piece turned up to the Grammy Awards wearing blue ribbons pinned to their jackets, which they said was to raise awareness for their campaign.

“Autotuning is a digital manipulation, a correction of a singer’s voice that is affecting literally thousands of singers today and thousands of records that are coming out,” said the group’s frontman, Ben Gibbard. “So we just want to raise awareness while we’re here and try to bring back the blue note… The note that’s not so perfectly in pitch and just gives the recording some soul and some kind of real character.

OK, now it’s good that Death Cab is coming out against “digital manipulation”. And, it’s good to know they stand for soul. Even though it probably didn’t win them a lot of friends at the Grammy throw down, it was kind of jokey.

While you are at it boys why not take the plunge, go off the grid and do your part to…

Save The Drummers!

Here now, to start the festivities, is my new official soapbox issue.

Save The Drummers!

Got that? Keep that in mind. Make it a mantra. Save The Drummers! A call to action, a groundswell, a grass roots movement.

If we do this right, if we raise awareness, the solutions to seemingly larger problems will fall in to place.

First order of business, we have to stop the grid. We need to end it now! No more recording of music with grid-based software. No more after the fact editing, shifting the drums around in cyberspace until they sound utterly inhuman. The placement of individual drum hits should be decided by a human being; a drummer. A guy with a wicked foot not a guy with a wicked mouse hand.

Music has three possible elements; melody, harmony and rhythm. The grid effectively destroys any individual performance characteristics of fully 1/3 of the sonic landscape.

You wouldn’t allow that with other things you enjoy. New Cheetos! Featuring 1/3 less flavor! “Ooh baby, when I see you in that red dress, I just want to make love to you 2/3 of the night long.”

The grid and it’s evil sibling, the click, are so prevalent that, generations now, of drummers have come up hearing nothing but perfectly placed percussive strikes. Consequently, the “best” drummers of this age sound like they are on the grid even when they aren’t. Lifeless, boring, stiff.

Also, we must eliminate the click track from live performance. In order to duplicate the sound of the grid, in a live setting, with the illusion of a human element; the drummer has a relentless, cold, fascist clicking sound piped in to his eardrum in order to keep any outburst of percussive creativity subdued. Tempo shall never vary from one performance to the next. All drum performance shall be uniform.

Live has nothing to do with the rhythm of life.

Listening to music has been transformed in to conformism. That’s what’s wrong with the music! The personality, the life, the soul has been sucked out of it! Life is not perfect. Humans aren’t perfect. Tempo, laid down by a human isn’t perfect but, it can make you shake your moneymaker.

Rhythm is the foundation that the house is built on. Sterile drums+brilliant vocal=boring record.

What set you off, Jack?

Thanks for asking. I saw this article over at Music Radar called “18 Steps To The Perfect Sampled Drum Sound”.

Here’s the thing; the evil is a lot worse than most folks are aware of. See, there is a studio trick that’s used on a massive scale. This is the use of sampled drums. Sometimes, the drummer will actually be allowed on the cutting floor. They will let him set up his kit, throw some mics in front of it, get good signals or, as they say, “good drum information” and let the poor sap bash around a bit.

After the drummer leaves, and after all of his performance on each individual drum has been shuffled around to the proper places on the grid, the producers/engineers/editors will then take the sound of each individual percussive device and replace that sound with a drum “sample”. This sample could be one of an actual drum recorded in an ideal environment, it may be one that is lifted from another record or, it can be a digitally manufactured fantasy drum.

So, what we have is a drummer who has had any individual performance characteristics regarding placement of beats removed then, to top it off, stripped of any tonal individuality.

OK, now back to this piece that set me off, “18 Steps To The Perfect Sampled Drum Sound”. I read through the whole deal and here’s the part that should interest someone who is not a musician or recording engineer…

18. Humanise

While using repetitive, consistent drum hits is OK for dance music, if you’re trying to get a more realistic, human-sounding drum part and your sampler has a randomised ’round robin’ feature, use it to cycle through different drum sounds at random. As long as your drum samples are similar-sounding, this trick will enhance the believability of your drum parts. The more drum samples you use, the more convincing the feel. Subtle timing changes to individual hits can enhance the effect.

The whole idea is to fool the listener. Play the listener for a chump and all hail the omniscient grid.

Conformity! That’s what wrecking this joint! Don’t you see it? Don’t you hear it?

Everything is manufactured. Everything is processed. I’m talking food, shelter, water even body parts. Rampant conformism and we all just consume it.

Conformity and art don’t mix.

The antidote in non-conformism. That’s the only way to stop the poison. Are there going to be boundaries for the looming artificial intelligence? Are there personal places it won’t be allowed to touch?

My friends, the sound of the revolution starts with the thunder of the drums!

Save The Drummers!