The Piano Mover (And other silly titles for novels)
Douglas as Books
May|12|2009
When I go browsing for books, I often see the latest bestsellers stacked up at the front of the bookstore. Their fancy cover art adorning nice hardback editions. I can’t help but wonder though, why the authors keep romantisizing musicians in their titles.
I compiled a list by release date:
2000 – The trend really began here with Katharine Weber’s The Music Lesson, and Wladyslaw Szpilman’s The Pianist. Read the rest of this entry »
Drum Samples
Douglas as Recording
May|12|2009
I spent some time last night going through various drum tracks I’ve recorded as well as some LP’s where I was pulling an individual hit. I loaded all these up into the EXS24 to compare them. Some observations:
- There are many different snare sounds out there.
- Your overall drum sound will only be as good as your raw tracks.
- Rimshots sound trashy in the studio.
- Sometimes trashy sounds good.
- Piccolo snares tend to sound thin. (I’ll probably use ONLY piccolo snares in ten years now that I’ve said this)
- It is cool to line up different sessions on the sampler and play the different kits.
- Be really careful not to overcompress going in. I found a track or two like that.
- At the end of the day. No one can tell a $100 dollar drum from a $1000 if it tuned right. Too many other factors at play.
- I’ve gotten better at recording drums.