Interactive drum instruction blog

Musician's Friend - Piccolo snare

2005-08-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

3-1/2" x 14". Steel shell, triple-flanged 1.6mm hoops, deluxe throw-off. This piccolo has a bright yet sensitive and full-bodied tone that's great...

Our Price: $29.99

What a great price for a piccolo snare to mash the shit out of. ~Matt Brown

Behringer EP1500 Europower Stereo Power Amplifier (1,400 Watts)

2005-07-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

Behringer EP1500 Europower Stereo Power Amplifier (1,400 Watts) - AmericanMusical.com

Found a new power amp for the live stuff at AMS. Looks like a good price and is 700 watts @ 2 ohms (stereo) and will put out 1400 watts if run in bridged mono. Price is $249.99

PS: We are re-shooting the first instructional video this evening and will edit tonight sometime probably. Look for a drum instruction / drum lesson video to be posted by tomorrow.

- Matt Brown

Email Matt Brown

Real Estate Marketing with Google Adwords

2005-06-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

Real Estate Marketing with Google Adwords:

Great resource for marketing your website and getting inbound links.

Drums - DRUM LESSONS / DRUM TABS

2005-06-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

I found this resource on the web today. Has rudiments and a gagillion other drummer utilities and help files as well as links to purchase items drummers happen to dig.

Matt Brown drumset and studio gear list

2005-06-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd post my list of musical supplies in our recording studio $hitBRICKHOUSE SoundLabs (no preservatives added):

I play SONOR™ custom-built acoustic drums exclusively.

Shells: Premium grade 12-ply Eastern Scandinavian birch
24" SONOR™ Kick (12 ply birch)
13" SONOR™ Mounted Tom (12 ply birch)
16" SONOR™ Floor Tom (12 ply birch)
18" SONOR™ Floor Tom (12 ply birch)
8" deep SONOR™ Lite500™ custom snare drum (12 ply birch)
15" Zildjian® Z-Master Custom Hi-Hats
15" Istanbul® Onurhan™ Hi-Hats
DW® Slave dual hi-hat system
Tama® Iron Cobra kick pedals and ghost system
Custom-made Gibraltar® stage racking
18" Istanbul® Onurhan™ china type cymbal
16" Istanbul® Onurhan™ fast crash cymbal
17" Istanbul® Onurhan™ crash cymbal
Zildjian® Zil-Bel cymbals
10" Zildjian® A splash cymbal
12" Zildjian® Z-Master Custom cymbal
12" Wuhan splash cymbal
20" Paiste® Signature Dark ride cymbal
16" Zildjian® A thin crash cymbal
Shure® high pressure drum microphones
ATTACK® drum heads
Raxxess® mixer rack
SONOR™ road cases
DW® modified Hi-Hat mounting
Behringer® live and studio mixers
Alesis® DMPro digital trigger: (brain & mesh head pad systems)
Shure® drum trigger transducers
KORG® Digital 24-bit Recording
VocoPro Digital 16-bit punch-out systems
Alesis® vocal effect processors and logarithms
Alesis® compression
ESP™ and Washburn electric guitars and strings
NADY™ live PA mains, side-fills and monitor wedges
Crown® live sound power amplification
Mackie™ mixing Mackie™ stage and studio snakes

My Drum-Tech Got Ripped Off...

2005-06-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

I had Eddie Yost, my drum tech, go to Guitar Center to pick up a 24" kick drum head, a 13" mounted to batter head and a dual kick-pad for the bass drum (so I don't put another hole through it so soon).

Check this out.... They RAMMED HIM FOR $73.00.

I told him to give them my name (I get a celebrity discount) and they would take care of him. I guess the guy at the counter didn't give him $hit for a discount (obviously).

I know the manager, Johnni... I'll pound him about it in person in the next few days.

Anyhow, I am going to put these heads on tomorrow afternoon and then we'll be able to rock-out again.

Video needs re-shot

2005-06-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

I think we are going to re-shoot the video later this afternoon. I blew a hole through my kick drum head so the audio could be better. Need to head to Guitar Center to get another 24" bass drum head first. That should be later today or tomorrow at latest... Then Ryno and I will re-shoot and record.

I'm Awake

2005-06-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm up. I crashed like the Titanic yesterday...

Got to do some interest rate news and other updates to the home loan website, then my drum tech and I (Eddie Yost) will go back to work on the drum lesson video.

Note to self: Tools for displaying RSS Feeds at my sites using html

2005-06-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

Display RSS Feeds

ZZzzzz

2005-06-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

- snore -

Pooped out on rendering and time-code syncing

2005-06-26T03:03:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. Lots going on today. Nitey Nite!
- Matt Brown

automotiveblogz

2005-06-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

automotiveblogz

This is Ryno's automotive blog. Hope he doesn't forget again.

Video progressing nicely

2005-06-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Rendering the lab project video:

bloGGd drumSTYLE -
Vol. One|Segment One
Title: "Your memory plays a key role in drumming"

Actually, I captured the video and extracted the bounced-down .wav audio and put them together using Sony Vegas Movie Studio and had a pretty good time matchup between the two digital environments. The challenge (and the reason I'm starting over) is that I captured the video from my Panasonic MINI DV at too low of a bitrate / fps (frames per second) and I just couldn't bring myself to use it looking all muddy and compressed.

So... Here I go again. This was an update. - Matt

Feed Validator for Atom and RSS

2005-06-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

I use this validator to make sure my XML files are not side-wankered. Works well. ~ Matt

Mixed-down audio and imported video

2005-06-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

It's 2:11 pm in Los Angeles and I put a minuscule mix on the drum tracks for "Revolution Calling" and bounced them down with a limiter and just a hair of smooth hall effect to give it some headroom. Then I punched the 2-track mix out to CD (16-bit) and listened. You can really hear the fact that I used 3 of the crappiest mics on the planet. However, it will work for the sake of this lesson plan.

I am importing and rendering the digital video as I write this and may have a finished product by day's-end. ~ Matt

XML from bloGGd.com

2005-06-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is the graphic link for our RSS feed at bloGGd.com RSS news feeds. - Matt

The Hollywood Liberal. Political opinion, humor and satire

2005-06-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Hollywood Liberal is a political blog with humor and commentary from the infamous west-coast democrat.

I really like the copy posted daily at theHollywoodLiberal.com mainly because the columns carry a "Dennis Miller-esque" style of smart-a$$ness that is all-too-rare in genuine form.

Nothing fake, and certainly no holds-barred when it comes to comments by the sharp-toungued H.L.

This site is growing increasingly more popular these days, so keep an eye peeled for more mention of it. - Matt

Getting rolling on first instructional video - "Memory plays a key role in drumming"

2005-06-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

Its around nine-o-clock on Saturday (sounds like a cheezy Billy Joel song, huh?) and I'm beginning to plan the day.

First allow me to slip a few tidbits your way as to what we actually have slated for bloGGd drumSTYLE:
Rock Drum Kit Instructional Series.

VOLUME: 1
SEGMENT: 1
SEGMENT TITLE: How your memory plays a key role in becoming a great rock drummer

- Yesterday afternoon I tapped into the gear resources at Sh|tBRICKHOUSE Soundlabs (my recording facility) and set-about tracking a drum part alongside a Queensyche Track from the late eighties titled, "Revolution Calling" off the Mindcrime LP.

I chose this tune because the inro has a cadence that is controlled quite well and requires a drummer to really listen to the song in order to nail it like it has to be nailed in order for the drummer not to sound like a schlprock.

I was without overhead condensers, as my partner Don Holmes (a programmer for refiHOUSE.net telemarketed mortgage lead services) desired that I give them back to him (they are his) so he could laterally move them over to my other buddy Robbie Duron (lead guitar player for Crankin' Gravy and the Roby Duron Band) for some studio work he is doing in Hollywood.

So what I did was punch my high-pressure Audix through my Behringer MX1804X Mixer and send that signal out hard-left/hard-right to my Korg D-16 digital multi-track recording module.

Then (are you ready for this?) it came down to exactly what I could use to fatten-up the sound. After beating my head against the wall I finally decided to pull out a couple of Hi-Z/unbalanced, cheap-A$$ Karaoke Microphones.

Necessity is the mother of invention, friends. Persistence does prevail over resistance, leaving us alone with none-other than the crappiest possible solution that must be tested in times of desperation.

That being said, I rigged-up a seperate Hi-Hat line-in to the KORG, bypassing the whole route through the mixer. I figured that I may as well isolate the Hi-Hat on its own channel if I had to try to get some counter-balance to the whole $h|tty microphone thing.

And beleive me... The first mic out of the box of crapola was so $h|tty I cant even begin to tell you... (Okay... I'll tell you):
The mic I was forced to use for the Hi-Hat direct-in most assuredly didn't cost a cent more than 10 bucks when it was brand new 15 years ago (at least) and I couldn't find so much as a Tandy label on it. It was that bad. I didn't dare plug it into the hard-feed coming into the Behringer. Henceforth, the biggest reason I ran a seperate mic for the Hi-Hat direct to its own isolated CHANNEL 7.

Moving right along, I was forced into the same desperate patheticism (if that even is a real word) and used another TWO unbelievably $h|tty mics (of equal or lesser value than the other one I mentioned if you can believe that).

I made the best with what I had and placed those two mics behind me so they pointed over my shoulder toward the drummers-right hand side of the kit to catch the cymbals and some rumble from the 16" and 18" Floor-Toms. Figured it was worth a shot.

By the way: I'm certain that the three Karaoke Mics I used were uni-directional/cheap. I assumed from jump-street that all three would, by nature, have sorry frequency response and a very short range of pickup to boot. That is typical of $10 mics, just so you know.

I aimed a trusty Sennheiser e-835 Vocal Mic from behind my left shoulder toward the middle of the kit. This may have caused some sonic issues as a result of the microphones pointing toward the middle of the drum kit from either side / "crossing-paths", thus knocking the audio signal out of "phase". I won't know until I bouce the final down and send a scratch copy to CD. More on this later today probably.

MORE TO COME LATER-ON... (I must go eat and then punch-the digital audio out of the box and mix it with digital video taken during the cutting of the drumtrack.)

Cheers. ~Matt

and cut a track a play it back

DigiTech GNX-4

2005-06-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

My 17-year old Son, Cameron Brown (a musical prodigy/player/rocker/song writer), wants me to augment his existing gear.

- Line 6 Guitar Amplification
- "Dimebag Darrell Dime-Slime" Washburn Electric Guitar
- Washburn Acoustic strings
- Fostex Digital Recording Hardware and Media Control Systems
- Shure Microphones
- Mackie and Behringer Mixing Consoles/Technology
- Dolby 7.1
- Sony Media Publication Software
- Crown Amplification Systems.

He really wants the DigiTech GNX-4.

It is around $400+/-

Can you believe my boy is going to to turn 18? Wow. Proud Daddy!

My Boy Cameron:

.

Web Blog Directory

2005-06-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

Great place to ping and circulate your blogs and RSS news.

Online drum lessons

2005-06-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

I will be posting drum lessons, licks and ideas for rock drummers in this blog. Most lessons will be in digital video format (either WMV or MPEG).

If you're a beginning drummer: You can learn some back-beat driven and groove-laden chops to become a rocker fast. I will be compiling/uploading some video instruction and helpful notes in the next few days.

If you're a pro: I have enabled comments for you to share your thoughts and ideas. Two drummers are better than one, I always say.

I'm out. ~Matt

eBay - DigiTech GNX-4 for Cameron

2005-06-24T22:10:00.000-07:00

eBay item 7331618991 DigiTech GNX-4

This is a used GNX-4 for cameron t ebay. Expires Jun-20-05 08:11:51 PDT

American Musical Supply - Musical Instruments and Equipment

2005-06-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

American Musical Supply

This is where I get a lot of my gear for recording and live sound. Good deals right now. ~Matt