Author: thepatrickrichardson
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Street Drumming, 2023/July/20
Motivation: Weather was beautiful, so I decided to drag the suitcase-kit out for some street-drumming. On the way: Dragging the suitcase up to subway platform, I heard this woman blasting “Green Onions” on her phone. I dug it, and we started chatting.She eye-balled the suitcase, and I told her it was a ‘traveling drum kit.’Pointing…
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RIP Gabe Serbian: 1977-May-1 ~ 2022-April-30
Today, i woke up to the news that Gabe Serbian died of (as yet) unknown/unreleased causes. Gabe, primarily a drummer, was an ambitious multi-instrumentalist with varied tastes who always pushed the envelope of intensity, from chops to to aesthetic, in every project he touched. His work includes: avante/futurist hardcore/punk synth/noise band The Locust originator/former-guitarist of…
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GEAR: Akai XR-20
“the urban SR-16” Akai XR-20 : the “urban” SR16 Distinguishing Features pattern based real-time sequencer, with fluid movement between recording and performance. clear, bright blue light-up pads most-things on one-small LCD screen. distinctive and aggressive sound set, focused on modern rap/hip-hop/etc sounds Personal Perspective After Akai and Alesis went under ownership with Numark in the…
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GEAR : Akai “MPC1000”
Akai MPC 1000: a compact flagship This became my (first) serious relationship with a piece of gear, bringing new levels of learning to be creative within limitations, and I found not only how their “Programs” could create drum kits or chromatic voices (leads, vocals), but also experiment in between. As understand of, and ability to…
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GEARing up to get the most out of drum practice : fundamentals to luxury.
Motivation: Getting into drums is a tricky affair… I find that these factors can be more frustrating barriers to entry and growth than the drum kit itself, for student and/or parent. So, I decided to outline (and justify) the things a drum student should consider …and order it by Phases of Growth …so you should…
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Bad Date story #1
Motivation Most of what I share on this blog (in my shamefully sporadic output), is pretty “crunchy” technical stuff about drums, electronics, electronic-drums…and so on. After more than half-a-dozen years teaching (in some manner or another), I’m starting to change my attitude(s) about “showing my belly.” When I first started teaching, I went straight from…
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Muscle-study for Moeller-ism on the foot-control of kick-drum pedal(s)
Motivation… Working with drum students, I find myself having to (repeatedly) explain to kids and adults how to think of their drumming as a concerted effort of separate motions. Controlling sticks with hand muscles is one thing, but learning to control the kick drum pedal(s) is another challenge altogether. It is often clumsy to…
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on sex/gender parts of inanimate objects, and censorship
Background: Many electronic appliances are built to make electrical interconnections with one another, whether to supply power, exchange analog signals (audio/video/etc) or digital signals (keyboards, hard drives, etc), or simply to allow remote action of switches (remote buttons for cameras or speed pedals for sewing machines). By design, these interconnections are built to be unique,…
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Novation Circuit pad/ui glitch teardown and FIXed !
History / Motivation I got a the Circuit by Novation back in Fall of 2018. I was blown away by how simple and flexible the UI was, both for sequencing internal sounds, and as a MIDI note-controller for external gear. Then, suddenly, it started glitching, at the pads. It seemed fine if I held it…
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Pad expression on live eDrum kit
Movitation I’ve been experimenting with playing live electronic drums for a while. For most e-kits that one can buy off the sales floor, I find there is limited expression for controlling the sounds while playing them, beyond using the dynamics of your hits to control volume, tonality, or switch between samples. I found myself wanting…