Critique my drumming!

S

sean.brown

New member
The first track for my band's upcoming album is available to listen to, if anyone is interested in critiquing me, here is the link! Be as brutal as you want, but be constructive... tell me what to do to better myself in other words.

http://www.myspace.com/tsavotheband

The track is called "Campaign of Fear"


Don't listen to the others, they're horrible demos.
 
Not my style, but here's my opinion:
Kick is pretty consistent but I think it needs a little raise at 5khz.
And the snare... I don't know, I like it but... it need more snap... I'm not sure, it's up to you.
 
sean.brown said:
The first track for my band's upcoming album is available to listen to, if anyone is interested in critiquing me, here is the link! Be as brutal as you want, but be constructive... tell me what to do to better myself in other words.

http://www.myspace.com/tsavotheband

The track is called "Campaign of Fear"


Don't listen to the others, they're horrible demos.
Click to expand...


It sounds like in the verses, the drumming and guitars aren't agreeing on the feel.

The guitars are playing in a triplet feel while the drumming is more straight 16th based.
I think what you're going for is that last 16th note of the triplet.. but it's coming off as more of a straight 16th.
 
Yeah, there's something seriously weird with the feel of the verses. Sounds like the drums are in a whole different feel from the rest of the band. Makes the song hard to listen to because you keep getting distracted by it.
 
RAMI said:
Yeah, there's something seriously weird with the feel of the verses. Sounds like the drums are in a whole different feel from the rest of the band. Makes the song hard to listen to because you keep getting distracted by it.
Click to expand...

Got to be honest-- I don't get this feeling. The drumming together with the guitars in the verses feels fine to me and I wouldn't change it.
 
P-J said:
Got to be honest-- I don't get this feeling. The drumming together with the guitars in the verses feels fine to me and I wouldn't change it.
Click to expand...

That's cool. Just telling him what I hear. :)
 
I'm with P-J, I think the groove works well. I'm not listening on the best speakers but the guitars sit back a lot in the mix, whether that's what you were going for or not I don't know.

Pretty good overall, I know you just asked for a drumming critique, sounds tight.
 
eraos & RAMI: That's kind of what I was going for, it's definitely played in 6/8 because of the fills that I do during the verses, that's what sets it apart from sounding 4/4. The guitars sit back in the mix, and the bassline is very 6/8, so I decided to play something that accented 1 & 4 beats, but also add that hi-hat hit on the 2.5 and 5.5 ( or otherwise called the and of 2, and of 5) to give it a little flavor of 4/4. Just a taste thing, a lot of our album is set in 6/8 timing and I played most of it in that style, so I thought this would be a good change of pace. The vocals are really what stand out here anyways.

Elton Bear: Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad you dig it. And I really don't listen to A LOT if Isis, I do listen to them occasionally, for this album I was really listening to a lot of Filter, Nirvana, A Perfect Circle, Pillar, Foo Fighters, Finch and Army of Anyone. Just a lot of good groove drummers (Grohl, Hawkins, Freese, Estelle Jr. etc).
 
Its a very common thing in African music to play 4/4 and 6/8 simultaneously. It fits together nicely when done right. With practice it's pretty easy to do and comes naturally after a while. Plus there's a multitude of ways to do it.
 
You're obviously a practiced drummer. The energy I feel playing along in my head doesn't come through the speakers at all. Maybe it's yourspace compression, maybe the mix sucks, dunno.

I'd choke the singer & soundman.
 
Thanks! I think the issue with the compression/sound would be the myspace player... it lowers the quality down to like 80kbps, which sucks for sound quality if you know anything about mp3. I'm eventually going to get a player up with much better sound quality. In the meantime, I'll have to live with sh***y myspace.
 
+1

killthepixelnow said:
Not my style, but here's my opinion:
Kick is pretty consistent but I think it needs a little raise at 5khz.
And the snare... I don't know, I like it but... it need more snap... I'm not sure, it's up to you.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I hear as well.....the snare (to me) needs to sound less boxy, more snappy and more "fat"...at times it sounds very low-tensioned. Nice playing....I also second the comment above on your singer...probably has a really nice voice, but he's not always "making" it into tune with several of his notes. To me, his voice needs some more "serious" treatment in the mix as well...a more "higher definition" blended track perhaps with some heavy compression and then some effects work to give it more "width".

Sorry for the vocal critique...can't help it, it's my degree. Anyway, the drum track (again, imo) sounds good....just a few little things will help it all "pop" more.

Jay
 
vincenzajay: I agree, I'm not totally happy with the snare sound... That's something that I'm going to fix with our producer. As for the vocals, those are actually being redone and then being worked on in melodyne due to time constrictions. We'd love to get everything as perfect as we can on our own, but you know how it is when you have deadlines to make :)

ROCKetship: Thanks for the input. I'll try to be more creative, i guess ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top