Pearl EPro Kit meets Drumometer

mattsmith

Platinum Member
While I've been hanging here in the Nashville area with my good friend Boo McAfee, we have been seriously investigating the practical uses for the Drumometer. I know a lot of people think it's only about speed competitions and sure that's its most famous role. But there are several more useful applications.

To demonstrate some of that we made this video that I hope you will find very interesting.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOKFhqKqVbE

This video is a consequential look into how numbers can beneficially relate to drumming technique, timing and yeah musicality...Then for fun at the end there's me using the technique to set the first full drum set speed drumming world record.

Boo and I would like to know your thoughts on all this, but as time has gone on I've really grown to respect his machine and all its various applications.

And yes to keep things on the up and up... I DO endorse the Drumometer, although I doubt there's anyone by now who would come to a thread like this and not already know that.

One more thing...yes the new hair style is yet another experiment lol.
 
Last edited:
Ok, this is interesting, but not especially applicable to me. For drummers who are dedicated to improving specific elements of their playing, I can see that this could be a valuable tool.

It's actually more interesting in terms of your personal involvement Matt, as it's a good high profile avenue for you in your return to America journey. I don't think you got sloppy in your "old Europe" adventure though. Some of your posts from that time were amongst the most enjoyable you've posted.

Anyhow, moving swiftly past the new haircut ;);) I'm finding the presentation language a bit over the top for me. Ok, I'm a Brit, so I'm always going to find the NA propensity for marketing overstatement a bit tiresome, but even taking that into account, "historic", "momentous" & multiple "awesome"s are a bit much.

Presentation aside, I'm curious to know who decided on the kit record sequence. Is it a no choice set piece? Is it the only one, or are there various pieces to test different abilities? The sextuplet exercise you did was really a test of doubles on the pedal ability, as the sticking was simple & slow by comparison to the demand on foot technique.

One last point, the "musicality" claim. Sure, if accuracy is an integral element of musicality, I'm getting that, but as musicality is about so much more than that, it seems a pretty broad claim to me. I suspect, more as a retort to those who've accused WFD as being nothing to do with music, but perhaps you can expand on the motivation & thinking behind that.

Hey Matt, I'm not on your back about this. I happen to think it's a great avenue for you personally, but I suspect you know just how much this isn't for me. I'm not configured that way, & I simply have neither the skill nor the motivation to take advantage of the benefits, at least at this age. Good luck to those that will find value in the model, & good luck to you Matt in your quest to find avenues to take you forward.

Cheers, Andy.
 
It's N/A for me too. If there's ever a WSD Championship I might be a candidate ...

Can't believe that you blasted out those sextuplets around the kit for a full minute.

As for the haircut, I was half expecting Boo to say, "And here we have Matt Smith who's recently become a guest of Nashville Penitentiary" :)
 
Quick thoughts:

Not digging the new hair cut. ha.

I see the value in an purely educational manner. I know way back when I was at PIT, and we had to prepare a page from the Wilcox book for a final, I could see how we would all gather around that if it existed at the time, just to measure how close we were to being to pass the class.

But beyond that, I don't see the value. To me, it came off as an attempt to quantize the drummer, to measure the "perfectness" of it all. It's not much different than putting the drum track up on a grid and measuring how off or on it is. Which, I suppose if you're audition for a pop act where you have to replicate a drum machine parts live, that would help. But outside of that, I don't see the musicality aspect. Can you imagine getting a gig and your boss making you play that every night and measuring if you played the correct number of notes?

Playing to a click and recording yourself would accomplish the same measurement, without needing all the extra purchase of an e-prolive kit.
 
I'm just enough of a geek that I would use the note-counting feature. That thing even counts the flam grace notes, eh? That's kind of cool.

Beyond that, I don't think I'm the target audience for this, though.

I suspect that folks who actually want to jump into competition would be the ones attracted to a whole new realm of challenges and records on the kit. I was thinking about that while working on some of the timed rudimental challenges on the Vic Firth site. I know WFD has multiple categories, but I'm pretty sure they don't have times for the fastest pata-fla-fla. But if you start creating drum patterns that are applicable to every day drum set playing and create benchmarks for others to match on the drum set, I bet a lot of drummers would find it intriguing to test their speed.

The only big snag I could see here is cost. I'm not sure how much these Pearl EPro drums cost, but if I had to guess, this setup would be a tad pricey. If I'm right that your target audience for this product is mostly WFD competitors, then it might be a concern that this is within their price range. I see a lot of younger folks involved in the WFD scene and most young folks don't have a lot of money.

I think the hair cut is fine! If you change your mind, a slight re-positioning of Boo and his beard could give you that "seasoned professional drummer" look. :)
 
I think this is great technology for the WFD crowd but not many others as displayed. At the top of this musical piece the recommended speed is 120 bpm. I would like to see the piece played at 120 and use the set, and drumometer, to check the timing of the strokes and proper sticking. I know Boo has a vested interest in selling the WFD, and the Drumometer, and maybe the Pearl set, but I would like the technology used in a more musical education way. As for WFD competition, the fact that it only counts hits and not the proper interval, who could tell if it was played correctly or just the number of hits was proper. A bigger market would benefit from this I think.
 
Matt, I am also not seeing a target market for this beyond the WFD inspired crowd. That might be large enough though. Tried these drums the other day at GC... not sure how I feel a about them either.. Like real drums but not... I'm gonna say nothing about the haircut.

...
 
I think this is great technology for the WFD crowd but not many others as displayed. At the top of this musical piece the recommended speed is 120 bpm. I would like to see the piece played at 120 and use the set, and drumometer, to check the timing of the strokes and proper sticking. I know Boo has a vested interest in selling the WFD, and the Drumometer, and maybe the Pearl set, but I would like the technology used in a more musical education way. As for WFD competition, the fact that it only counts hits and not the proper interval, who could tell if it was played correctly or just the number of hits was proper. A bigger market would benefit from this I think.

Gruntersdad, I respect your criticism but your points were clarified via the metrnome markings at the top of the screen. Re: the sticking. I used the kit and the drummometer to show people the drummometer can register any kind of hybrid rudiment and to demonstrate how the machine can count strokes on the E-Pro kit while setting a first unofficial 'full kit' record. I
Hodgepodge is a pretty common piece so I would think most people would already know the sticking.

Add-Gruntersdad, I'm also sorry if I came off a little conentious on that last post. I hadn't been sleeping much which only goes to prove that you don't write when tired..
 
Last edited:
I shall watch it again. Thanks.

I missed that one blurb on the screen. sorry.
 
Just another toy in my opinion, no interest at all. I wonder how such drummers as Rich, Gadd and Morello got along without one.

Dennis
 
Just another toy in my opinion, no interest at all. I wonder how such drummers as Rich, Gadd and Morello got along without one.

Dennis

Well since a Drumometer wasn't around back in those days I suspect it was probably very easy to get along without one. Truthfully it was Buddy Rich who inspired the invention of the drummometer. Barrett Deems claimed he was the worlds fastest and Buddy asked him what machine he used. People should understand that the competition of speed amongst drummerswas going on way before the Drumometers were invented. Jazz drummers have been arguing about this since the 50's. Buddy was even using carbon paper and a stopwatch to time himself for 60 seconds. Art Verdi once shared that he and Morello used to time themselves in 60 second intervals using a metronome. Drummers have been trying to gage speed for decades. This has also been argued on this and other forums for ten years or more. Let's not turn this into another one of those discussions because I didn't post this for a trip down memory lane.
 
Last edited:
Interesting video and an interesting use of technology.
Thanks for sharing it Matt.
 
I can pretty much see all sides of the commentary on this one. Whilst I agree it's a very quantized approach to practicing, when I look at the sheer amount of threads around here aimed towards just that, I see why the idea was developed. I can't think of a musical application where I'll ever need to be that precise but many others will, if they get something out of it, more power to them. At first glance, the novelty factor intrigues me but I'm reasonably convinced I'd have no practical application for it personally. I know I could have some fun with it.....but there's no doubt I'd use it as a "toy" as opposed to a parctice aid.

Two asides. 1. Matt what did you think of the Pearl ekit? Have never seen one, but I continually see it canned in threads here....more often than not by those that "haven't played it yet, but I've heard...."
2. You still have more hair than me!!
 
I


Two asides. 1. Matt what did you think of the Pearl ekit? Have never seen one, but I continually see it canned in threads here....more often than not by those that "haven't played it yet, but I've heard...."
And that brings me to a question Matt, is the system linked exclusively to the Pearl Ekit, or can it be applied to other Ekits? More interesting, can it be successfully triggered off an acoustic kit? Maybe there's some joint promotion deal with Pearl?

I think the system may have wider appeal, especially to the metal & related markets, if it could interface with an acoustic kit.
 
It's good that it is available, the drumometer, but it really only appeals to a small percentage of drummers from what I can tell. I can't see many people buying one under the premise of making sure they play the correct amount of notes on the page. It seems like measuring a drummers sticking speed is it's most useful trick.

One thing that could be done to improve it, that would improve it's marketability...I'd like to see a mod on it that measures the force of each stroke. I think that would be very useful for achieving even sticking, with the goal of each stroke played with exactly the same downward force. There's a mod that actually might sell some units because now you could measure your right hand force against the left hand, and you could tell at what tempo things start to go south. To me that's what it needs. It is lacking without it now that I think about it, it's not complete. The drumometer measures speed. It should measure consistency too. Because really, what good is speed without evenness and consistency?
 
I see both pieces of electronic kit here as transition technologies. What I mean by that is that I suspect both will be superseded in the near to middle future by something that does the same thing only better as well as doing so much more. What you and Bob have done I think is point the way to possible applications and developments.

What I find genuinely surprising is that the full potential of electronic drums has yet to be exploited and I suspect this is because we (the drumming community) are thinking too conventionally about electronic instruments. We are too set on thinking what they can't do rather than what they might be able to do.

Counting strokes can have some utility and is difficult to do with acoustic drums (carbon paper - stop watches all that kind of thing) but as some have already pointed out it is of limited interest. But an eKit that could show you graphically exactly where your strokes fell set against a quantitized reference point - now that would be something that could be used to practise and develop a whole range of drumming skills (not just speed and endurance). I suspect the technology to do that kind of thing is already here or very nearly here.
 
I see both pieces of electronic kit here as transition technologies. What I mean by that is that I suspect both will be superseded in the near to middle future by something that does the same thing only better as well as doing so much more. What you and Bob have done I think is point the way to possible applications and developments.

What I find genuinely surprising is that the full potential of electronic drums has yet to be exploited and I suspect this is because we (the drumming community) are thinking too conventionally about electronic instruments. We are too set on thinking what they can't do rather than what they might be able to do.

Counting strokes can have some utility and is difficult to do with acoustic drums (carbon paper - stop watches all that kind of thing) but as some have already pointed out it is of limited interest. But an eKit that could show you graphically exactly where your strokes fell set against a quantitized reference point - now that would be something that could be used to practise and develop a whole range of drumming skills (not just speed and endurance). I suspect the technology to do that kind of thing is already here or very nearly here.
Good points. I would guess that the technology is definitely here, it is just whether or not the public will buy it.
 
Good points. I would guess that the technology is definitely here, it is just whether or not the public will buy it.

Absolutely. Cost is a crucial factor especially when it comes to 'training technology'. because the people you hope to buy it are by and large youngsters with limited amounts of disposable income. And whatever something costs people have to believe that it is good value and that means they have to value what it does.
 
Back
Top