Jason Bittner

After seeing both bands live, I by far prefer Adler. His playing in my opinion is far more creative. In Rhythm magazine there is an interview with both drummers, havent got round to reading it yet though. If you listen to shadows falls drumming it is very good dont get me wrong but it sounds less complex than alot of adlers drumming. I am also abit of a fan of Lamb of God, moment tickets were on sale for Astoria I booked mine. So I might have abit of a biased view.

Go listen to Lamb of God and Shadows Fall and I think you will see what I mean about the durmming, Adler if more complex in my opinion.
 
It's a good interview. Im all for adler though, for reasons allready stated, and i prefer LoG.
 
Adler has some complex songs but i think bittner does give him some competition. adler mostly does triplets in his feet and it sounds awesome. But i think bittner has more endurance when playing fast double bass. thats what i admire about Bittner
 
Jason Bittner is my favorite drummer. His parts on "The War Within" are just kick ass. In my opinion, Bittner is at the top of metal drumming, along with Bostaph, Cavalera, Hoglan, and Lombardo. Really kool guy too.
 
I'm telling you check out MARTIN LOPEZ from OPETH and the song "DELIVERANCE" and that whole album, he is every bit as good. His double bass is sick.
 
Bittner is certainly not the fastest, but I am a big fan of his drumming. He has excellent phrasing, he is very clean, solid, and is not sketchy at all. He is well-educated, and his work with Shadows Fall reflects it well. I personally think he is one of the best drummers of newer bands; I also think Jaska Raatinkainer is very good too.

- Marc




He is definately better than "The Reverand"!!!!!
 
he's not bad. i just don't think he should have busted out the different styles druing his md solo when it was painfully obvious he's not a latin or jazz master.
 
After my band opened for Shadows Fall, I ran into Bittner backstage after he did his warmups. Great drummer for what he does but I don't hear a lot of the variety I look for in a metal drummer. I paid more attention to the people getting hit in the face with the leadsinger's dreads than I did his drumming, but I suppose that might be because I'd seen them before that.

jamsjr44 said:
I'm telling you check out MARTIN LOPEZ from OPETH and the song "DELIVERANCE" and that whole album, he is every bit as good. His double bass is sick.

I just caught these guys in Chicago, again, but still no Martin behind the drums. His drum-work is great for the music. He's a tasteful drummer when it comes to using his speed. That's very commendable these days. I did get to see his fill-in (drummer from Bloodbath) play a solo, which Martin doesn't do very often.

I recommend Opeth's DVD "Lamentations" to anyone that wants to check out their live show. The producion is top notch and it's a long double-set show.
 
Jookbox said:
he's not bad. i just don't think he should have busted out the different styles druing his md solo when it was painfully obvious he's not a latin or jazz master.

This is just a bit unfair in my opinion. I stood right beside hime at PASIC and I was really impressed by his powerful playing. Double as loud as most of the other drummers. This you don't get in the DVD!!!! And very precise. I compared live and know now, why he won the MD awards and fully agree.

Great and nice guy also with huge wide professional background for many years ....also as a teacher. Comments on jazz or latin are in this case really inappropriate.

Bernhard
 
jamsjr44 said:
I'm telling you check out MARTIN LOPEZ from OPETH and the song "DELIVERANCE" and that whole album, he is every bit as good. His double bass is sick.

??????

What has this to do with Jason? Is he involved with Opeth in some way or what??? or should this become a "Who is even bettter than Jason" thread???!!!

Hmmm, don't get it - this is the Jason Bittner thread

Bernhard
 
Bernhard said:
??????

What has this to do with Jason? Is he involved with Opeth in some way or what??? or should this become a "Who is even bettter than Jason" thread???!!!

Hmmm, don't get it - this is the Jason Bittner thread

Bernhard

No people we mentioning other drummers in this thread who they thought their feet were just as fast as Bitners, so I mentioned Martin Lopez as another one. I'm not bashing Bittner, but I believe his feet gets him his most acclaim I don't think his overall drumming is that great. Yes he is very good but I would not classify him as an amazing drummer in my opinion, he doesn't make my jaw drop like Weckl and many others.
 
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jamsjr44 said:
I'm telling you check out MARTIN LOPEZ from OPETH and the song "DELIVERANCE" and that whole album, he is every bit as good. His double bass is sick.

Amen brother.. Lopez is very much over looked in the drumming world.
 
I think Jason is very good heavy rock drummer and has good, strong feet.

Did he ever study with anyone?
 
Bittner is very well-educated; never forget that. As Shadows Fall has released only 5 albums, we have yet to know the full extent of his drumming. Look at Dave Lombardo of Slayer; if one were to compare the drumming on Show No Mercy to that of Seasons in the Abyss, the difference is incredible.

- Marc
 
tambian89 said:
Bittner is very well-educated; never forget that. As Shadows Fall has released only 5 albums, we have yet to know the full extent of his drumming. Look at Dave Lombardo of Slayer; if one were to compare the drumming on Show No Mercy to that of Seasons in the Abyss, the difference is incredible.

- Marc


And he, I believe has only played with them on 2 releases.

Alot of people are comparing him to Chris Alder, but I think if you look at both Bittner and Alder, Bittner is a better drummer IMHO. Chris Alder's playing is very one deminsional, he has the same type of playing on most of LoG's songs. It is different from other bands but he over uses the same kick pattern all the time. Same thing with fills. If you look at Bittner's playing though you can see that there is alot more knowledge and creativity to his playing. Go watch the Alder and Bittner videos on this site and you can see the difference in their playing abilities.
 
I kinda signed up for this forum and forgot about it for like 6 months... ironically I've been posting on JB's forum. Jay is one of my most personally inspiring drummers. A lot of you guys are talking about how educated he is. A lot of people don't know this, but he only went to Berklee for a year (it's like $40k a year with room and board...). And yes, a yr at Berklee is still a YEAR at Berklee, but I'm saying that's just a small part of his getting to the level he's at.
You can go to his website and ask him - he will never claim to be the fastest drummer out there. He'll tell you he's a metal/thrash drummer. One of his biggest influnces is Benante from Anthrax. Jay actually filled in for him for 2 shows when CB recently had his baby - that's how much he's played along with Anthrax growin up. You can hear that in a lot of his beats as well.
The biggest thing I love about his drumming is that he writes drum parts that fit the song as best as he can - and that's the most important thing that we as drummers must do. There are some things about his parts that you can't tell as well from a quick listen as you can by really studying the song. If you haven't seen his 'drum lesson' on the dvd that came with The War Within, I'd recommend it. It gives you a greater appreciation for some of his parts. My two favorite songs of his are "The Light That Blinds" and "Ghost of Past Failures." In the latter you will hear a lot of the MD solo parts at work, like the tom pattern where he keeps the beat on the x-hat, the tom pattern,8ths on kicks, snare on 2+4. They're not impossible for others to play, but that's not the point. He's a making great music.

Also, for those of you who are real big into speed - to quote Jay (from a thread where people signed in as guests were coming on and anonymously comparing JB and Joey), "on the new SHAD record there's a Double kick song at 210BPM but I bet that's still not fast enough!!!" Obviously, the man is progressing, just like the rest of us.
(for comparison reasons, the light that blinds was recorded at 180bpm)

p.s. I'm a big fan of Alder as well, I just picked up Ashes of the Wake last week.
 
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