I’m a big believer that odd meters don’t have to be mysterious or elitist — they simply need to be heard, felt, and practiced in small, consistent doses. Over the years I’ve helped students and session players make 5/4, 7/8 and other uneven time signatures feel natural, and what keeps...
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Technique
Electronic kicks often sound tight, precise and—let’s be honest—sterile....
Technique
I used to avoid recording snares with anything on them because I feared killing...
Technique
I love the challenge of getting a roomy, vintage 1970s jazz drum sound out of...
Technique
I’ve spent a lot of gig and studio hours coaxing samples out of my Roland...
I’ve been running hybrid kits for years — acoustic shells fitted with mesh heads and pads feeding into modules like the Roland SPD‑SX or Alesis Strike — and one recurring annoyance is double‑firing: a single stroke registering as two hits....
Getting a sampled kick and an acoustic kick to sit together in a mix so they read as one powerful, cohesive instrument is one of my favourite studio puzzles. I love the musical options a blended kick offers: the body and beater of the real kit with...
I love the sound of a vintage snare: that warm woody body, the subtle overtones that sit under your rimshots, the way it breathes in a room. But when you need a tight pop for radio-ready pop rimshots—clear attack, quick decay and no annoying...
When a kick drum on a recording lacks weight, the instinct is often to reach for a big compressor or an EQ boost. I prefer a different, more musical approach: blend in a sampled kick to reinforce the missing low end while keeping the natural attack...
I want your electronic snare to feel like an acoustic one when you’re playing live — not just in sound, but in response, dynamics and how it sits in the pocket. Over the years I’ve spent hours mapping SPD‑SX pads for live gigs and studio...
I’m obsessed with pocket — that deep, elastic place behind the beat where neo-soul breathes. Over the years I’ve condensed dozens of warmups, transcriptions and studio tricks into a compact daily routine that takes 15 minutes but moves the...
I’ve spent years chasing that elusive neo-soul pocket: a warm, behind-the-beat feel laced with whispery ghost notes that sit perfectly under the singer or keys. This week-long plan is what I use with students and in my own practice to lock that...
I want to show you a fast, practical way to get a 1970s "roomy" drum sound from a tiny home studio using just a single dedicated room mic plus three different stereo mic-pair options. The idea is not to imitate a huge studio exactly, but to capture...
I get asked a lot how I dial in a Ludwig Black Beauty for modern pop. It’s one of those snares that can sound cinematic, dry, fat, bright or anything in between depending on what you pair it with — heads, tensions and damping make all the...
I love using my Roland SPD-SX on stage — it’s fast, reliable, and lets me add sampled sounds that glue with my acoustic kit. Yet I’ve repeatedly seen the same frustration: samples that feel “late,” disconnected from the pocket, or that...