Derek Roddy here!

Just finished watching part 2 of the Dream Theater audition doc, intrigued as to why the audio was left raw in the footage of your audition. Any thoughts?
 
Just finished watching part 2 of the Dream Theater audition doc, intrigued as to why the audio was left raw in the footage of your audition. Any thoughts?

I got an e mail saying the audio was "corrupt" (technical response for..... "someone forgot to press record".)
Haha.

D
 
I got an e mail saying the audio was "corrupt" (technical response for..... "someone forgot to press record".)
Haha.

D

Haha, thats probably what happened. Although it is possible for audio data to actually corrupt :p Regardless, congrats on auditioning with Dream Theater Derek, your playing sounded pretty tasty! I'm always amazed by the power and precision of your blasting, and you seem to constantly be improving as well. Inspiring stuff!
 
I thought the playing was fantastic, i would have liked to see more where they didnt make you look like you were struggling. But if you know what you did enough to be that happy in the interview afterward it musnt have been that bad.

Also....i really dig your DW kit. Im working on ordering the same finish but with black hardware as soon as i find someone here thatll do it for me :D
 
I thought the playing was fantastic, i would have liked to see more where they didnt make you look like you were struggling. But if you know what you did enough to be that happy in the interview afterward it musnt have been that bad.

Also....i really dig your DW kit. Im working on ordering the same finish but with black hardware as soon as i find someone here thatll do it for me :D

Cheers man....yeah, I started wondering why they would have shown the 4 minutes of just hearing the riff.....and didn't show any of my actually playing that riff.....but, then I figured it out.
Any drummer that wasn't affiliated with RR records in some way....had a "flaw" presented with-in this doc.
They knew they wanted Mike before the Audition, Jordan and JP are doing a project with Marco and Peter plays with James.......so, that made a whole lot of sense to me actually.

I do know that a lot of what they wanted to put in of me playing (such as the songs and our jam) just sounded bad without the recorded audio....so, I understand not wanting to put much of that footage in there....from an editors point of view. (I do some video editing myself...so, I get it.)

Everyone of those drummers told me that the riff they showed them tripped them up for 5 minutes.....so why were Thomas, Virgil, Aquilles and I the only ones who were presented this way?

The DEE DUBS rule man....you'll love em.

D
 
Aquilles is another one of my favorite drummers and i thought he was presented rather poorly, they really didnt even have anything nice to say about him.

I guess thats a thing about being a big shot, appearance is everything. It would have been cool if they had footage of the drummers original stuff that they presented back to the band.
 
Hi
Dear Derek,

Hope you are fine.

After you arranged the better places for the microphones on your kit, arrange the Gain for gets the Maximum peak(without clip or distortion) of them without attention to the leakages, or you use the Gain for Minimum leakages and use the ambiance sounds in your mix when you record in your studio?

Best Regards,
Ramtin HajatDoost
Tehran - Iran
 
Interesting that I found a forum Derek's a part of, seeing as he is one of my favorite drummers of all time.

And this is why.

Honestly, first time I heard of Derek Roddy, I thought, "Oh, ok, another drummer who blasts like crazy, big deal." Then I found "Faceless One," and my mind got blown. Derek, you've got some incredible technical skill, far and beyond your well-touted blasting skills. I'm glad you auditioned for the likes of Dream Theater, and hope you pursue that kind of thing further. Your blasting is impressive, but you've shown already you're an incredibly capable technical percussionist, and I hope to hear more of that from you.

Keep up the good work.
 
Good stuff, Derek!

Would've been nice if you had made it with Dream Theater - I would have been very interested in seeing how their musical direction changed with you on board. Nonetheless, you did great in the audition. It made my day when I found out that they were auditioning a fellow native of South Carolina, especially considering that I don't know many other metal drummers from SC besides you - I might actually be alone down here! :p

Is there any possibility of you coming down to SC and doing a drum clinic here? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would look forward to that!

Cheers,
Andrew
 
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Derek -

I just bought a DW Collector's Series kit with a 6-ply maple snare drum. The snare sounds great - in fact, Danny Seraphine used my snare in a clinic recently.

How is the DW bronze snare? Does it have a lot of ring to it?

By the way, I'm am truly amazed at the speed of your single stroke roll at the beginning of the DW video with the bronze snare.
 
Hi Derek,first i just would like to say that you are a big,big inspiration,an amazing drummer,i've been watching you vídeos and career since the beginning!!!I would like to ask you about double bass exercises,i am studying it every day 1 hour(focusing speed and control) but sometimes in the third or forth day i get tired!Should i change the way i am studying,maybe play 2 hours one day and take the other day off?or play 1 our a day for 2 or 3 days and tthen take one day off?what would you recommend?Thanks a lot Derek!
 
Hey guys....quick note about the up coming Serpents Rise release.

You can go here....

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrObsidian?feature=mhum

The feature video is of me tracking some preproduction drums for the second Serpents Rise release.

Check it out if you all get a chance and I'll get back here this week to answer the questions from the last time I posted.

Hope everyone is happy and well.

Talk soon.
D
 
Derek,
cool stuff!

I hope it's not too dumb asking some guitar related questions...

Which guitars do you use? Which (down)tuning? Which amps, microphones? Mic preamps? Your guitar playing is quite remarkable, too. Very fresh and inspiring riffs!
 
Hey guys....quick note about the up coming Serpents Rise release.

You can go here....

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrObsidian?feature=mhum

The feature video is of me tracking some preproduction drums for the second Serpents Rise release.

Check it out if you all get a chance and I'll get back here this week to answer the questions from the last time I posted.

Hope everyone is happy and well.

Talk soon.
D
Killer stuff brother :)
New SR sounds killer, looking forward to it!
 
Derek,
cool stuff!

I hope it's not too dumb asking some guitar related questions...

Which guitars do you use? Which (down)tuning? Which amps, microphones? Mic preamps? Your guitar playing is quite remarkable, too. Very fresh and inspiring riffs!

Ah...thanks Arky. I try really hard to have my own voice with drums and guitar. I figured if there's going to be 2 guitar players.....why have them play the same thing all the time? Or just harmonies here and there?

SR guitar parts are different from one another and never does each player play the same thing. It gives it more of an "orchestrated" type of vibe. Like between a violin and a viola.

My gear ranges.....I have a few different guitars...most of them tuned differently. (That's another way I look to sound different...through tunings)
My standard tuning starts at C#....the whole guitar. Then I have a few other tunings I use as a "secret weapon" so to speak. One is an octave down of the 5th (low tone) string...the other tuning I use a lot is a steel guitar tuning that sounds wicked.....Don't remember what the actual notes are....have them written down on the wall at the warehouse! Haha. I remember by sound though.

Guitars are a Yamaha Ty Tabor, 85 Jackson soloist, and a Ibanez RG560...All with Seymour JBs pick ups .
Marshall 2203 head with a 1960 cab with 25 watt greenbacks...using a Rociforte Bastard line driver pedal.

Mic is a Shure 57 ran to my ProTools rig.....nothin fancy! Haha.

I do use the SSL pull ins channel stripes and compression to dial it in but, I haven't gotten that far with it yet....not on this video.

Thanks for the kind words!

Killer stuff brother :)
New SR sounds killer, looking forward to it!

Hey George....meant to call you back last night. love the idea....lets talk this weekend and try to make it happen.

D
 
(...) I try really hard to have my own voice with drums and guitar. I figured if there's going to be 2 guitar players.....why have them play the same thing all the time? Or just harmonies here and there?
Thanks for answering, sir - er, D-Rod ;-)

You've definitely found your own voice with the guitars. To my ears there's quite a uniqueness to those lines, even if you'd be a 'specialist guitarist' which makes your material the more remarkable. I'd be curious to hear some lead parts - I've heard you can do sweeping. Now there aren't too many drummers who can play sweeps on the guitar! (Really what drummer bothers to learn this, haha.)

I also like to spread up guitar parts, but only seldom that diverse as you do. I really should try though.
(...) I have a few different guitars...most of them tuned differently. (That's another way I look to sound different...through tunings)
My standard tuning starts at C#....the whole guitar. Then I have a few other tunings I use as a "secret weapon" so to speak. One is an octave down of the 5th (low tone) string...the other tuning I use a lot is a steel guitar tuning that sounds wicked.....Don't remember what the actual notes are....have them written down on the wall at the warehouse! Haha. I remember by sound though.
Very cool idea! None of my orig. acoustic guitar instrumentals are in standard tuning (standard tuning doesn't inspire me at all on the ac. guitar). I'm reluctant to go the alternate tuning way on my electrics though (quite a hassle with vibrato systems).

As to acoustic guitar tunings, DADGAD (= Open Dsus4) is one of the most common (and also my favourite one - it has an Irish sound to it - at least that's my impression). It's standard tuning but dropping e1, b2 and E6 1 full step down.

Judging from that dropped 5th string, the lowest/6th string would make a F# - which corresponds to the lowest open string on an 8-string guitar! I guess you're using a 7-string for this downtuning, else I can't imagine you could get that low with standard or slightly above standard string gauge.

As to the SM57:
There's a free mod on the SM57: Just remove the (crappy) transformer (or simply bridge the internal wiring between the XLR connector and the capsule) - one of the few modifications you don't need replacement/upgrade parts for. As a side-effect you'd lose quite some level (to be made up with clean preamps) but the benefit is opening up the frequency response both the low and high frequencies. I would do this mod to any 57 I can get hold of.

Your signal path is really down to earth, the sonic results are amazing!
 
Judging from that dropped 5th string, the lowest/6th string would make a F# - which corresponds to the lowest open string on an 8-string guitar! I guess you're using a 7-string for this downtuning, else I can't imagine you could get that low with standard or slightly above standard string gauge.

As to the SM57:
There's a free mod on the SM57: Just remove the (crappy) transformer (or simply bridge the internal wiring between the XLR connector and the capsule) - one of the few modifications you don't need replacement/upgrade parts for. As a side-effect you'd lose quite some level (to be made up with clean preamps) but the benefit is opening up the frequency response both the low and high frequencies. I would do this mod to any 57 I can get hold of.

Your signal path is really down to earth, the sonic results are amazing!

Cheers brotha.......Yeah, I figured might as well try to come up with my own voice as opposed to copying someone else. Thanks for noticing.....most think the guitars are too "weird" for their liking.....which tells me I'm doing something right. Haha.

The down tuning thing......yes, it's F# but, I just use a 6 string for all my guitars. I run 10- 60s on all the guitars so, It doesn't get too loose up there.

And yes, the 57 I use for guitars does have the mod. I have a few 57s that I've done that too.
Doesn't work on everything though. Don't like the mod 57s on the drums at all....esp on snares. Just not my thang.

This time...I'm going to video the recording of the guitars and bass (as well as drums and all other instruments) for the final product.

I'll keep ya posted.


D

Oh yeah......you can hear some of my solo work on the first SR....all me on that one too. Haha.
 
Derek,
I have to type this down to fully grasp it:
One of your 6-string guitars is tuned lower than my downtuning 7-string (A standard)... haha. (My other 2 7-strings are standard tuned.)
 
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