Do you have a good set of headphones on? Or good speakers, that'll work too...

Kelly!

Kelly!

Senior Member
...then check out my band, Boxing The Compass, from Chattanooga, Tn playing an original song live at The Honest Pint. Its only 3min. 21sec. long. Constructive criticism is welcome and encouraged. Don't be mean to me though.... Lol. I just wanna get a feel for where I'm at as a drummer and where we're at as a band. I know that's hard to do from listening to just one song, but I'm open to any suggestions or ideas. Thanks!

If you don't have a good headset on or good speakers its hard to hear things clearly

http://youtu.be/8PM9B5PDmrA
 
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shouldn't this be in the your playing section? Anyway Ill give it a listen soon, haven't got my good cans on me haha.
 
Yup, I got my monitoring cans on :)

Horrible camcorder sound, but that's expected. I thought your drumming was punchy & solid. I especially like your clean placement of open hat accents. Nice chunky bass drum playing too - I like that. You did speed up a bit in a few places, but it was fairly minor, & mostly lead by the guitarist racing away.

TBH, the band isn't my thing, so I'm probably best not commenting.

Hey, you're out there pushing your own material. Huge kudos for that :)
 
Arky said:
Absolutely! And considering your number of posts you should know by know. So keep this in mind! No fun baby-sitting. [*grumblingmoderatormodeoff*]
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Sorry... I'm still pretty new to the forum... I should've search harder for the proper placement of the thread. My bad...
 
keep it simple said:
Yup, I got my monitoring cans on :)

Horrible camcorder sound, but that's expected. I thought your drumming was punchy & solid. I especially like your clean placement of open hat accents. Nice chunky bass drum playing too - I like that. You did speed up a bit in a few places, but it was fairly minor, & mostly lead by the guitarist racing away.

TBH, the band isn't my thing, so I'm probably best not commenting.

Hey, you're out there pushing your own material. Huge kudos for that :)
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Yeah it's not the best sound... Good speakers did clean it up some. At least it's HD video! lol
Thanks, I'm gonna be looking into that app that was mentioned on here that keeps count of live BPMs. That should help me out. I appreciate the help!
 
Good song, good drumming...but my very nice stereo could not save the sound quality. I will now go back to what I was listening to. Peace and goodwill.
 
Drumolator said:
Good song, good drumming...but my very nice stereo could not save the sound quality. I will now go back to what I was listening to. Peace and goodwill.
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Thank you! It's all we have to work with...
 
Liked your BD and hats work. Nice groove, esp. in 1st half of the tune.
Band/tune was OK.
Do you ever crash on your ride cymbal? Seems setup really low to do that (if you ever do).
Nice you're getting out and gigs that will let you play your originals. Good on ya.
 
opentune said:
Liked your BD and hats work. Nice groove, esp. in 1st half of the tune.
Band/tune was OK.
Do you ever crash on your ride cymbal? Seems setup really low to do that (if you ever do).
Nice you're getting out and gigs that will let you play your originals. Good on ya.
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Thanks a lot! That ride (22" K custom hybrid) sounds awful when crashed... I often use the 20" Paiste 2002 crash ( big one above the ride) for a crash/ride. Sometimes that one swells up too much though... I need to get my sh*t together and buy a Zil "sweet ride" and alleviate those problems.
 
I think you're doing well in that band context. IMO you don't need to have those fast 4 16th/32nd notes on the snare every now and then, I'd just play some embellishments there but not a 'mini snare roll' as you did. It's a quite common filling style though.
Also, I think that double bass part was too long, it seemed generic to me. I'd either shorten it or spice it up by adding different handwork/accents etc.

The song itself and the chord progressions are pretty standard so it's nothing that could grab me but it's enojoyable overall. I think I wouldn't want to listen to that particular singer all evening long (e.g. intontation) but again, that's subjective. Also, I don't really like songs too much where the vocalist is busy for minutes, I like to have some more rest in-between for melodies, (mini) interludes and stuff like that. (In fact in my original songs the vocal parts make maybe half of the overall running time or much less.)

The guitar melodies were ok! Maybe a bit repetitive (I wouldn't dare to repeat some stuff, say, 16 times, haha - you'll never find this in my orig. songs). I liked the bass sound.
 
Arky said:
I think you're doing well in that band context. IMO you don't need to have those fast 4 16th/32nd notes on the snare every now and then, I'd just play some embellishments there but not a 'mini snare roll' as you did. It's a quite common filling style though.
Also, I think that double bass part was too long, it seemed generic to me. I'd either shorten it or spice it up by adding different handwork/accents etc.

The song itself and the chord progressions are pretty standard so it's nothing that could grab me but it's enojoyable overall. I think I wouldn't want to listen to that particular singer all evening long (e.g. intontation) but again, that's subjective. Also, I don't really like songs too much where the vocalist is busy for minutes, I like to have some more rest in-between for melodies, (mini) interludes and stuff like that. (In fact in my original songs the vocal parts make maybe half of the overall running time or much less.)

The guitar melodies were ok! Maybe a bit repetitive (I wouldn't dare to repeat some stuff, say, 16 times, haha - you'll never find this in my orig. songs). I liked the bass sound.
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Advice taken. Thanks Arky!
 
This might sound weird, but my only comment is that it seemed like you were laying into your ride maybe a bit excessively during the open parts, a bit more dynamics there might have sounded better to my ear maybe some slight accent work on the bell as you're doing it.

Overall, pretty solid rock-n-roll!
 
Dr_Watso said:
This might sound weird, but my only comment is that it seemed like you were laying into your ride maybe a bit excessively during the open parts, a bit more dynamics there might have sounded better to my ear maybe some slight accent work on the bell as you're doing it.

Overall, pretty solid rock-n-roll!
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That was the first thing I thought to myself as I reviewed the tape. Too much ride cymbal! I need to ride the crash or use open hats more often. Being self taught, for some reason I instilled in myself that when its chorus time, it's ride cymbal time. Obviously thats a fallacy, and a trend that I've been trying to break from. I think it's part that and partly the fact that I can't hear very well... Playing the ride brings the noise down for me so I can hear everything else that's going on around me, as opposed to the ringing of a crash cymbal swelling up right next to me. Thanks for the reply!
 
I thought the ride was well placed when used, just that you were going at it a bit harshly. I don't think a crash or hats would work as well as just some lighter dynamic playing on the ride.... That's what I was trying to say. The added benefit, as you point out, is that you can listen to your band mates even more and use that music to fuel your inspiration for interesting ride accenting.
 
Dr_Watso said:
I thought the ride was well placed when used, just that you were going at it a bit harshly. I don't think a crash or hats would work as well as just some lighter dynamic playing on the ride.... That's what I was trying to say. The added benefit, as you point out, is that you can listen to your band mates even more and use that music to fuel your inspiration for interesting ride accenting.
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Ok I see. I think you're right. Some accents with the bell would spice things up a bit.
 
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