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Ever since I can remember I wanted to play the drums, as a kid my parents never would have allowed that to happen, so I started playing fairly late in life at the age of 35, and even then I wasn't too serious, I only got serious at age 40. Like most "drummers" I have only ever had a few lessons and have learnt to play mostly by ear and self teaching. Although these days I do go to a teacher, albeit only 30 minutes every fortnight. I mainly enjoy Rock music, Retro music and Heavy Metal music as well as some jazz and funk styles.
I have owned many kits in the past, I started with a Roland TD10 electronic kit and moved on to a Pearl Export Kit and a top of the range Pearl Reference Series kit and then a really nice Pearl Vision kit in Birch, after that I went back to electrics and bought a Yamaha DT4Express kit which was small and quite OK but I wanted a 'real' sized kit and then in late 2009 I heard rumours that Yamaha were doing something 'special' in 2010. AND HERE IT IS Yamaha released the DTX950 kit in March 2010 and I was one of the first people in Australia to own one. It is pretty much the same module as the older DTIIIextreme kit with some upgrades added, the internal sounds are quite good but I am also going to take this opportunity to use this new kit with some drum VST programs like Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums and Steve Slate Drums. What's so good about this kit? These new pads are bloody incredible - that's what. Electric kits in the past have struggled to have a real 'feel' to them - that is NOT the case any more. These new design 'cellular silicone' pads create a feel of realism unlike anything before , they have fantastic rebound that feels nearly perfect and the sensitivity is just great. Here is another look at the new kit 'nearly' finished. The red cables you see in my images are not the stock cables from Yamaha, I made up custom cables for this kit using Canare audio cable and Neutrik connectors. Yes - my wife thinks I am 5 years old as I have these on top of my cymbal holders !!
Electronic drumming has come a LONG LONG way since even just a few years ago - nowadays it is not only possible to get some great sounding kits from the manufacturers drum modules that come with the kit but you can go to a whole new level and hook your kit up to your laptop and install VST programs that allow you to get SUPERBLY realistic acoustic drum sounds from your electric kit. The suppliers of these programs have literally spent hundreds of hours in studio's recording samples of all the best kits and cymbals you can buy - just think you can basically own and play a DW Collectors series kit, a Pearl Reference kit , a Tama Starclassic kit and heaps more for under $500.00 - these REAL kits alone retail for over $5000.00 each - and then you get all the top range Sabian , Paiste and Zidjian cymbals samples as well.
BEWARE These programs can be mind-destroying at first, however if you persist then you will be rewarded with being able to play some of the best sounding drum kits ever produced.
Here is a look at the basic screen interface for 2 of the more popular VST's - Superior Drummer and Addictive Drums. I also use , and like Steven Slate Drums as I find his samples sound really nice on the sound system I run and he has a few kits that sound great straight out of the box like the Metallica 'Black' kit. Many people have heard of the Drumkit from Hell, that was one of the earlier versions of these VST's and has nice samples of a Sonor kit and a lot of nice cymbal samples. These days there are a LOT of add-on packs available for these VST's - Superior Drummer offer a nice Latin Percussion pack so that you can add timbales , bongos , conga's, shakers etc to your kit. If you have a kit with enough spare triggers you can set it up so that you can have ( as an example ) bongos to play using the outer rims of your 2 rack toms - the possibilities are endless. Remember , there are add-on packs for Funk, Jazz, Retro sounds etc - WHATEVER sounds you want , you can now obtain.
The control that you are given from VST's is endless, you can edit just about ANYTHING to get the sound you are looking for, most programs come with a few decent presets anyway , but if you want to you can go in and change anything from compression , EQ, velocity on every single instrument in your kit. CONFUSED YET ? All these VST sellers have support forums where everyone who is as confused as you at first can help you out. One issue you WILL get when using VST programs is latency, in a nutshell this is a delay between when you physically strike your electric kit's pad and the sound being produced from your VST on your laptop, don't fret because it is all fixable. I bit the bullet and purchased a Cakewalk ( Roland ) UA25Ex audio interface - this unit was $400 Australian and worth every cent to me as it completely eliminated the latency issues I was having. When you are drumming a latency delay of even a few milliseconds causes trouble for you over a period of time and you will soon find yourself not being able to play properly and being completely out of time. I also use a 640Gig 7200RPM external hard drive for my sample libraries as some of them are fairly sizeable, as en example Metal Foundry for Superior Drummer takes up 39Gig of space and takes about 2 hours to install, Evil Drums will chew up 79Gig and so on and so on.
You want MORE than what comes standard with these programs - no problem. Remember when you played acoustic and went and spent $500 on ONE cymbal? Well now you can spend around $200.00 and get about 30+ cymbals and about 5 drumkits on average with each add-on pack! Here are the add-on packs I own for Superior Drummer , and there is even more available than this. Now I can dial up anything from the Ziljian Instanbul cymbal range to a Ludwig Black Beauty Snare from the 1920's or the 1970's or a set of DW Collectors Series Toms in a matter of minutes. Click on any of these images and you will be taken to the official site for that pack where you can see a listing of drums & cymbals that come in the pack as well as listen to loads of demo's for each pack.
Here is a look at Bobby Jarzombek playing a Yamaha electric Kit with the VST program called Evil Drums This will give you a small insight into how these kits can now sound.
While on my music page - I have to mention one of the greatest days of my life. Having followed iron Maiden since 1979 I was stoked they were finally coming back to play Sydney in Feb 08 after a 15 year absence.......to cut a long story short a mate and I got clearance to get out onto the tarmac at Sydney airport when they arrived and actually got to meet them and go on board their custom jet..."Ed Force One"....for a huge fan , it doesn't get much better than that !!!
Here is me and the LEGENDARY drummer Nicko McBrain
Here is me and my mate Ryan leaving the plane
Everyone except Bruce signed a skin for me - he is the only member we didn't meet - damn it !
And of course- the concert was incredible!!
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