VOTE: Modern Drummer Readers Poll

It’s that time of year again; time to vote in the Modern Drummer Readers Poll! We’re not telling you who to vote for, but we thought you might want to know which Evans artists have been nominated to the categories. Help us show them some love and vote!

Hall of Fame:
Richie Hayward

Mainstream Rock:
Phil Rudd

Alternative:
Glenn Kotche
Chris Pennie

Metal:
Brann Dailor
Gene Hoglan

Prog:
Marco Minnemann
Aquiles Priester

R&B:
Chris Coleman

Fusion:
Billy Cobham

Up & Coming:
Ulysses Owens Jr.
Billy Rymer

Educational Book:
Intro to Polyrhythms by Ari Hoenig
Rock Solid: Drums by Liberty DeVitto and Sean J. Kennedy

Educational DVD:
Great Hands for a Lifetime by Tommy Igoe
The Infallible Reason of My Freak Drumming by Aquiles Priester

Recorded Performance:
Dethalbum II (Dethklok) with Gene Hoglan

Voting ends on February 15th!

NYC Winter Jazz Fest Recap

It was a fantastic weekend for live Jazz in New York City. On January 7th and 8th, the Boom Collective presented the NYC Winter Jazzfest. Among the many musicians performing were Evans artists Mark Guiliana, Dafnis Prieto, Eric Kalb and Ari Hoenig.

Each put on fine performances with their own percussive flavor. Mark Guiliana took home award for most sets performed throughout the festival, playing with Nguyen Le, Donny McCaslin Trio and Now vs. Now over the course of both nights.

Check out some photos from the festival below:

Mark Guiliana performing with Nguyen Le at Zinc Bar

Dafnis Prieto performing with Proverb Trio at Zinc Bar

Eric Kalb performing with Charlie Hunter at Le Poisson Rouge

Mark Guiliana performing with the Donny McCaslin Trio at Kenny's Castaways

Ari Hoenig performing with Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig at Zinc Bar

The festival was sold soon after starting, with throngs of musicians and music enthusiasts piling into various venues in Greenwich Village. With Jazz music coming from both sides of the street, around the corner and down the block, there was something for everyone.

Perfecting Your Snare Drum Sound

The following factors should be considered when perfecting the sound of your snare drum.

Head Choice
This is the most obvious factor that comes to mind when people consider the sound of their snare drum. It makes perfect sense that the type of head used (single ply vs. double ply, reinforced vs. unreinforced, etc.) would have a strong impact on the sound of the drum.

Visit the Evans Player Profiles to find the best snare head for you.

Snare Wires
Choice of snare wires is the most often overlooked factor in achieving a certain sound from a snare drum. There are a wide variety of options available; 12 strand through 30 strand, twisted vs. individual strands, brass vs. steel. Here are some general rules to help you in your quest for the perfect set of snare wires:

Tuning
Your choice of tuning will not only affect the overall pitch of the drum but the resonance and timbre as well. Check out Bob Gatzen’s video on tuning your snare drum: Snare Tuning

Muffling
Use of muffling such as the Min-EMAD, E-Rings and other modifiers affects not only the sustain/resonance of the drum but the overtones present in the sound of the drum. The Min-EMAD helps to suppress unwanted overtones while retaining the desired attack and tone. The variable application allows you to fine tune the amount of damping taking place. The E-Rings simply “float” on the surface of the drumhead. The rings round out the sound of the drum by minimizing high-frequency resonance. This, in turn, shortens the sustain of the drum.

Building Your Home Studio

In this day and age, it’s very common to find musicians with their own home studios. Equipment is more affordable, descriptions of recording techniques are available on the internet, and there is greater motivation to be able to capture a performance.

Home studios offer the ability to track with whomever you want, whenever you want. Someone halfway across the world can send you a session file and you can lay down the drum tracks at your convenience. This is actually the direction that lots of music production is moving in. Professional session drummers are establishing their own home studios in order to reduce travel and setup time with the added convenience of tracking on your own time without any pressure.

Having a home recording setup also allows you to record your practice sessions, which can be a valuable method for improvement. As a follow up to the "Why You Should Record Yourself" post, we wanted to cover the basics of necessary gear for recording.

Putting together your own home studio can be a bit overwhelming at first, due to the wide variety of equipment available as well as the learning curve associated with making your own recordings. Here are the essential items for making a recording in order of signal flow;

Microphone > Preamp > A/D Converter > Recording Device

Before we open up this “can of worms,” it should be made clear that this is a very basic overview of the items necessary for a home studio.

Starting at the end of the flow, the recording device is what will actually store the recorded performance. This could be a standalone recording device (Such as the Zoom Handy Recorders) or even a computer with the necessary recording software.

If you’re going the route of a standalone recorder, it will likely include a mic preamp (or several) as well as the A/D converter. When researching recording devices, you will want to consider the number of microphones/tracks that you plan on recording simultaneously. This will dictate the number of necessary preamps and help you narrow down the specific recording device.

If you decide to go the computer recording route, you must first make sure that you have a capable computer. At the absolutely minimum, a machine with combined processing power of 4GHz and 2GB of RAM. When it comes to recording, more processing power and RAM is always better.

There is a wide variety of software available for computer-based recording; Everything from Pro Tools to Logic to Digital Performer and much more. The best piece of software is what works best for your needs.

To get the signal from your microphone(s) to your computer, you’ll need an interface. This is similar to the standalone recording device except that it will send the digital signal to your computer via USB or Firewire.

When it comes to microphones, the sky is the limit. At minimum, I would recommend a matched pair of condenser microphones to use as overhead microphones. This will provide a generally accurate representation of the sound of your drums and cymbals. Close mics, often dynamic microphones such as the Shure SM57 and the Beta 52a, help to capture more of the character of individual drums on your kit. Over time, and as money permits, you can add more microphones to your recording setup.

It should be noted that there are a wide variety of variables including acoustics, microphone techniques and recording methods that make all the difference in the end quality of your recording.

Happy recording!

Last Minute Gift Ideas For Your Favorite Drummer

Okay, it’s crunch time. Christmas is Saturday and you’ve got to figure out what to put under the tree for your drummer friends. Lucky for you, we’ve put together this list of gift ideas in a variety of prices (we decided to give them some festive titles though…)

"REINDEER" - Keys Galore
Is your Little Drummer Boy (or girl!) always losing their drum keys? Maybe they want to be able to swap out drumheads faster than anyone around. Maybe they’re in need of a strong and sturdy key always at the ready. Check out this assortment;

Wing Nut Key
Drill Bit Key
Magnetic Head Key

"SNOWMAN" - Educational Pack
Looking for the perfect all-in-one pack to keep your percussionist warmed up during the cold winter months (and all year round!)? The Tommy Igoe Educational Pack comes with everything they need; Tommy’s Great Hands for a Lifetime Hudson Music DVD and poster, 6” RealFeel Practice Pad and signature Tommy Igoe sticks.

Tommy Igoe Educational Pack

"ELF" - Head Packs
Does your favorite drummer suffer from DHS (Dead Head Syndrome)? Help them out with a new set of tom or snare heads!

Tom Packs
G1 Coated 2-Pack

"MRS. CLAUSE" - Bass Head Pack
Looking to give the gift of Christmas in the form of the perfect bass drum sound? The EMAD System is the perfect pack to get your batterista shaking the floor.

EMAD System Pack

"SANTA" – Custom gear!
Want to give your beat maker something one of a kind? An Inked by Evans gift card will allow them to create a custom drumhead all online!

Inked by Evans Gift Card

Happy Holidays!

New Product: System Blue Tenor Heads

The latest additions to the Evans line of marching drumheads are the System Blue Tenor heads, developed with the 14-time DCI champions the Blue Devils. The System Blue heads spent the past season being put to the test by the Blue Devils themselves. For the 14th year, the Blue Devils took the title of DCI World Champions and they did it with the Evans System Blue Tenor heads.

Design
The System Blue Tenor head is a 2-ply design with 7mil top-ply and 7.5mil bottom. This combination delivers tonal clarity and projection while also increasing durability and pitch stability, reducing the need for frequent tuning.

The series also utilizes Evans’ unique Sound Shaping Technology™, a damping technique that targets unwanted overtones and provides the control needed to enhance attack, projection, and note definition. The damping pattern on each head also provides a visual reference for the optimal ‘playing zone’ for each drum, offering a target for less experienced lines.

“The heads sound great. They last longer than any other head we’ve had on our drums and they look pretty cool too.” –Scott Johnson (Blue Devils)

Hear a sample of the System Blue Tenor heads "in the lot" with the Blue Devils: Blue Devils with System Blue Tenor Heads

Check out the in-depth review by Steve Weiss Music on their blog.

Why You Should Record Yourself

"Perfect practice makes perfect." We’ve all heard this before. Figure out what you need to focus on, organize your practice sessions to facilitate progress and you should succeed. But when it comes to being critical about your playing, it can be tough to accurately critique yourself in the moment.

The best solution? Record yourself.


Whether you’re practicing multi-limb independence exercises on the drum set or a rudimental snare drum solo, making recordings of your playing can be one of the most valuable tools for improvement. Reviewing recordings of yourself can provide you with the most objective perspective short of having someone else listen to you play (which is also important).

You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars to book studio time. A decent quality digital home recording will suffice (We’ll cover this in detail in a later post). These days, the technology is readily available, and more affordable than ever.

Make recording critique a part of your practice routine. You don’t necessarily have to record everything you play, though since you’re going digital and can always erase or trim the files, you might as well capture your whole practice routine. Leaving as much of your recording setup assembled and ready to go at a moment’s notice will allow you to hit record, focus on your playing, and forget about the recording equipment. When you finish working on the performance portion of your routine, stop the recording and review.

Start at the beginning of the recording and make notes about what you like and what you want to improve. This can be quite an awakening for someone who has never listened to their own playing before. By making this a regular part of your practice routine, you gain another valuable perspective on your playing.

If you’re playing with other musicians, try recording your rehearsals and performances. This will allow you to review your performance skills with the necessary scrutiny.

Label the recordings with the date and possibly the content and save them so you have the ability to refer back to them and track your progress over time.