Gavin Harrison here!

Your Drumeo Session was awesome. You did an amazing job. The songs you played, the things you talked about...great - just as I expected.
I was amazed that you played three songs of Cheating The Polygraph. I got this record and the more I heard it I thought that it must be almost impossible to play these tunes live - the drumming on there was like from outer space to my ears. Well, now you definitely proved me wrong...and some parts are surprisingly easier to play as I would expect when I listened to it. This is really art, Gavin!

By the way: How many courses did you film there and will it take long until they´re up?
 
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Hi Pass.of.E.r.a.

As for my actual question, I realize it's a long shot, but do you remember which snare drum(s) you used while recording Deadwing? I was listening to it today and couldn't get around how good the drum tone on that album is (especially on Start of Something Beautiful).

I'm sure most of the time I was playing my 1982 Yamaha Recording Custom 14"x5" (this is the drum my Sonor Protean is based upon). I used that Yamaha drum on almost everything until I got the Protean drum - and I've used the Protean ever since.

Also, have you ever considered keeping a blog? I think a lot of people would be interested in what you have to say.

No - I don't honestly think I'm that interesting.

Hi
Lightbulb_Sun

Great lesson today Gavin! Got the Drumeo trial just to see the extra stuff - excited for more! Always a pleasure to learn from you. Breaking down the "In Exile" groove was the highlight for me. Very informative and useful. The "Cheating the Polygraph" material was fantastic too. You nailed it! I was blown away when you nailed the hi-hat fill at 2:19 in the title track. One of my favourite moments on the whole record - so exhilarating.

Glad you enjoyed it. I had a great time there at Drumeo.

By the way, what hi-hats did you use? They were beautiful - never seen you use them before.

The top is an old 1950's K Zildjian and the bottom is a modern Zildjian Constantinople. I'm really enjoying playing them.

Also, the new Steven Wilson album is out (it's great!) and once again, you're thanked in the liner notes (near the top of the list, even higher than Stephen Humphries - the guy who wrote the deluxe box edition!). I'm curious, did you have any involvement or give any advice to SW with the album?

I guess he just likes me :)

Hi Robert Schmidt

Your Drumeo Session was awesome. You did an amazing job. The songs you played, the things you talked about...great - just as I expected.
I was amazed that you played three songs of Cheating The Polygraph. I got this record and the more I heard it I thought that it must be almost impossible to play these tunes live - the drumming on there was like from outer space to my ears. Well, now you definitely proved me wrong...and some parts are surprisingly easier to play as I would expect when I listened to it. This is really art, Gavin!

They are really hard songs to play. I have also performed Anesthetize a few times.

By the way: How many courses did you film there and will it take long until they´re up?

The hour live lesson that you saw should be up on YouTube in about 6-8 weeks. Then we also filmed four drum lesson courses + a Q&A session plus a few smaller things. I guess they filmed about 3.5 hours of stuff in total over the two days. I don't exactly know when the Drumeo members stuff will be released.

cheers
Gavin
 
Hey Gavin! Been a fan of yours since I heard PT's "The Incident" in high school, and I think it's cool and humbling that you take time to talk to us "regular guys" on here.

I do have a few questions for you though:

Were you using a Yamaha RC on In Absentia? That's just one of the best drum sounds I think I've heard.

Also, do you recommend thinner or thicker shells in the studio? I brought my thin-shelled kit in the studio last week and my engineer told me to get thicker drums since apparently thinner shells get "sucked into the bass drum" and sound boxy.

Thanks!
 
Hi LeftySlammer92

Were you using a Yamaha RC on In Absentia? That's just one of the best drum sounds I think I've heard.

Yes that was the snare drum I used on that record. Interestingly - I've never seen another 14"x 5" only 14 x 5.5"

Also, do you recommend thinner or thicker shells in the studio? I brought my thin-shelled kit in the studio last week and my engineer told me to get thicker drums since apparently thinner shells get "sucked into the bass drum" and sound boxy.

I've not had a problem in studios with thin shell drums. Plus I don't understand what "sucked into the bass drum" means.

Cheers
Gavin
 
Hi Gavin!

I saw you play with The Pinapple Thief in Dresden yesterday! I enjoyed the concert very much and even the "few" technical difficulties didn't spoil the fun at all and I got the feeling the crowd was very pleased with the show!

The first half I was standing in the front row to get my eyes satisfied.

I did know that you tend to hit the drums very hard, but I wasn't expecting this :)
Interesting for me to hear the drums mostly un-miced in the front row.

For the second half of the show I went to the audio-sweetspot in the middle of the venue! Great Sound!

I was a Pineapple Thief fan and a fan of all your musical projects as well and the collaboration is really a dream coming true for me.

Now just a little question at the end:

You didn't have your bass-dum filled with a huge pillow this time, am I right? If so, why did you remove it?

I hope you and the band will have a nice continuing tour!
 
Hey Gavin, hope all is well! I hope the TPT tour was lots of fun!

I came across this Porcupine Tree interview where SW was discussing Mikeael Akerfeldt's vocals on Deadwing...

Mikael was kind of a no-brainer, because I knew Mikael through the Opeth records, you know. He's a good guitar player, he's just amazing and I wanted to have him on the record. And another reason is that because Gavin replaced Chris and Chris was the only other singer in the band, so there's been need to have other vocal textures to join with my vocals to make harmonies. Of course I had Wes and he's been with the band playing live for a few years now and he's been on all the albums since In Absentia doing harmony vocals. And Gavin also sort of did some things on In Absentia as well, but I wanted to use Mikael's voice for Deadwing so that is how that came about.
Click to expand...

Can you explain what he meant by "Gavin also sort of did some things on In Absentia"? I'm very interested lol. Did you sing any backing vocals? There are absolutely no credits that confirm this and (as far as I know) you've never sang before in any musical projects you've been involved in! The idea of you singing is kind of funny to me haha

Sorry for the rather obscure non-drumming related question but I came across it and I just needed to know haha

By the way, will you be on the next Pineapple Thief release? Have you discussed it yet? Either way, looking forward to whatever you have planned next!

Cheers,
Quinn
 
Hi Christian Beck

I saw you play with The Pineapple Thief in Dresden yesterday! I enjoyed the concert very much and even the "few" technical difficulties didn't spoil the fun at all and I got the feeling the crowd was very pleased with the show!

Glad you enjoyed the show

You didn't have your bass-drum filled with a huge pillow this time, am I right? If so, why did you remove it?

for the last year or so I've been using the KickPro Pillow (up against the batter head) and another small pillow in the middle of the drum.

Hi Lightbulb_Sun

Can you explain what he meant by "Gavin also sort of did some things on In Absentia"? I'm very interested lol. Did you sing any backing vocals? There are absolutely no credits that confirm this and (as far as I know) you've never sang before in any musical projects you've been involved in! The idea of you singing is kind of funny to me haha

I didn't sing backing vocals on any album (yet) so I don't really know what that means.

By the way, will you be on the next Pineapple Thief release? Have you discussed it yet? Either way, looking forward to whatever you have planned next!

Yes we've discussed my involvement on the next Pineapple Thief album and most likely another tour next year - in between my King Crimson commitments.

cheers
Gavin
 
Gavin

Have you ever considered going with double bass instead of double pedal? Is your kick straight out? Or angled to the right slightly?
Thanks.
 
Hi Stevesmithfan

Have you ever considered going with double bass instead of double pedal? Is your kick straight out? Or angled to the right slightly?

I used to play double bass drums before I got my first double pedal. I always wanted the bass drums to sound the same - but they rarely did. So when the double pedal came along I was sold. Here's a pic of me on my first tour of the States in 1983 !

Tama drums.jpg
I aslo had a double bass drum Gretsch set and then a double bass drum Yamaha set.
Now that I play one bass drum it is not angled out.

cheers
Gavin
 
Gavin Harrison said:
Hi Stevesmithfan

Have you ever considered going with double bass instead of double pedal? Is your kick straight out? Or angled to the right slightly?

I used to play double bass drums before I got my first double pedal. I always wanted the bass drums to sound the same - but they rarely did. So when the double pedal came along I was sold. Here's a pic of me on my first tour of the States in 1983 !

View attachment 79957
I aslo had a double bass drum Gretsch set and then a double bass drum Yamaha set.
Now that I play one bass drum it is not angled out.

cheers
Gavin
Click to expand...
Those look like Superstars if I'm not mistaken.
 
Hi Gavin,

happy new year! How are you doing?

I think I found something interesting: I guess on this forum you mentioned your (past) usage of the cobra clutch together with a dropclutch for playing doublebass with open, closed and half open hihats. I believe you said that you now use a normal clutch because stepped hihats feels more direct.
Therefore and because I feel the same I was trying to invent a clever clutch to fix the problem. But very sadly I was too late. I recently found a product called the Hihat-Razer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM0XgzuyL5E
It´s quite a nice idea to solve the problem by moving the bottom cymbal (I didn´t thought of that).

So what I want you to do now is get that product, test it and tell us that it works great. ;)
No seriously - did you know of that before? Have you already try it out? I think it could be a nice solution.

All the best and greetings Robert
 
Hi Robert Schmidt

I think I found something interesting: I guess on this forum you mentioned your (past) usage of the cobra clutch together with a dropclutch for playing doublebass with open, closed and half open hihats. I recently found a product called the Hihat-Razer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM0XgzuyL5E
It´s quite a nice idea to solve the problem by moving the bottom cymbal (I didn´t thought of that).


thanks - it looks very interesting and I'd be happy to buy one...but where from? I couldn't find the inventor or his website. Does anyone out there know him?

Happy New Year 2018 !

Gavin
 
Yes - I have the same problem. I´m now asking a drummer called Travis Orbin who´s sponsored by it (this is where I actually found it.) Let´s see what he replies.

Edit: He replies that he couldn´t find him either.^^ He gave me his name (James Sera) and I was able to professionally research the full patent behind this product that is attached here. He patented an awful lot of possibilities to solve the problem! and realized the easiest one that works with a special formed leverage. But I couldn´t find him anywhere. It seems he just dissapeared. It´s crazy. But at least (in German law) it´s allowed to build the invention for yourself and use it non-commercially. So if no-one can find him, you Gavin and other drummers can at least do this. Or speaking for example with Sonor or Gibrtaltar and they can try to get a license of that patent. Sounds like an idea?
 

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Hi Gavin,

I’ve always used an audio interface & computer combo to record my drums but I’m thinking about going with a “no latency” setup, meaning monitoring the drums from an analogue mixing board before sending them to the computer. I think I read earlier in this thread that you were recording this way with a Mackie mixer. Do you still do?

Also, how do you monitor the backing tracks and click track? Do you send the backing tracks from the computer’s interface/converter back to the mixer? Then, how do you add some reverb (monitoring only) to your drums?

Thanks,

Will
 
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Hi Robert Schmidt

He gave me his name (James Sera) and I was able to professionally research the full patent behind this product that is attached here. He patented an awful lot of possibilities to solve the problem! and realized the easiest one that works with a special formed leverage. But I couldn´t find him anywhere. It seems he just dissapeared. It´s crazy.

thanks for the info Robert. It's a really interesting idea - I don't know the commercial possibility of it though. I feel it would be a very small market.

Hi willregnier

I’ve always used an audio interface & computer combo to record my drums but I’m thinking about going with a “no latency” setup, meaning monitoring the drums from an analogue mixing board before sending them to the computer. I think I read earlier in this thread that you were recording this way with a Mackie mixer. Do you still do?

Yes I do. I can't listen to the drums being sent to the hard drive and then back to me. Even with the lowest possible latency I can still hear and feel it.

Also, how do you monitor the backing tracks and click track? Do you send the backing tracks from the computer’s interface/converter back to the mixer? Then, how do you add some reverb (monitoring only) to your drums?

The backing track and click are coming into the analog desk and I'm hearing the drums via the analog desk too. The important thing is to measure the round trip latency (and it's different with every soundcard/interface and different again at different sample rates 44.1k, 48k, 96k etc). So you need to measure that and offset it. For example my round trip involves my Apogee converters. From Logic on the computer I take an audio click that is trimmed up to the very first sample and then send it out of the apogees into my analog desk. Then record it back via the analog desk and back into the Apogees. After that I can (in hyper zoom mode) on Logic see how late (in samples) the newly recorded click is. At 48k my system needs a minus -94 samples offset. That means that everything I record to a click will be in exactly the place it was intended. I hope that makes sense.

cheers
Gavin
 
Thanks for the answer Gavin! I didn't think about measuring the latency of the backing tracks, great tip!

I read that you like hearing your drums with reverb while recording. How do you manage to add reverb to your drums from the desk? Do you use an external reverb unit?

Thanks,

Will
 
Hi Gavin,
how are you?

I got a few questions:
Watching your drumeo session (for the x time) I noticed that in the intro of the first song you turned off the snare at first and turned it on again a few moments later just before the first backbeat occures? Why did you do this - do you want just this one tom fill to be free of snare rattling?

When you record these days - are you using any other snare drums than your two signature ones?

I think you said that when you´re on tour practicing backstage on a pad you get through a lot of your ideas. Is there sort of a defined point when you stop working on one idea and go to the next one - for example when you feel that you can play it well enough?

Thanks a lot and greetings!
 
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