Kick, Snare & Hat grooves

Grace :)

Grace :)

Senior Member
I made a video a few years ago of some kick, snare & hat grooves and decided to put another video up recently with some new ideas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVT..._comment_id=z12rxhnicprtc5v2x231vfhw3ljxdjnmc

I've been getting some tips from the forum on recording with a 2 mic setup, which is what I'm using in this video with one overhead and one bass drum mic.
If anyone has any feedback on the sound in this particular video (or anything else in the video!) I'd love to hear it. I'm fairly new to recording so I'm more than happy to listen to advice on this!
 
Sounds great to me, well played! Excellent execution of the various grooves. Very good timing of your 1e+a and 3e+a single footed 1/16th kick strokes in the first groove, not easy to pull off with such even spacing. My only tiny critique is the 4+ and 2+ snare strokes in your very last groove just between 2:05 and 2:17 don't sit as good as they do in the next and last part of that groove, or it might be that your kick drums between those particular snare hits are a bit too pushed, I can't quite tell. It's absolutely nitpicking though. Other than that,

I'd say it's pretty amazing (grace) :D
 
Those were some VERY nice grooves. Awesome playing.

Considering the walls in that room the sounds you are getting are quite good.
 
Grace, you really are my kind of player - a drummer's drummer! I love players who lead their grooves with the bass drum, & do so with such authority. Really - deep grooving, beautifully done :)
 
Merlin5 - thanks for such a detailed feedback, I went back and listened to the bit you're talking about and I definitely hear it. I'll have to go back and get that one down properly!

beyondbetrayal - thanks very much! It's a big solid brick wall room in an old mill, so it can be a bit of a challenge sound wise, but I think it's perfect for a big open sound

Seafroggys - thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

keep it simple - wow, thanks for the kind words - I really appreciate it! :)

Dizeee - let me know if you upload any ideas, I'd love to check them out. Always great to see how other drummers approach playing on just kick, snare & hats
 
Very cool. They were all good. I liked the 2nd one the best, the 3rd one sounded complicated. I mean that in a good way.
 
I'm going to put up a post tmrw - a random lick on hat, snare and bass.

There will be kids running about the room no doubt - but it's all for the groove.

Looking forward to it.
 
lefty2 - thanks for taking the time to watch, I think the 3rd one was actually based on a sort of Afro Cuban 6/8 right hand pattern that morphed into a shuffle at some point. It's fun to play anyway!

Dizeee - brilliant! I'll keep an eye out for it on the forum :)

liv_rong - thanks very much - even though it's probably not an ideal room for recording I think it's pretty nice for a big open sound!
 
Hi Grace...

I need to thank you for this thread as it has led me into a whirlwind of self discovery. You probably haven’t seen my other threads but I am returning to the drums after around 20 years of not playing. (I’m 35 now). My main loss / area of work is bass pedal technique. I used to be fast with a single pedal but my foot has lost more skill than my hands and I am in a process of trying to get it to catch up.

Of all the stuff I knew when I was younger, kick snare and hat grooves are the one thing I would say is in my inherent memory. I can perform, or so I thought, most combinations on these, and although timing and finesse are things we all will be forever working on, the basic co-ordination and technique principles are there that I can roll off most beats with ease. As such I tried to copy your first beat with 4 bass drum notes in at the start (4 quarter notes I think, maybe 16th notes?). Anyway, wow, no chance of doing it. I have been working on my double hits over the last few weeks but just could not get anything over 2 beats to work.

I was shocked at this, and have now been doing solely bass drum excercies for the past week. Very little improvement so far. To illustrate I have done 2 short videos, the first is me failing at the 4 beat hit and showing what happens when I try to do it at any decent tempo, and the second is “the best I can do” at the moment after around 5 to 10 minutes of warm up. The tempo is changing throughout this videos – which is fine as I am adjusting it to illustrate the point at which I start to fail and what is going on. I would be really grateful of your feedback.

Illustration of what is happening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shwpb8m3BFQ

And then after some warm up I can get it slightly better, but still not right. I pull faces in this video and muck about a bit to illustrate - so a bit of comedy here as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-IBrAsWkJA


Anyway, my assumption is, it just takes time and practice. I can live with that and will happily perservere - what I don't want is to find my pedal / skin / technique is the cause. Onward with the slog.

The bonus of all this is has massively dressed back my playing and I am now committed to nailing this issue of my bass drum foot. Once I have it licked it is going to allow my brain to execute what is in my head, rather than have the result of my untrained and out of practice foot messing everything up!
 
I can't watch at work, but I can hardly wait to check these out when I get home. All the comments have me excited to give a listen!
 
IDDrummer said:
I can't watch at work, but I can hardly wait to check these out when I get home. All the comments have me excited to give a listen!
Click to expand...

Indeed - Grace has posted a video which shows some simple grooves in theory, but her execution is fantastic. Just poised, and relaxed, and effective. Just from watching this clip - I trust her as a drummer. Isn't that the staple we all aspire to?

I can mimic her grooves, but I can't mimic her opening groove - which although simple contains a repeated pattern of 4 bass drum hits. This is now my entire focus and I can't move on until I master it - at the tempo she has set.

Why has something so simple caused me so much grief! (Thanks Grace and no criticism from me, I am genuinely grateful).
 
CYP - thanks very much! I'm a huge fan of that snare, especially at this tuning, so I'm glad you like it!


Dizeee - sorry for such a slow reply, it's been a hectic few days and I didn't want to reply without taking the time to actually sit down and work out what's going on in the videos!

In the first video at around 55 seconds in, did you notice that those 4 16th notes right at the start sound absolutely spot on? I've had a look at what your foot is doing on that very first attempt, and if you really look, your foot is playing EVERY note (it appears to be just heel-up technique on this attempt), but after that first burst, you appear to switch to some sort of slide technique and I'm not 100% certain but it looks like you might be relying on bounce a little bit more here to bring out the 4 hits, which is why you might be struggling a little bit more?

I also think I spotted this at a couple of other points in the video, when you play just standard heel-up technique the 4 16th notes sound really strong, but when you start to slide up the pedal it looks like you're struggling to get enough bounce to bring the 3rd & 4th hits out?

I don't use slide technique much, so maybe it's just a case of spending a little more time on that to get the 3rd & 4th hits to pop out. But for me, I'm all about finding what works for you and running with it. You absolutely nailed it on that first attempt by playing all heel-up with no sliding on the pedal, so maybe that's the best technique for your foot to bring out consecutive hits on the bass drum?

I don't know what technique you typically use on the bass drum, but if helps to know, the technique I use to play this I don't really use for anything else. I basically use a form of heel-toe, where the heel plays the 1st hit and the toe plays the next 3.
Obviously this might not work for you as we have different feet, pedals, bd tuning etc, but my point is that I have to tweak my technique slightly from what I usually do to get 4 16ths in a row at a faster tempo, so what works for you bringing out doubles on the bass drum might not be the best option for 3s or 4s.

I hope this rambling made some sort of sense?!
 
Hi Grace thanks for the reply especially over xmas, I guessed the forum would be quiet at the moment.

I had noticed that on each first attempt I seem to get the notes out. I wondered whether this was simply a muscle training thing, getting used to knocking out four quick ones and my foot/leg muscles needing time to adjust, but maybe your right and I am changing something with my foot. I am still getting used bass pedal, and I do find that my foot varies in where I find it sitting on the pedal. I am not conscious of what angle or position it is in when I play so maybe I should try and focus on position and not sliding to see if this has an effect.

Having said that, good old practice is playing it's part already, I have been going back to this exercise and repeating it, and finding that things are already improving through repetition. I will at some point over the next few weeks upload something once I have it noticeably better. I simply have to be able to knock out 4's now, and I think by achieving that I will be able to play more of the busy bass drum patterns that are in my head, and want to come out, but are failed by my lack of technique and practice.

BTW - If you haven't already been told before, you look hot behind the drum kit ;-)
 
Hey there, I finally got a chance to listen properly! Sorry it's taken so long.

Those grooves are tasty! I especially like the one that starts at 41 seconds.

I don't really analyze my technique a whole lot - I just figure out what works to get the sound I want. But I agree with your advice to Dizeee, Grace. It looks like he plays them more cleanly with the toe. It's interesting to hear you say that you start the sixteenths with your heel, because I can't really see that in the vid - it looks like all toe to me. I play it heel up, all with the toe, I BELIEVE, lol. Like I said, I don't really analyze it a lot, but that is what it feels like to me.

Very cool vid, very well executed. I think it's awesome you're helping other folks out here, too. Great job! :)
 
Yes I thought the same, she looks heel up and all toe for those. I am going to continue this bass drum routine until I have the 4 notes licked.

Until then I did a short 2 minute mess about today on the snare hat and kick, something I was supposed to do ages ago until I stumbled across the obssession with "groups of 4" and got side tracked. More of a "shed" than a performance as it's all unplaned stuff, but it is what I am doing more and more of during practice time in an effort to solidify the basics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1yePl47QG4
 
IDDrummer - thanks for taking the time to watch, I really appreciate it! I'm the same as you really, I try not to obsess over technique too much as long as it sounds good. I find my hands and feet usually work it out (.....eventually!)

Dizzeee - the first of each group is definitely on the heel, I promise lol. Thanks for sharing your video, I enjoyed watching - it's great to see how people approach these 3 voices differently! I liked the bit around 0:46 the best, the phrasing of the bass & snare on that one sounded great!
 
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