Raymond Herrera

[carpediem930]

Portnoy may be my biggest influence in the overall approach to the drumset, but it was Ray Herrera who has influenced my double bass playing the most. As soon as I heard the Fear Factory album "Obsolete," I was hooked on his playing. His ability on the bass drums always keeps me listening. The way he plays double bass utilizing patterns is what really got my attention. This has definetely been one of his biggest effects on my double bass playing. Patterns are what I prefer playing, as opposed to straight ahead beats at fast speeds (although he handles those with ease).

http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Raymond_Herrera.html

[Doom]

Raymond is great. I enjoy his playing on Demanufacture more so than the other albums. I would like to hear him on a different style album as his playin on Brujeria albums is extreme aswell.
Does anyone know if the videos of him recording Archetype live are available anywhere?

[Anchein Vouivra]

Don't know him or fear factory much, but the few i've heard including tracks on DW are really amazing specially cyberwaste. I think I'll soon buy an album. How can he play so fast ????????????????????????????

[K!lly]

I love the FF' touch.. the double bass sound... so great!
I remeber in a interview he said that "the maitrise of double bass drums resides in intensive practice " (sry but its a google translation ;)
so practice, practice, practice and you will understabd why he plays so fast...

If you search on the net (on FF'website and fan's website) you can easily found some vids from the band...

and by the way, in "Cyberwaste" its only 240 bpm.... not so fast ;)

HK-hunter killer!!!!!!!

[finnhiggins]

http://www.kolumbus.fi/jarimetal/wintersun/wintersun_news.htm
check out wintersun
be sure to buy there cd this drummer is amazing very musical yet technical. ver good at double bass as well
on one track he is doing groups of 5 over the guitarist who is doing swung 8th notes. and there guitarist is extremly talented as well. he did everytign on the record but drums,(lead guitar, rythm guitar, bass, and keys plus all the voices)

http://www.nuclearblast.de/band_showa.php?artist=690
that is another website that features them
please suport this band

Can we get all these duplicate posts deleted? It seems to be some kind of marketing spam.

[K!lly]

yeah.... its sucks.....

but I don't think this is a commercial spam.... just a kid who want to promoted the band he likes...

so it is worse than a commercial spam!

[Elemental Nausea]

lol killy , what do you know about double bass playing and how fast it can be played? Can fathom at all how fast 240 bpm straight double bass is?? it is just amazing, tell me someone who plays faster in songs, ok there are a few a think but really only very very few

[Bernhard]

http://www.kolumbus.fi/jarimetal/wintersun/wintersun_news.htm
check out wintersun
be sure to buy there cd this drummer is amazing very musical yet technical. ver good at double bass as well
on one track he is doing groups of 5 over the guitarist who is doing swung 8th notes. and there guitarist is extremly talented as well. he did everytign on the record but drums,(lead guitar, rythm guitar, bass, and keys plus all the voices)

http://www.nuclearblast.de/band_showa.php?artist=690
that is another website that features them
please suport this band

beat - please remove all these posts - spreaded all around the forum in wrong places - within the next two hours. Or I have it to do myself - but my way....

Bernhard

[K!lly]

Elemental Nausea lol killy , what do you know about double bass playing and how fast it can be played? Can fathom at all how fast 240 bpm straight double bass is?? it is just amazing, tell me someone who plays faster in songs, ok there are a few a think but really only very very few

I can show you an old video from me, think I'm going to 240 bpm, but Iém not really shure, and I don't know where I can upload this vid... I can send it by mail, if you want....

[finnhiggins]

I can show you an old video from me, think I'm going to 240 bpm, but Iém not really shure, and I don't know where I can upload this vid... I can send it by mail, if you want....

Hell, email that to me and I'll put it on my server if you're right. That's mighty fast :)

Address is "finn" then the obvious symbol bit then "setcreative.com". Not posting it directly as I get a hideous amount of spam as it is, but I'm sure you can figure it out...

[K!lly]

Done ;) ... so read my mail before upload the video.... because.. you'll see.

[finnhiggins]

Done ;) ... so read my mail before upload the video.... because.. you'll see.

Warning for forum: Don't mess with Killy's feet. They're surprisingly fast! Not sure it's quite up to 240 but it's certainly clear of 210 while under control inside a subdivision. There's a speedup where either the sound quality degrades too far to hear the notes properly or some of the note slip out of time with the hands but... That's fast. I'd guess he's alright under control up to about 220 from this video, and he tells me this is from about nine months ago.

Killy - can you stop and start that rhythmically, or is it just a continuous thing? If you can learn to stop and start it ala some of the Fear Factory stuff then you're absolutely onto a winner with your feet.

Also... can you go that fast with your hands?

I'm quite impressed.

[K!lly]

yes... I can...
but its not a big deel... what I mean is that I'm much impressed by the Heel/toe from Jam master than from my "performance".
and I can go fast (as fast with both hands and feets) but only in double stroke.
In single I don't realy know haw fast I can go, but its under 200 bpm I think

[Bernhard]

Where is this video?

Must have....

Bernhard

[LordQuas]

He's great. Fear Factory is an amazing Band. I love H-K.

[K!lly]

hu....
Are you shure you want to see it...
do not want to disappoint you Bernhard.
Moreover I do not know if I deserve that..
omg... Bernhard want to see it

[K!lly]

yeah.. HK...
Securiton also...
Damaged.. Zero Signal

the intro of "Hurt Convoyeur".. INSANE!

[LordQuas]

Digimortal also. Crazy stuff

[mtdrew]

So I'm wondering about the crazy fast double bass at the beginning and through out of Securitron on the Obsolete album because it sounds almost too perfect and obviously some of it has to be edited where he misses it and whatnot but I was wondering if he's capable of that speed, be somewhat accurate, on time or if it's all fake? Is there any video of him going this fast at all anywhere?

[K!lly]

no, its not fake...
these "old" tracks are played at +/- 210bpm...
On achetype, cyberwaste is played at 240bpm.. but ubviously its show that more than 200/220 bpm is useless, cuz ist not a sound, just a noise.... no music at the end.

And for the proofs, they played several lives, and on the Archetype DVD you can see him playing some amazing lick with the double bass pedal, and also because he was calles the "human-drum-machine-with-no-hand" he play on this dvd to some cool licks with his hands....

[K!lly]

just go on this site:

http://www.fearfactoryfans.com/archive/video/index.php

[TonKpilS_657]

heres the DRUMS ONLY track from empty vision.

http://fearfactory.com/empty_master_audio.mp3

heres two videos of raymond drumming.

http://fearfactory.com/video/Raymonds_Overhead.wmv

http://fearfactory.com/video/raymond_bass_cam.wmv

[Zardoz]

As soon as I heard the Fear Factory album "Obsolete," I was hooked on his playing.

Same here. That's one of my fav drumming records (also Burton C. Bell has one h*ll of a voice). Herrera's drumming = powerful, yet creative fills.

[chops4kicks]

Man i know what you guys mean he is amazing, my favorite is Slave Labor, but in moderndrummer he was talked about and he says that when they start a new song he plans the whole song out on a drum machine. Then he has to teach himself the song, and he says most of the time he doesn't even know how to play it or sometimes he physically can't do it yet (he then conditions himself to play it and gets the sticking down) its really amazing his writing process though, he then uses all the dum sounds from a variety of previous albums that he favors to get the over all sound. he is one hell of a drummer

[dawg]

i'm not into how grim the mood of metal can be,but herrera so fast with his feet and a great overall drummer. to any of you metal heads out there,enlighten me, is he the fastest and/or the cleanest double bass player? i'm particularly interested in those who has seen a lot of metal drummers live in concert.

[Doom]

He played perfectly when I saw them this year. Everything was like the album but with more energy.
As for being the best I dont know, Igor Cavalera was just as perfect when I saw Sepultura but he doesnt play the same amount of double bass and Raymond and definately not so much stop starting. I cant imagine Derek Roddy or Pete Sandoval or George Kollias or any of those guys being less than amazing. They dont have the reputations they do for no reason, they are that fast.

[h3r3tic]

This guy has a very cool sound on the bass drums when "glueing" them on the guitar sound

[the metal man]

I love raymond's drumming and was soo totally into fear factory UNTILL i found out he uses triggers....that really turned me off. still, he is a great drummer his double bass is wicked and he has been a big influence to me.

[Drum-Head]

I love raymond's drumming and was soo totally into fear factory UNTILL i found out he uses triggers....that really turned me off.

Pardon me but being turned off just because he uses triggers is a bit wierd in my opinion. It's impossible to play those things on the kicks, that fast, live or in the studio without them.

I've written this twice on the forum so I'll simply quote myself here:

The reason guys use triggers is because:

a) It's physically impossible to hit speeds from about 205-210 bpm+ 16ths and play them as "full strokes" on the kick. And even if one could pull off such an inhuman thing, he'd be very quickly having a visit to the hospital for knee surgury. If you pay attention to guys who play extreme styles you'll notice that acousticwise they're "tapping" the kick drums at those high speeds.

b) Conventional mics can not pic up signals at such speeds, there is too much air moving around in the kick drum so you'll get a crappy signal and the kick will not stand out in the mix. Triggers are the solution to this problem.

I personnally do not see triggers as "cheating"; it's just a choice and a necessity for certain musical situations.

[hookedup]

I love raymond's drumming and was soo totally into fear factory UNTILL i found out he uses triggers....that really turned me off. still, he is a great drummer his double bass is wicked and he has been a big influence to me.

I had this same mindset for long time when I was into Fear Factory back in high school. I thought to myself "Well, he can't actually DO it, otherwise he wouldn't need electronic help." At the time I was naive to what triggering actually way, and I thought he was triggering multiple hits for each bass drum stroke.

And then I saw him play live. And he can, in fact, play every note live. Triggering is simply a means for him to get his desired bass drum sound at his top speeds. Drum-Head gave an awesome explanation of the reason triggers are necessary for Ray's style.

And as a general note for this topic- at this point I can respect what Ray does on his kicks, but his hand work doesn't do anything for me. I was a Fear Factory fan for a very long time, and I've come to view him as a very limited player as far as his hand technique goes. I really think if he spent as much time on his hands as he obviously does on his feet he'd be an all-around exceptional player, but that's just what I would do if I were him. He plays the music he wants to play the way he wants to play it, and I fully respect that.

[Mr. Pasquini]

just a bit of info about his trigger usage from Tama's website. He's commenting on trigger usage, how much he uses them.
Raymond: Yeah, every Fear Factory record. We used a little bit on the first record. And like every record is a little different. You know, it was maybe 50/50 on the second record, maybe 70/30 on the third record… and so on and so forth. But I always add it in there, and the reason is once you’re dealing with a digital signal you can pretty much ride it as high or as low as you want, especially with frequencies, as opposed to with a microphone. So essentially what it does is allow you to get the definition from the sound, and you actually get to hear everything that I’m playing. Whereas with the microphone, you’ve got so much you can go with on the low mid-range and only so much you can go on the high mid-range. With the digital signal, you can crank either one. So what we do is use the trigger for the high end and the low end, and we use the mic’ to kind of give it the body. So we get the full spectrum of the microphone. And that’s just the way we do it, and that’s what we’ve been doing since… I don’t know, for a long time now (laughs).

He goes on to say he always mixes mics and triggers.

[dawg]

not being a double bass(or pedal) player,i can apprciate raymond's speed.the first time i heard him,i thought"that ain't humanly possible!"... and so even.he blew me away.

[Mapex589]

Yeah I like Ray. I saw Fear Factory at one of the local clubs and got to watch the show from side stage. I was able to really watch Raymond play and it was pretty incredible. His feet are pretty amazing. The man is frighteningly huge too.

[Drumms]

I do. He has influenced my style. I was a big Fear Factory fan, and still listen to them, so I really like most of his work.

What I like is (of course) his great feet technique and the fact that he does a lot with only a few cymbals. What I like less is his lack of versatility and simple hand work. I like his work on Transgression. At first I didn't ('cause it was different from other Fear Factory albums) but now I just can't get those beats out of my head.

Anyway he's a drummer that I respect. And he answers emails, too!

[Haseknumber39]

i dont think many people have listened to the stuff on Demanufacture

Self Bias Resistor, Replica just to name a few songs, pretty immense drumming

[drummingdunc]

i dont think many people have listened to the stuff on Demanufacture

Self Bias Resistor, Replica just to name a few songs, pretty immense drumming

But what a leap to Demanufacture from Soul Of A New Machine. It's like a completely different band. Anyone who doubts Ray's hands should listen to this album before commenting. He can do it, just chooses not to for whatever reason.

He is a huge guy! I won a Kerrang competition years ago and had dinner with the band at a Mexican restaurant in London. They ate so much! Ha!

[metal overlord]

I like Ray. He's a very technical type of drummer.
I really like was he does with Fear Factory, too.