"Portnoy" style rock shuffle

[HardcoreLogo]

A guitar friend of mine asked me to record some drum tracks to use as loops for him to jam and try ideas with.I know he is a Dream Theater fan(ok, I like them too), so I thought I would give him some Prog style rock grooves.........this one was a dry run with no click, but I think the sound is very decent, and the groove has a cool kinda mechanical yet bouncy feel to it. It is just a typical rock-blues type shuffle with a common 3 against 2 feel on the cymbals...I have heard guys like Portnoy and other Prog rock players use this type of thing(of course much better than me).The clips is very short so........
Check it out, please comment.........

[somedrummer]

It sounds pretty good, but it's very busy for my taste. I guess that's just the way prog is.

[gusty]

yeah i like it, could sound really cool with some keys/guitar/bass over it...something i liked about the hi hat groove at the end,dunno wat, but i liked it. also recorded well. i think dream theatre is a great band, heard them on a demo dvd from drum scene, love it

[gringo998]

its cool man, i love the sound you got out of your toms
with what did you record?

[thebeginning]

sounds really nice and clean to me, not busy at all.

[Stu_Strib]

You sound like a drum machine in that the playing is very mechanical (repetitive) and without much dynamics. Your drums also sound like a drum machine. What kind of drums are they?

Pretty solid though, overall. I would just give more space to the beat (take the toms out of every bar, and maybe just play that tom bit at the end of a phrase). I don't know what kind of drums/mics you are using, but the really do sound like electronic drums. If they are accoustic, I would suggest you lay off the effects a bit, and go for a more pure sound.

Stu

[HardcoreLogo]

Thank you everyone for your comments and advise.......I will try to explain the why and how of the drum sound as briefly as I can.......The groove it self is intended to have a very straight ahead mechanical(repetitive) feel, this is in part due to the style my friend is looking for, and the fact these clips will be edited and looped.......I have also done tracks of just the groove, no fills, with a click, tracks with variations, and will be doing tracks of just fills so he can arrange the drum part as he wants, so I'm trying to keep it very loop friendly until i rerecord the parts for him post song writting...though I do admit my playing in general could use a little more "feel" and dynamic contrast, this type of thing needs that "drum machine" way of thinking...........now the sound.........
My friend gave me a copy of Portnoy playing tracks in the studio, no other music, just the bare drum tracks, this is what I modled the drumset sound after.When you record drum tracks, you have to be carefull that the drums don't occupy the same frequences as other instruments, or you will get a bunch of mush.

The kit I used is the same Tama Rockstar Custom as my vids I have posted, but with more cymbals and toys, and a 12 inch snare. I think the tom sound is more a result of head selection and tuning then the type of drums, as most drums in this price range tend to be contructed very much the same. The mics are all Shure (57's, 52,56) and a Shure SM94 as a overhead running into my mixer, and Delta 44 brake out box/ pci card.........
BASSDRUM since the guitar tracks and bass guitar will be very "bass heavy", it is common in hard rock/metal to roll all the really low frequencey off, and boost the 5k to create an almost"pointy" kick sound that pokes through the mix.This is great for busy double bass playing, but awful for most jazz and other less foot heavy styles.This is a sound that is either liked or hated by drummers, depending on your style.The mic is running into a compressor and then into input 1 of my Delta 44 and track 1 of my wave editor.
Snare running into a compressor and input 2 of the Delta 44, once in the wave editor, I just added a little plate reverb to let it breath a little.This again is very common in hard rock drum recording.
Toms/Overhead The toms and overhead go first to the mixer, and then the left and right outputs into the Delta 44 inputs 3 and 4.There are no FX's.The toms are panned hard left and right and the overhead is center.

Wow! That was alot of writting, but I hope it helped.Thank you again for taking the time to listen and comment!

[PineyplayParadiddles]

Thats cool, I can see Portnoy playing that. Good job!

[YamahaDrummerAus]

I liked it. I think your playing suited the application well.

The sound was ok. Very good for a home job.

Can you link me to your kit??

[HardcoreLogo]

Thanx guys, wow, this is a blast from the past(lol)...........I realize the sound and the playing are not "perfect", but it is not intended for any kind of commercial application, just fun..........here is a link to a thread I started last year showing a video and pics of the small version of my setup I was using to gig with at the time, my setup changes from time to time..........
http://drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15160

[mikei]

You sound like a drum machine in that the playing is very mechanical (repetitive) and without much dynamics. Your drums also sound like a drum machine. What kind of drums are they?

Pretty solid though, overall. I would just give more space to the beat (take the toms out of every bar, and maybe just play that tom bit at the end of a phrase). I don't know what kind of drums/mics you are using, but the really do sound like electronic drums. If they are accoustic, I would suggest you lay off the effects a bit, and go for a more pure sound.

Stu

Stu!!!

Nice to see your back. Hope all is going well.

As far as the groove, it is pretty cool. I like it. Solid playing.