I was an Internet drummer...

[dikledoux]

...and I had to become a better musician to make it work

(true confessions and broad discussion about playing drums on CAPE (or online collaborations in general))

And before I forget - - thanks so much to Goes211 for the groovy graphic header! I always wanted a reso head on my bass drum with my name on it. Makes me feel all moist-pro ! And thanks, thanks, thanks for all the work the entire group of forum honchos and honchitas have done over time to make this place such a cornycopeya of info.

The Initial Setup and Disclaimer:

The other day I was talking with my friend about the goings-on at CAPE and how his team’s song was coming together versus my team. I was struck with the need to capture what I had learned about the process through several of these shindigs, and I realized I wanted to impart some knowledge about the role of drummers in CAPE in order to help others who may have struggled with or will struggle with the concept in the future.

To be clear - I have no delusions about holding myself up as the shining example for all to aspire to. If anything, I have a pretty clear picture that there are a number of other drummers that haunt this place who can and will take me to school in a New York minute (which is about the same as a standard minute, but with more attitude). My understanding of CAPE and what role a drummer plays isn’t the entire reality and I’d hope that others can chime in to help me make this a comprehensive primer on drums and drumming CAPE.

So I’m starting a series of posts with the intention of editing and refining the information as others add to the knowledge.

The INTRO

With the ability to collaborate with other musicians on the net comes a whole new set of considerations that differ to some degree from the regular issues that a musician is up against in the face-to-face world of real-time music and recording. This is the first in a series of posts that will dig into the role of the drummer in remote collaborations of various kinds, hereinafter referred to simply as CAPE to save me some typing (and also because CAPE has become quite the nexus of this brave new world of musical interaction). I’ve got an entire outline to refer to so that I can cover most of the subject as well as my feeble brain will allow and I’ll be glad to take suggestions, comments, jabs, corrections, additions… WHATEVER. And I’ll edit the posts after the fact so that we’ll hopefully all benefit from something of a comprehensive FAQ on drummers and drumming in CAPE.

Just to stake some high ground… Yes, I’m aware of the inherent irony in lumping drummers into the larger set of “musicians” and the corresponding drummer jokes. But let’s get a couple things clear right out front. The drummers that I’ve known who didn’t rightly fit into the larger category of "musician" were lousy drummers. Period. Any drummer who can’t tune and maintain their instrument, who can’t hum the tune they’re playing, who can’t count off a song, who can’t explain or express what time signature they’re playing, who can’t remember and key off the lyrics of the song, who can’t keep an arrangement straight, who can’t understand the function of verse, bridge, chorus, who can’t play with dynamics, who can’t pretty much identify and understand the other instruments and their parts in a particular piece… is a less than capable drummer.

Notice I didn’t say anything about how fast a drummer can play single or double-strokes. No mention of how many pieces your drumset contains. Not a word about how many snares or cymbals your own or what endangered-exotic-ghey-assed wood your set is made of. And especially nothing about whether or not you wear sweat bands.

Secondly, now that all you non-drummers are snickering about how many “drummers” they know and how pathetic they are in their mistaken delusion about being members of the elite crowd known to worshipping minions as "Musician" (with a capital ‘M’)… How many of you prodigies can play a simple 2-4 beat and groove hard enough to get asses shakin’ on a dance floor? That’s what I thought. So SDASTFU (sit down and STFU) until you can, because you ain’t got it all wrapped up either if you can’t do that simple thing. You don’t have to be able to play something complex. Just the simplest drum part or percussion bit. Go on. I dare ya. That’s right. Ahem.

More than a drummer…

So a drummer in CAPE (remember I’m using the term CAPE in a universal sense here) has to accomplish all the things a real-time drummer has to accomplish, and then there are requirements above and beyond that. Why should the two be any different? Because in CAPE no one benefits from the inevitable real-time interaction and adjustment that assembled musicians experience when they’re in a group. When two or more musicians are playing together, (when things are proceeding as they should) there’s the most subtle and sublime relationship between them that allows them to react to each other’s hints and cues. Think of the way a flock of blackbirds in flight all turn at the same time. It seems miraculous, but musicians do it all the time and the resolution is on the order of microseconds. And yes, I realize that microseconds are smaller than milliseconds. I MEANT to say microseconds. In fact, I’ll make the claim that musicians accomplish time travel and can predict the future when they’re playing well together. They’ll push and pull the very time-fabric of the universe around them and they’ll see things coming up ahead without even having a conscious thought about it. It’s more than amazing. In the meantime, we have CAPE, where there’s almost NEVER the real-time interaction that facilitates this miraculous dance. Yet we’ve all seen evidence that it’s possible to achieve a performance and finish a recording that seems impossible without the benefit of playing together.

How does this happen? Back to time travel and fortune telling. If we operate under the premise that the beat is absolutely core to most of the contemporary music we listen to (and I am operating under that premise for our purposes – there are obvious exceptions, but that’s an entirely different can o’ wormies), then we have to admit that in CAPE, we’d all benefit from having the drum parts worked out early in the process.

Driving or just along for the ride…

Let’s lump drummers into two categories for the purposes of discussion: take-charge vs. follow-the-band. In a real-time situation, the difference between the two types of drummers is less an issue – because of the ability of musicians to play WITH each other. But in CAPE we’re up against the possibility that we may never be able to recover from a bad drum part at the outset, or the late-arrival drummer may never be able to eke out a solid groove from the instrumental tracks as they are.

In the best of circumstances, and very early in the tracking process, a take-charge drummer will be able to hear the demo of the song, then they’ll GET the song. They’ll understand the direction the song may be going based on discussions with the producer, songwriter and maybe even the other musicians, formulate the sonic picture in their brain and then play a guide track (maybe THE track) that will give the rest of the CAPE team the guide they need in order to play their parts with the required conviction and attitude. This goes way the hell beyond good time. This is a drummer transmitting information about what other musicians should be playing by virtue of the drum part alone. Impossible? Nope. Difficult? Maybe. I once saw Steve Gadd at a drum clinic and he opened playing brushes with no introduction or talk. I swear to you upon all that is sacred that I was struck with the idea that what he was playing would’ve worked great if he were playing to Bye Bye Blackbird. After a few more bars he starts quietly humming - just loud enough to make out on the overhead mic. You guessed it. Bye Bye Blackbird. Was I telepathic? No. Gadd is just musician enough to get the idea of a song across with just the drum part.

The next best scenario is the follow-the-band drummer. All the other instruments are in and the drummer knits the parts together after the fact. The only problem with this is it’s really, really, really hard to accomplish convincingly. Why? Because, when the other musicians are playing to a click or a drum loop they’ll hear the drum part however they want in their heads as they’re tracking. And that click or drum loop is NOT the drum track. They’ll all seem to sound fine together, and for the most part they are - until you try to play a decent drum track to it. That’s when the heartache begins. That’s when every microsecond of hint and cue and body-english that the follow-the-band drummer DIDN’T get will come back to haunt everyone. It doesn’t always go bad. I’ve heard people play competent drum parts after the rest of the tracking was done. But I can’t say I’ve heard nearly as many times where the feel of the song was as strong and compelling as when the drummer goes early or first.

So the drummer in CAPE needs to either take something of a leader’s role, or they need to be an after-the-fact magician. Honestly there are probably many drummers amongst you reading this that think they can handle the after the fact option just fine and it’s true enough that some people work this better than others. Maybe it’s more important to get a feel for where you fit in this continuum. A musician should know some things about their talents and one of them is whether or not they react differently to drums than they would to a click track (they should). A drummer as a musician with a particular role to play should know which category they fit best into – take charge or follow the band. And then there’s the whole different issue of whether the song is best served with a click or not and how one works that. We’ll talk more about that later.

to be continued…

dik

[dnafe]

First things first. Great Post Dik!



Now I may be jumping ahead on this but here are a few tidbits from my experience


In my heyday, which was a few years ago, in any given band I was God. In my mind a band lives or dies by their drummer's ability to drive the band. Think about it and you'll realise I'm right.

I guess that makes me a "take charge" kind of drummer.

That being said, prior to tracking, I want as much information about the song as possible.

i.e. The intentions of the songwriter, the vibe or ambience the band want to create, the nuances of the arrangement and if possible, a fairly accurate demo of the song at it's prescribed BPM.

Now that can be as simple as a guitar and vocal demo or in the case of Team Usual Suspects in Cape II I used a 30 year old live recording of the song in question edited to the proper BPM as my click track. What ever works.

To that demo I'll add my own personal preference of click track and will walk into the studio with two stereo tracks (4 mono if they prefer) to give me my backing tracks to play with.

In some cases I've recorded in my living room with four cheapo mics, with Team Vagabond last year I used a friends basement studio and in other cases I have worked with Aardy, Miverman and PimpX in a free for all that spent more time in the micing and getting of sounds than I spent recording. Don't get me wrong that was a learning experience!.

But in each case, with the exception of my living room recording, the AE in question was able to provide the Mixer with varieties of ambience on my kit, giving the Mixer more freedom in the final mix (or more headaches depending)


That being said I think I can honestly say that so far I have laid a solid foundation for the rest of the players on my teams to build on.

on that note Dik

Carry on Merrily

[mousdrvr]

Originally Posted by dnafe

In my mind a band lives or dies by their drummer's ability to drive the band. Think about it and you'll realise I'm right.

Dik Awesome post!!

Don,

responding as a singer:

Yeah agreed 100%. Sure along one axis it's all about the vocal, but in a certain way I don't think the singer is as important as the drummer. A great drummer and an "interesting" singer can make a great band but I don't think it works so well the other way around.

responding as a bass player:

Yeah I play bass , I don't usually hold forth on that, and Jaco I ain't , but at one time my phone was ringing quite a bit for that gig.

NOTHING in the world beats playing with an authoritative drummer. The liberation!!! It makes all things possible and it makes you realize just how fucking difficult it is to play with a mediocre drummer, how much your mind is actually struggling to hold things together. Sure if you're Entwistle, you can still stand there like a pillar of zen like calm, but if you're merely a competent mortal, ouch!



-mous

[seagate]

Great post...


Edit: Hope the last OceanWerks track didn't cause you to much of a headache...

[Tim (tarmadilo) Armstrong]

Originally Posted by mousdrvr

NOTHING in the world beats playing with an authoritative drummer. The liberation!!! It makes all things possible and it makes you realize just how fucking difficult it is to play with a mediocre drummer, how much your mind is actually struggling to hold things together. Sure if you're Entwistle, you can still stand there like pillar of zen like calm, but if you're merely a competent mortal, ouch!

Amen, brother, amen! I make about half of my meager income as a bassist, and thank Dog every gig that I play with a great drummer (and cringe when I think of some of the drummers I've been forced to suffer through).

Oh, and killer post, Dik!!!

Cheers, Tim

[Carlo]

Great post, Dik!!! Keep it up

[jerryskid]

Waiting patiently for more.....I'm listening......

[kingkai]

Nicely done Dik.

With that thread title, I was expecting a b&w photo with the big black slash across your face so we couldn't identify ya.


Peacefully awaiting the next installment in tha' Swamp - Irv

[nobby]

Dik, your post is spot on.

Cape methodology is ideally the same as the method I used prior to my first online collaboration (which was Cape I) when schedules made playing in the same room at the same time impossible.

An analogy might be building a house.

Without a strong foundation, the house will fall apart. The foundation is the drums, followed by the bass guitar (typically on pop/rock recordings.)

I would send a rough demo of rhythm guitar, rough vox track, and click track to the drummer. That's the blueprint. If you have a great drummer (experience really helps), he anticipates the gist of how the song will sound when it's finished, i.e. extra emphasis on the chorus, a changeup for the bridge, etc.

The bass guitar re-enforces the foundation, and then you can proceed to have the rhythm guitars and/or keyboards or whatever frame the house, and go from there.

In Cape 5 our bass guitarist's house got flooded IIRC and his was I think the last track submitted. Ideally, the bass guitar goes on second after the drums. I consider myself fortunate to be on a team on which the drummer and bass guitarist submitted their tracks (which totally rock) in a timely manner on Cape 6.

But without a drum track, the other musos can't really even get started, and without a great drum track, the rest of the arrangement and production will suffer.

[dwoz]

Originally Posted by nobby

Ideally, the bass guitar goes on second after the drums.

but...how does the drummer know when to do the kik drum, if he can't hear the bass part?



dwoz

[dnafe]

Hey everyone

Dwoz made a funny.

[nobby]

Originally Posted by dwoz

but...how does the drummer know when to do the kik drum, if he can't hear the bass part?



dwoz

dwoz, your bass will be triggered by the kik

[dikledoux]

Originally Posted by dwoz

but...how does the drummer know when to do the kik drum, if he can't hear the bass part?

Whether you were goofing or not, this is a valid point and it sidles right up next to the idea of knowing where the song is going. Depending on the lineup of musicians, the song, or the producer's plan, the drummer may well want to hold off until the bass part is solidified, or at least submit a first-pass track that doesn't paint the bassist in a corner - with the idea that it'll help to produce a bass part that the drummer CAN lock with later on during final tracking.

On Team Goes this CAPE we did exactly that. I knew that our tune was going to be heavily influenced by Malice's bass part so I waited to wrap up my tracks. He got his part done fairly early on and THEN I went to work. I also was completely confident that his part was going to groove like a mofo even though he played to the loop part, and I was willing to do as many takes as necessary to get comfortable with his part.

So like many things, there are exceptions. And I'll do my best to take salient points like this and add to/edit the original post to get the points addressed all in one place.

dik

[dwoz]

Originally Posted by dikledoux

Whether you were goofing or not,...
dik

Well, there was a LITTLE BIT of tongue-in-cheek there. But, seriously, there's a bit of truth to it.

My status as a bassist notwithstanding, I note something unique about the bass: (Role in the band)

It is almost the only instrument (typically) that spans the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic role.

Now, of course, all instruments do all of these. But the bass is the only one that serves as a DEFINITIONAL role for all three.

Drums are the main flesh of the rhythmic...rhythm parts (keys, gits, etc) are the main flesh of the harmonic...vox and solo instruments are the main flesh of the melodic...

...but bass stands as a key element of all.

So, I amplify dik's point about the need to "spread some paint without getting trapped in a corner". A very good example of that, is in the bridge of CAPE V Team Hinterland, "When you couldn't believe"...the bass and drums went different directions there, and both painted each other into separate corners. Schedule was the primary hindrance to getting the chance to replay those parts, and make them sound like the same song was being played by both players.

Now, this shouldn't turn into a pissing contest...obviously there's particular importance to both roles...but it does lead to a cart-horse conundrum!

dwoz

[Carlo]

My question would be...what is the best way to "create" the song, and then to "communicate " the song to yer drummer? As in, to yer internet-collaboration pardner.

I like to replace my click, with a groove-based loop, that just serves the purpose of tempo, but does create a "feel". When I turn it on to my drummer, what is best...click, or loop?

And I'm all over the don't-paint-yerself-in -the corner...'specially in this circumstance!

I want the whole song to get greater with the collab...and to be influenced as far as it can be with the chosen few!

Back to you...Dik!

[dikledoux]

Carlo,

My answer to that question would be a definite "whatever works best". If you've got a general idea and a loop helps get that general idea across, then use that and let the drummer know there's some hope that they'll take that theme and dig into it. Try to let the drummer know how much license they can take with the part. With any luck, that drummer will cut a "what do you think of this?" track or 2 or 3 and then expect feedback to cut the final take.

On the other hand - If you've got a concrete idea, then chart it out or program it and hand it over with specific instructions. I know that from my personal experience, some of the most challenging and rewarding playing I've had to do was when someone had a very defined idea up front (and a GOOD idea) that they programmed into a machine. I took those ideas, tried to catch as much of the compositional specifics of the parts as I could and then imparted a human drummer's feel to the song with good results.

And if your drummer/collab partner doesn't agree with your specific ideas, then they'll need to convey their ideas and hopefully play a part that convinces you by the simple fact that it kicks more ass in the given context. Nothing sells like a great part and no amount of explanation or charting will get the point across better than the actual performance.

dik

[bbkong]

Caught a phrase back up the page a bit about painting things into corners that gave me a shiver of resonance.

It's something that should be avoided until the key tracks are on the same page. Then paint corners.

It's nice if everyone's using different shades of the same color too.

It's like collab, stage two.

[J.G.]

Oh, and killer post, Dik!!!

As is should be--with a name like that...

Good readin', all. I reckon it's time to add this bad boy to the "Best of" section.

Cheers,

: J

[Halsu]

Originally Posted by J.G.

Good readin', all.

Yessiree.

As a bassist in two CAPES, i would have really liked to be able to play my final track on top of finished drums. Playing to click, even if i more or less know what the drummer will do, simply feels a bit lifeless. I've felt sorry for the poor mixer who will probably need to edit a lot to get some groove going...

I'm also (or, should i say mainly) a drummer, and i've done drum tracks for a few collaborative songs outside CAPE. I must agree with Dik and the others, that the results have always been the better the sooner in the process the drum tracks have been finalized.

Personally, it is VERY hard for me to get a drive to the drums if i need to play on top of other instruments that have been played with click, or a sequencer.

The problem with this way is that the drums can't have any variation from the absolute time, if the song is supposed to feel coherent. And no variation from absolute time means machine like groove, or more accurately, a lack of any.

...eh, i guess that makes me too a leader kind of drummer, right??

It would be cool, if there was a way to make the arranging of bass and drum parts / grooves more interactive in internet collaborations... only attempt toward this i know of is Ninjam:

http://ninjam.com/

...but i must admit i've never actually used it. Has any of you?

[Anduin]

Most tracks I've done for people over the 'Net were overdubs for songs fairly far along in the recording process.

The trickiest bit there is the sudden need to follow not a band groove like you would live, and not a dead-quantized click or loop like you would when tracking first, but somebody else's groove. And I promise you that 95% of people are all over the place compared to the click that they claim they recorded against.

I had one song that went so ridiculously far from the click that I had to go in and hand edit my quarter-note click to make it follow the guitars, which were out by as much as a 16th note in places, and then I had to somehow overdub to that ebb and flow. Huge pain in the arse, that was, but also probably good for my weirdo-timing chops. And nobody, as far as I know, has ever noticed the time fluctuations on that track.

So adding drums to virtual collaborations really is a whole new world. Drums are suddenly expected to be an overdub instrument like everything else. There always seems to be a new challenge, but, conveniently, that's exactly how we improve both the technical and artistic sides of CAPEage.

Good stuff!