cheddatom

Hah, we're still a small time band Paul! We have a loyal following on that scene but it's probably 500 people at the most. We don't get any air play or playlisting and we're struggling to get bigger gigs/festivals

I'm from Stoke so kind of proud of this, but to be honest I've never listened to much of Lemmy's work. I did think he was known as a pick player, but this statue shows fingerstyle. I guess he did both else someone would have pointed it out already?

We have an album out next month. We're doing CDs and limited edition Vinyl. We put it up for pre-order this morning on our website and we've already had 20+ orders, so clearly, it's working for us. We'll sell them at gigs too

Eh Up Mi Duck festival on Saturday night. All day drinking tends to mean a lot of early nights at these festivals but we were on at 9:15 which is a good time to start. Quick line check and sound was ready in under a minute. Sounded great from behind the kit and loads of compliments afterwards! A single error - When I do any "out there" fills, it can put the singer right off. I try to concentrate and use the same fills over and over, keeping anything slightly "jazzy" for the recording studio. Unfortunately as the huge crowd were so into it, I found myself go to auto-pilot - enjoying the crowd response and "vibe" instead of concentrating on the drums. Out came a particularly off-beat fill (I'm sure any drummers would appreciate it) and sure enough the singer went half a bar out! Ooopsie! 🤣 Other than that, an absolutely flawless gig and such positivity from the crowd I'm still buzzing two days later We sold loads of merch. The new songs from our forthcoming album are going down great and people seem to know the words already! We put it on "pre order" this morning and we've already had orders for 20+ CDs and a load of vinyl and bundles. Very cool

It'd be worth asking someone out front if it's coming through. If it's just on stage who cares? ...but yeh when I used to play small pubs with just vocals and acoustic guitar in the PA, I would turn the snare off in between songs and for intros etc. In that scenario, the rattling is much louder relative to the volume of the vocals and guitar.

I probably have it set wrong. I'll ask an expert when I get chance. I have it sounding great when it's on, and when it's off it doesn't rattle, so I figured that was good enough, but yeh, if I want to do a drum solo and switch between on and off it's basically impossible. Thankfully I've not been asked/allowed

I have a pearl throw off on both of my main snares. You have to lift the whole thing up to take up the slack before you can pull the level up to fix it on. You can kind of do it one handed but it's not the easiest thing. If it was ever a problem I'd probably find a better throwoff mechanism and fit that to both, but as it is, for 99% of our gigs, no-one can hear it

I have a few snares where the throwoff is very stiff and takes two hands to get off and on When I was playing quiet folk songs in pubs with limited PA, I would keep my snare off as much as possible in intros etc. Now I play bigger venues with big PAs I leave it on. You can't hear it FOH

Option 2 every time. You can't sound check at low levels as you won't hear the low end. You have to sound check at gig level. No need for 5 minutes though! Line-check everything then do 30 seconds of a section of a song where everything gets used (IE don't check the verse without BVs, check the chorus with BVs).

here's the view from the back of the room

The Salty Dog in Northwich on Friday night. It's a small place so we easily filled it. I love this place 'cos they always have great beer. For the first time since I started playing there, they had a great sound engineer! Every other time we've played there the sound has been plagued by low end rumbling and constant feedback, however, it's always been a barman or the like just doing their best. This guy clearly not only knew what he was doing, but was also concerned with doing a good job, and he did! A very sweaty 1.5hr set and all the free beer I could drink made for a very entertaining evening

After a very long 2 months off in the hope my ribs would recover, we were finally back out last weekend. The Gifford Arms in Wolverhampton on Saturday was sold out. I was hoping for the same comedy sound guy as the last time we played there but unfortunately it was a thoroughly pleasant and competent engineer. Still, at least we sounded good but I don't have a lot to rant about! Sunday was the Hope & Anchor on a lineup supporting The Vapors. We were on at 5:30 pm which seemed very early to me but it was absolutely packed in there! I was forced to use the awful house kit. Obviously the bass drum couldn't stay still which forced a couple of errors. Thankfully my bandmates were tolerant of it this time! We went down a storm and we've seen merch sales online trickling in from London since. Result! It is so, so good to be back out gigging, even if it does still hurt a bit. Photo of my beautiful cymbals set up above the absolutely terrible house kit at the Hope & Anchor... Mini rant then: Imagine your band leader telling you that you have to use the house bass, and the A string tuner keeps slipping. You knew it was going to be terrible, you knew you could swap for your own gear in plenty of time, and yet you're forced to go with it due to others' ignorance. The band leader, the promoter, the sound guy, the headline act... everyone thinks it's fine to force the drummer to play sh*t drums but you're never forced to use a sh*t bass are you?!

Drummers are in control of so much of the sound of a band. They really should be thinking like a producer. Create dynamics, keep the track evolving, create space, fill space. Behind the kit you can turn the whole band up and down. The rest of the band will (should) follow. A side-stick is very different to a hit on the centre of the snare, which is very different to a rimshot. These are your main "back beat" options. Your right hand can go from the rim of a drum, to the floor tom, closed hats, open hats, regularly opening hats (IE disco), ride bell, ride body, crashing the ride, riding the crash cymbals... This is how you either create space or fill it As a producer, I want the song to remain interesting, so I want the beat, or at least the sound of the kit, to change from verse to chorus. If there are 3 verses, I want at least one of them to be significantly different to the others. Likewise if there's a bridge/middle 8 it should be different. I play in a band with no rhythm guitarist. A typical punk song for us would have closed hats in the verse, open hats in the chorus, ride bell in the bridge. A blues track would have closed hats in the verses, opening gradually for "builds", and I would play the ride cymbal to fill the space under solos I think a lot of drummers just focus on what they're doing rather than listening to the mix as a whole, and it really shows.

Artisan Tap in Newcastle-under-Lyme on Saturday night. Basically a home town gig for us. The local following seems to have really built over the last couple of years. For the first 10 years of the band we were more popular in Nottingham than we were in Stoke/Newcastle! Anyway, 120 tickets sold plus guest list and the place was dangerously full. We had 20 songs on the set list but our front man kept calling out random numbers. I reckon we played 30 in the end. Still struggling with my injury but what an ace night!

I've been paid for rehearsals before when depping. I didn't ask but it was offered so I took it. Is it that uncommon?

100 Club on Sunday night supporting Ferocious Dog again. It's a very shallow stage but I managed to get my drums set up to the side of theirs. I do love playing here despite the challenging sound. The room is so thin, you get loads of FOH bouncing back off the wall. I am still seriously injured but the others moved all of my gear for me, which was most appreciated. The set went OK but I'm known to our fans as "the smiley drummer" and I was apparently smiling a lot less than usual. Our frontman embarrassed me by demanding sympathy from the crowd... but at least that meant they all knew not to squeeze my ribs right? Nope, two different fans asked for selfies and when I agreed they put their arm around me, grabbing me by the ribs and causing my to cry out in agony. Oh well!!! Here's my bright red kit looking cool AF next to Ferocious Dog's boring effort!

I've been a bit lax in here lately. Fewer gigs and some life stuff getting in the way... The last one of the year was supporting Ferocious Dog at Holfirth Picturedrome which is an awesome venue. I'm on drums and I've badly sprained an intercostal muscle or two, so was very apprehensive as I'd been resting for 2 weeks. The other guys all moved my gear for me which was most appreciated (normally I do most of the loading so the van was a right mess 🤣). I set up on the stage in front of the drum riser, which can often lead to cramped conditions but this is a big stage and my bass drum is very shallow. Sound check was great but I could feel twinges in my chest. It was a 50 minute set which seems very long for a support slot. The first 30 minutes went pretty well, but then the pain really started to kick in. I made quite a few mistakes in the last few songs. Thankfully the rest of the band were very understanding, and of course, no-one in the audience noticed. They were singing along in full voice and cheering at the end of every song.

Wow this is incredibly familiar. "I've spent so many hours on the band this week and I really can't afford to" OK mate shall I do this? "No, I need to handle that"

I had a band in once and their bassist forgot he had his tuner set to 432Hz. Everyone else was tuned to A=440 and I could not figure out what was wrong. In the end I realised after opening the bass track up with the pitch and time tool. It was so subtlety out of tune it was almost nauseating. I had a solo artist who recorded his album with me. He was well into all sorts of spiritual and conspiracy theories. Anyway, after he'd finished the album, he left me to mix it while he was away. I sent him a first mix and he came back with "Sounding great but have you read about the resonant frequency? Everything should be tuned to 432Hz in order to resonate with the body, can you retuned the album?" Mad that he thought that digitally re-tuning acoustic instruments and vocals would help the music resonate with your body/spirit. Anyway, I did it and he didn't like the result 🤣

Chipped a tooth on a Super 55? In that case I'll not suggest it! I'm just going to explain that there's no product available to make up for his terrible technique 🤣

Thanks for all the replies! I've been away for a few days... It's not my problem at all, I just offered to find out for him while we were on the way to a gig. I'll see if he fancies a Shure Super 55 The band actually does pretty well playing all over the country in decent venues. I personally don't have vocals in my monitor so I don't know if it's audible, but I've never heard anyone complain.

I think the image of an act is very important. I'm not sure it's vanity in the context of a stage show? Either way a 58 with a big foam wind shield is not going to look "cool" to the audience

It's not that he complains. He just mentioned he'd have to book back into the dentist and so I asked him about it. He said he's tried to stop doing it but can't. I personally agree with him on the look of a windshield, it's very much not rock and roll! Yes, it's his problem, no I've not been dragged into it. I was just hoping that someone would be able to help in terms of an actual product, as opposed to pointing out the obvious

maybe there's some sort of coating I could dip a 58 grille into?

I was thinking a very firm rubber would be fine. Rigid enough not to change the sound of the mic, and soft enough not to chip his teeth. Ideally it'd still have the threaded metal ring at the bottom and be a direct replacement. Wishful thinking I guess. Oh well, he can afford the dentist bills I couldn't be clearer on the changing technique front. It's not happening