Re: Drum MACHINES

["Rick Walker" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

chuck wrote, among other things:
">  I'd just like to thank you for your inspired and intelligent
> thoughts. As a trained musician, I looked down on 'Techno' and for  
>years 
> I resisted the technology. About a year ago out of curiosity I  bought 
> Reason. Now have thousands and thousands of dollars tied up in  this 
> powerful  musical venue.


What a sweet letter, Chuck.   Thank you very much for the 
acknolwedegements. 
You seriously brought an appreciative
smile to my face and made my day, today.

I have a similar story.  I have been a professional gigging/touring and 
session percussionist/drummer for a very long time
and, started seriously loopoing digitally in 1995 and, right at the cusp 
of 
the millenium change I invested in a computer music making studio
(PC based) and just threw myself into making electronic music.

I just became obsessed about it all,   from live looping to computer 
assisted sound design and composition.
The ability to sculpt musical sound and found objects in the computer is 
just unending and for
a while I considered myself as much of a Timbralist as a Rhythmatist (as 
I'd 
always thought of myself in years prior).

I almost completely quit drumming at that time................really only 
concentrating on
frame drumming for several years and only playing percussion or trapset 
drumming
when I was paid a lot of money to do it in recording sessions or short 
tours 
(or during drum
lessons which I continued to teach).

After a 7 year immersion in that world,  I suddenly finding myself 
returning 
to the world of acoustic music
with brand new ears.

I've recently fallen in love with my first great love, the drumset and I 
have been learning as much as I can
about trumpet, fretless bass and a whole host of zither styled instruments 
lately.

When Woodstockhausen was lamentably rained out,  I found myself with a day 
off for the first time in the longest
time (I"m my own boss and it's tough for me to walk away from the office 
as 
it's my house).

I spent an entire evening tuning my Autoharp, my Bowed Psaltery and my 
Marxaphone (the latter to a favorite
Indian Rag:  Bhairav ----  1, b2, nat3, 4, 5, b6, nat 7, 8va) and I've 
been 
loving
moving my new acoustic Shertler convertable pickup from instrument to 
instrument.

All wonderfully acoustic,  but I've been throwing it through stomp box 
pedals and can't wait to record some so
I can get all those juicy Cycling 74 Hipno and Pluggo plugins going on the 
sounds.

I've also found that I really enjoy trying to make acoustic instruments 
sound electronic with acoustic methods instead of
electronic ones.

I've even started working on an idea I've had for a long time:    an all 
acoustic drumset that sounds as if it was an electronic
drumset.     I figured that so many people are trying to make electronics 
sound 'real',  'organic'  or like acoustic instruments
so I'd go in the exact opposite direction.

I've been buying really strange one of a kind proprietary effects cymbals 
at 
NAMM and the PASIC convention, where the manufacturers
trot out their latest R&D exercises hoping that the notoriously 
conservative 
drumset world will go for these new ideas.
They rarely do go for it, so they always sell these prototypes on the last 
afternoon of these conventions.

I've amassed a really cool collection of smallish (13" and under) cymbals 
that sound as if they have processing on them.
My wife the other day discovered all these cool sounds that you can make 
by 
holding a small Revere ware cooking pot lid
and hitting it's wooden handle.   We got at least three sounds that are 
remarkably similar to Roland TR-808 sounds.

Additionally, I've been treating drums and cymbals by putting different 
kinds of chains and pieces of metal on them to cause
what I call 'acoustic distortion'.

I have a little rack that holds three little custom fiberglass tom toms 
that 
I converted to 6", 8", and 10"  'Jungle'  snare drums.
I play these with little teeny 10" meinl hi hat cymbals that sound like 
they 
are normal hi hats pitched up on a sampler with a
little 14"  Pure cussion flat drum,  tuned low with thick black naugahyde 
glued to both sides  and kluged to an LP Gajate
cowbell footpedal bracket.        This left side of my drumset is tuned to 
sound like a breakbeat drumset pitched up
from 120 BPM in a sampler to 160 BPM.   The right side of the drumset has 
two terrible and very low pitched 16" 1960's
Japanese crash cymbals (when the Japanese made truly terrible 
cymbals...........which I have grown to love because they are
so idiosyncratic sounding)  put together loosely like hi hats.     The 
kick 
drum is a huge 14" X 16" kick drum (ala Bonham)
tuned really, really low and flabby........the snare is a really deep 8" X 
14"  Ludwig Coliseum snare drum that I have tuned
very low and with really loose snares.    This side of the drumset is the 
same drumset tuned down an octave so
that I have my double speed "JUNGLE"  kit and a half speed  "TRIP HOP" 
drumset.

The whole thing takes up very little space (just a little larger than a 
typical 4 piece drumset)  and sounds cool.
Now if I could just get some looping gigs where they'll let me set up for 
two hours..............lol.