On Saturday, August 2, 2008 I have a gig to play in the Faroe Islands. I was wondering how to go about getting there but my beautiful band said, "no problem, we will book a ticket". I hooked up with our singer online and we booked the flight. So, now everything is set -- I am going Thursday, which will give us one day to practice. I am sure the guys are sharp as always, so unless I mess up, we will be fine.
It is a wedding, so it's probably gonna be an all-nighter. We will start playing around midnight or so and start with oldies and things. Once people get into it, we will sneak some rock'n'roll upon them and I would be surprised if they did not love it.
It's been a while since I played acoustic drums but I think I got my paradiddles down, so there should not be a problem at all. I doubt that I will need too many of those but there will be some. I have moved away from the rock a little and am getting back in to reggea and things like that. On YouTube, there are a few videos. Most of these are just songs I dig, and then play.
They are not really rehearsed or anything, so it happens that there are untight sections. Often, it becomes impossible to play real drums to recorded music because the orginal artist is not "on the money" -- It is amazing how untight most recorded music is. When you listen to it, it may not be apparent but once you load it into an application and begin working out the tempo, you see that they are all over the place.
I am not saying that I am always on time, but I have a hard time with recorded music, unless they are tight. Playing live is a lot different because at least the other guys hear that they are behind the drums and catch up (or slow down, whichever the case may be). That is not something you get with recorded music. Sometimes, I am the one that is tending to go out of time but fortunately, I have a real good bassist supporting me.
If the drummer and the bassist agree, the rest of the band has an easy job.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Drum Videos on the Tube
With respect to drumming, I have been practicing a lot after having been away from it for almost a year. It is a dream come true being able to practice at home and any time you want to. I ran across an ad on a website... a band nearby needs a drummer to fill in for their regular drummer so I contacted them.
It seems that this band already have found a temporary but they are trying to keep their options open and want me to be there as a reserve. There may be one or two gigs that their temporary is unable to make, so they may want me to fill in there, which I think I can manage. I have explained my situation to them, so they know what the deal is but the great advantage that I have is that I know 50%-75% of their material from my regular band's material.
It is kinda odd that they are six musicians like we are, they are the same age range, they play the same material. That is really why I decided to contact them... they seemed to have a hard time getting a drummer, they were very similar to my band, and they practice close to where I currently live.
Like I may have said, I practice a lot on the digital kit and have a blast doing so. I decided to record a few videos of me and my kit playing along popular rock songs to show people what the kit looks like and how it sounds. I posted the videos on Youtube and got a lot more views than I expected. After all, I am just some guy with a drumset so I didn't expect more than 5 views or something but I got much more than that. I guess that I will have to make a few more videos because people are beginning to request songs.
My poker buddies, family, fellow musicians, friends, and coworkers are of course somewhat interested but there seems to be an interest from people I do not know (yet). I guess that most of them would be musicians that find my clips via other related videos. In any event, I like the idea I can create something that people enjoy and that other people bother creating things that I can enjoy. I guess that is the social nature of the human species so that's a good thing.
A clever man once told me (my late uncle, actually) that fame is not about HOW known you are; it is about WHAT you are known for. I kept that gem ever since and attempt to make a few good things for a few appreciating people. There is no need to become a superstar (or should we call it "Super Nova") or the richest man in the world -- That would probably just make your work more difficult. In any event, I haven't seen many happy superstars, if any at all.
If you really want fame, it is easy to achieve. All you do is to pay of find someone who will pay vast amounts to promote you through the media in order to make a lot of money from selling whatever you want. It is simply an investment and the media loves all material regardless of its quality. Fame is very easy to achieve but I warn against it... once you go down that road, there is no way back.
If fame comes to you because you happened to discover something brilliant, it will be a lot easier to handle because all you have to do is be who you are. Just do nothing new or different... lol. Quality-based fame will last a lot longer and be easier to manage.
My videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/herlpearl
These things are not hard to do but they can be time consuming. I have an MP3 song that must be synchronized with the recorded drumtrack. As I play, I record the video stream separately using a digital camera, so there are three streams to keep in sync.
First, the MP3 song is selected, then I need to learn or at least practice the song. I then play the MP3 through the headset and route the drum sound to the headset as well as my PC to record the drum track and hear what I am doing. I let the video camera roll independently of the other stuff and end up with 3 streams; 1) MP3, 2) Drum Track, and 3) Video.
I then load the MP3 and Drum Track into Cubase and attempt to synchronize the start of them as well as I can. I export an audio mix of those two streams to a single audio file which I then import into Windows MovieMaker. In Windows MovieMaker, I import the video from the camera as well and try to synchronize the AVI file and the WAV file. I then edit the whole thing to find a good place to start and stop the video, add captions, and things. Once the video and sound are all done, I export the whole thing as a VMW or MPEG file or other format. If the resulting video file is not too large, I upload the thing to Youtube. Otherwise, I run the result through VirtualDubMod and/or Windows Media Encoder to find a more suitable size/quality compromise.
Once the video has been uploaded to the site, Youtube compresses the whole thing so there is no need to go overboard with making huge files with great video and great sound. The Youtube server will mess up your work anyway.
It seems that this band already have found a temporary but they are trying to keep their options open and want me to be there as a reserve. There may be one or two gigs that their temporary is unable to make, so they may want me to fill in there, which I think I can manage. I have explained my situation to them, so they know what the deal is but the great advantage that I have is that I know 50%-75% of their material from my regular band's material.
It is kinda odd that they are six musicians like we are, they are the same age range, they play the same material. That is really why I decided to contact them... they seemed to have a hard time getting a drummer, they were very similar to my band, and they practice close to where I currently live.
Like I may have said, I practice a lot on the digital kit and have a blast doing so. I decided to record a few videos of me and my kit playing along popular rock songs to show people what the kit looks like and how it sounds. I posted the videos on Youtube and got a lot more views than I expected. After all, I am just some guy with a drumset so I didn't expect more than 5 views or something but I got much more than that. I guess that I will have to make a few more videos because people are beginning to request songs.
My poker buddies, family, fellow musicians, friends, and coworkers are of course somewhat interested but there seems to be an interest from people I do not know (yet). I guess that most of them would be musicians that find my clips via other related videos. In any event, I like the idea I can create something that people enjoy and that other people bother creating things that I can enjoy. I guess that is the social nature of the human species so that's a good thing.
A clever man once told me (my late uncle, actually) that fame is not about HOW known you are; it is about WHAT you are known for. I kept that gem ever since and attempt to make a few good things for a few appreciating people. There is no need to become a superstar (or should we call it "Super Nova") or the richest man in the world -- That would probably just make your work more difficult. In any event, I haven't seen many happy superstars, if any at all.
If you really want fame, it is easy to achieve. All you do is to pay of find someone who will pay vast amounts to promote you through the media in order to make a lot of money from selling whatever you want. It is simply an investment and the media loves all material regardless of its quality. Fame is very easy to achieve but I warn against it... once you go down that road, there is no way back.
If fame comes to you because you happened to discover something brilliant, it will be a lot easier to handle because all you have to do is be who you are. Just do nothing new or different... lol. Quality-based fame will last a lot longer and be easier to manage.
My videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/herlpearl
These things are not hard to do but they can be time consuming. I have an MP3 song that must be synchronized with the recorded drumtrack. As I play, I record the video stream separately using a digital camera, so there are three streams to keep in sync.
First, the MP3 song is selected, then I need to learn or at least practice the song. I then play the MP3 through the headset and route the drum sound to the headset as well as my PC to record the drum track and hear what I am doing. I let the video camera roll independently of the other stuff and end up with 3 streams; 1) MP3, 2) Drum Track, and 3) Video.
I then load the MP3 and Drum Track into Cubase and attempt to synchronize the start of them as well as I can. I export an audio mix of those two streams to a single audio file which I then import into Windows MovieMaker. In Windows MovieMaker, I import the video from the camera as well and try to synchronize the AVI file and the WAV file. I then edit the whole thing to find a good place to start and stop the video, add captions, and things. Once the video and sound are all done, I export the whole thing as a VMW or MPEG file or other format. If the resulting video file is not too large, I upload the thing to Youtube. Otherwise, I run the result through VirtualDubMod and/or Windows Media Encoder to find a more suitable size/quality compromise.
Once the video has been uploaded to the site, Youtube compresses the whole thing so there is no need to go overboard with making huge files with great video and great sound. The Youtube server will mess up your work anyway.
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