Studio Drummer – Sweet Spot

*YOU WANT TO BE VERY CONSISTENT STRIKING THE DRUM IN EXACTLY THE RIGHT SPOT.*

Every drum has a ‘sweet spot’.  This is the spot on the drum where the drum speaks to its utmost ability.  Use your ear and find all of your drum’s sweet spots and practice hitting them every time.  It’s more difficult than you might think!  It’s usually the center of the drum or slightly off center.  Use and develop your ear!

Where does the stroke sound best to you?

*AS A SESSION PLAYER YOU’LL BE ASKED TO STRIKE YOUR SNARE INCLUDING A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF RIM.*

This means striking the drum but also including a touch of the rim, which creates a tremendous amount of crack and attitude out of the drum. 

This is tricky but you need to practice this. 

Practice the same consistency of your stroke but this time your stroke will be off-centre, slightly to the side of the drum and catching consistently the same amount of rim. You don’t want more rim and then less rim etc. 

You need to develop a style in this area that gives you consistency and attitude that you can pull out immediately if a producer requests it.

On the issue of weight;

*YOU DON’T WANT TO OVER-HIT EITHER!*

Drums tend to choke sonically when they are over-hit.  You can hear this very clearly with snares and toms.  You want to strike the drum with enough impact to excite the drum and make it sing but not to over-hit the drum and choke it.

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Studio Drummer – Stroke Weight

*THE KEY IS THE SOUNDS THAT WE CREATE FOR THE MICROPHONES TO ‘HEAR’!*

A good fulcrum with a good release, which means allowing the stick to rebound off the drum head allowing the head to ring and decay freely is the starting point that we’re looking for. 

This is also true for cymbal work.  You don’t want to be pressing the stick into the cymbal but you should be striking the cymbal and allowing the stick to release away from the cymbal on the upstroke.  You don’t want a different grip between your hands.  It’s simply a matter of the sound that is being produced.

A classic case of hearing mismatched hand grips is when a studio player goes from say a hi hat and snare groove to an aggressive straight 8ths snare drum roll.  The type of roll that has to be slamming, in your face and with perfectly matched hands and weight.

If your grip is inconsistent between your hands or is constantly changing you won’t be able to achieve the desired consistency.  I’d recommend

spending time with Jim Chapin’s book Stick Control.  This will really help to develop these areas.

*ANOTHER KEY ELEMENT IS STROKE WEIGHT.*

Consistent and controlled stroke weight is another key element that denotes an accomplished studio player. 

If your weight is changing from snare back beat to snare back beat or from bass drum note to bass drum note then you’ve got work to do.  Not only does that translate inside the music as erratic and uneven but it creates nightmarish issues for the mix engineer.  He is trying to create a foundation or ‘frame the house’ for the music of which you are the key element and you’re changing the level of the floors constantly.  This is a good way to picture what I’m saying. 

Consistent weight starts with good hand technique and is developed largely by being very aware of it, the problems it creates and the need for consistent weight.  It’s good to practice everything that you do bearing these key elements constantly in mind.

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Studio Drummer – Playing Technique, What Are The Microphones Hearing?

PLAYING TECHNIQUE – WHAT ARE THE MICROPHONES HEARING?

There are a number of key elements regarding technique, not just hand technique but playing technique in general that are important to the sound that you produce.

At this point I want to introduce a term that I will refer to throughout this chapter called ‘internal dynamics’. 

A drummer should look at his kit not only as a whole but also as 6 or 7 different instruments that require their own specific approach.  If you study the sound that you’re creating not only holistically but also as distinct instruments and how to improve upon those created sounds, you’ll be much further ahead.

We want to create the desired sound and consistency by maintaining the best habits we can surrounding the kit.  There are many techniques involving the hands and I don’t want to spend too much time on which particular technique you adhere to.  I am a matched grip player who occasionally uses traditional grip and perhaps you’re the same or the reverse of that. 

What I would like to address are the key elements of importance in producing the sound we want to produce.  Whether you’re traditional or matched grip you want to have a strong fulcrum in both hands. If you’re unfamiliar with that term what this means is that by grasping the stick with your thumb and the meat of your fore finger you want a strong bond to the stick at that point.

Just as a teeter-totter has a center fulcrum which is the pivot point allowing it to go up and down so you also want this in your grip. It allows you greater control and the ability to do double strokes for example.  Yet you also want the rest of the fingers on the hand to be relaxed and free to manipulate and contact the stick.

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Studio Drummer – No Fakes

DON’T BE PHONY EITHER* 

People can spot a phony from a mile away.  Don’t be gushing and overly complimentary for example.  Yet don’t be a doormat either.  There do arise moments, and for very good reason, when you have to be assertive. 

Here’s a good example of that from my experience;

I was working on a very good session for ‘the greatest outdoor show on earth’, the Calgary Stampede when I noticed there was a playback issue that was critical.  The session up to this point had been upbeat and very positive with great results.

The issue was that the playback of the tracks that we were recording was slightly delayed against the click track.  What that did was make everything that we were playing on the floor sound slightly out of time with the pre-existing recorded tracks that we were playing to.

In a very assertive way I had to enter the control room and insist that there was a software issue.  I could hear it.  But at the time the producer and

engineer were thinking, ‘it’s 10am in the morning and you guys all have to wake up and start playing in time’!  At least that was the general vibe coming from them.  Plus we happened to be recording at The Armory Studios which is a multi-million dollar world renowned studio.

Since what we were recording was pretty complex and busy I had the idea to ask the engineer to do a test with me.  I asked him to feed me a click track and I’d go in and play something dead simple, he’d record it and then we could compare the playback to the click track to see where the timing fell.

Sure enough they all could then hear that there certainly was a software issue and all systems were re-booted and the session was back on track again.  Also and equally important, I was not made to look bad as a player due to something that was not my fault!

There are definitive times when you have to stand up for something but as in this case it was something that was essential to the overall progress  that could have completely derailed the session as well as our reputations as players.

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