Bio Samples: Solo Riley Earful the trapKAT Reviews contact drummis
	"What is astounding to me is the skill and finesse with which the pads are played. Dynamics and style are not the least bit hampered, and some of the artistic fills that this musician accomplishes are mesmerizing. A fine accomplishment that transformed perfectly for the CD production. Masterful!" - Michael Hake, Artvoice (the arts and music magazine of Buffalo, NY), July 7, 1998

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Bio

Drummis is an electronic and acoustic musician breaking into the field of electronic drumming. The confluence of technology and art is a pure fascination, particularly as home computers are now able to keep up with musicians in terms of processing power, which allows for greater reproducability of "reality-based" sound imagery, and in terms of speed and recordability, which allows for the real spirit of a session to be captured, rather than relying on prerecorded riffs and samples.

Drummis has been playing the drums for more than 30 years, when he was setting up coasters on the coffee table and banging on them with pencils. He has played in over ten different cover and original bands, with the more recent projects producing recordings and touring at a semi-professional level (see below). In addition to drums, he has recently taken up the bass and acoustic guitars in order to understand better the range and breadth of the musical experience.

Drummis works with hand drums, guitars, miscellaneous percussion, the trapKAT, a Mackie 1202, a P4 computer with Propellorhed's Reason Adapted, Ableton Live 5, Master Tracks Pro, Sound Forge, some pretty low quality microphones, a Roland TD-5 drum brain, and a squeaky octopus.

In the future, Drummis is seeking to continue to produce his own home studio music, to perform on a local level for electronic enthusiasts, to perform live in Second Life, and to hook up with other online musicians to produce more varied and contextual compositions.

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Drummis music

These samples would likely be categorized in the ambient/electronica category. My experimentation with midi composition and production utilizes the trapKAT, Roland TD-5, Sound Blaster FM synth, and various sampled wav clips, and in some cases guitar work with Los Juevos musician PhatJonny. This is demo material only, with no mastering involved.

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Other original music featuring Drummis...

Riley

Self described as "pop-progressive," the music is reminiscent of early Genesis or Marillion. This foursome, together from 1993-1999, consisted of keyboards (Mark Frey), guitars (Mike Criscione), bass (Ken Devlin), and me, Drummis, on the electronic drums (trapKAT, Roland TD-5 & TD-7) and other miscellaneous percussion. The composition was largely initiated by Mark or Mike, with the band filling in important changes and fleshing out the sound in rehearsals.

Riley produced one CD, "Blueprint", engineered and produced by Mike and Mark in our basement studio (Squeaky Animals Productions), mastered at Metalworks Studios by noted producer Nick Blagona (Nazareth, Deep Purple).

I did most of the midi drum editing for this recording, sang some background vocals (Lorelei), and wrote the lyrics to "Going to Work," a song that didn't make the cut for our first disc, but was scheduled for the second disc that never occurred. The band broke up in December 1999.

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Blueprint

Unreleased Material:

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earful

A straight ahead rock threesome consisting of guitar (Mike Criscione), bass (Brian O'Connell, formerly in well-received Boston jam band Uncle Sammy, now with the Gordon Stone Band), and yours truly, Drummis, on electronic drums (trapKAT/Roland TD-5 combination). These recordings were made at Outer Limits Studio, near Buffalo, NY (thanks to Ken Rutkowski for engineering), but were never mastered or released.

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What is a trapKAT?

Drummis's electronic drumkit, the trapKAT, is a device made of a marblized rubber-like surface composed of 24 separate pads (10 on the flat surface and 14 pads around the edges, rim pads), beneath which lie small piezo triggers that alert a separate drum "brain" to play a pre-programmed sound.

Each pad has an electronic sensor laying beneath it which records the strength [velocity] of each hit on the given pad. Thus, each pad is individually programmable in several ways. First, the dynamic range is changable, so that you can alter the electronic sensor of that pad to your individual style of playing (e.g., jazz players are generally easier on their drums than heavy metal players). Second, you can change the individual sound that the pad reproduces when it is struck. These sounds are patched in from a separate drum machine(s) ["brain(s)"] through a MIDI cable (more info on MIDI here). So, pad 1 can be the hi-hat, pad 2 the snare, pad 3 the rim shot, etc. on up to pad 24. There are also two pedals, one for the bass drum and one for a "continuous controller," which is needed to reproduce the opening and closing of a hi-hat.

These pedals, however, are not restricted to these sounds. This provides for a pretty large drum kit. But wait - there's more! There are 24 different variations (of the 24 pad sounds) that can be programmed into the trapKAT. This provides for 24 different pretty large drum kits! Cool. Now, more numbers: the "brains" that I have [Roland TD-5 and TD-7] contain over 600 sound samples - you name it, everything from snare drums to timpani to marimba to guitar chords. Percussion, electronic f/x, orchestral hits, gongs and whistles. I can choose from any of these to program any given pad. Now you're getting the picture.

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Reviews

The pros and the cons of trapKATing

TrapKATing is fun, no doubt about it. But it has its downfalls too. One great thing I'm sure you've noticed is the cleanness of the sound - it's essentially like putting on a CD of drums and playing it through really loud speakers - except that the sound is spontaneous, not pre-writ. There is no sound "degradation" involved as occurs when you put a microphone in front of an acoustic drum or cymbal and try to squeeze the "natural " sound through that device. Another benefit is the ease of play: with real drums you've really gotta move around the kit, by virtue of it's largeness. It's great exercise, no doubt, but with the trapKAT, you can play patterns and fills more easily because the pads are so much closer, relative to its acoustic counterpart.

However, the trapKAT is not perfect. While the sound samples in the Roland brains are pretty good, they essentially reproduce the same exact sound wave every time you play the same sound. The great variation in the number of drums (e.g. 50 different snare offerings) and the pitch of the drum and its loudness (dynamics=velocity of stick stroke) help to counteract this effect, but the sound wave produced with Snare Drum #32, for example, will always be the same. On an acoustic drum, the variability of sounds, depending on where and how hard you strike the head, changes infinitely. The next -gen Roland drum machine, the V-Drum, changes the sound wave under these conditions, but it will be a long time before a digital sample can approach the infinite variety of a real drum.

Nonetheless, artistic vision is not necessarily hampered by the electronic interface of the trapKAT, as this review suggests:

"A really cool thing about this band [Riley] is how they choose to perform live. [Drummis] performs drums and percussion on an electronic drum pad. Current technology guarantees quality sound production, or sampled re-production, as the case may be. What is astounding to me is the skill and finesse with which the pads are played. Dynamics and style are not the least bit hampered, and some of the artistic fills that this musician accomplishes are mesmerizing. A fine accomplishment that transformed perfectly for the CD production. Masterful!" - Michael Hake, Artvoice (Buffalo's premier arts magazine), July 7, 1998

Also, when the electronics go bust and just stop working, nothing can be done. Gig over, go home. Because I have two drum machines, I have been able to avoid that complete catastrophe, but at one gig we played recently, the TD-5 pooped out, which caused significant hassle and strain for me. Having trained on acoustic drums for 20 years, I absolutely hate this dependency on electronic technology.

There's no doubt that the trapKAT is a different drumming instrument than a standard acoustic kit. To me this offers a challenge to play musically and artistically. At this point I'd like to respond to a critical remark regarding the trapKAT:

"My only production complaint is Kurt’s use of electronic drums, he’s a great drummer technically, but you just can’t replace the sound and feel you get from using acoustic drums and I think that this tames Riley’s sound too much especially when they play live shows but, also on their recording. When you have a musical rhythm section that helps control dynamics, you don’t see the guitarists and solo instruments struggling as much with performances. I know this first hand, trying to pull intensity out of something that just isn’t is extremely exhausting not only for the band but also for the listener." - Leah Pinnevaia, Things to Do, Places to Go, People to See. July 17-30, 1998 Vol. 1, No. 3 Page 13 by Leah Pinnavaia, editor.

First of all, thanks, Leah, for the compliment on my drumming! I appreciate it. But I must disagree on the points of dynamics and intensity that can be reached with the KAT: dynamics can be controlled quite effectively with the trapKAT, as I have mentioned. It has taken me some time to learn the ways of this new animal, but I believe I have met this challenge of dynamic control. For example, one song that demonstrates this I believe is Undone (track 13 on Blueprint). As far as intensity goes, well, no, I don't sweat as much now as when I played acoustics, but I have certainly achieved that level of euphoria that is reached when the intensity is high and the sound is blending into a mosh of four musicians communicating at a level that is higher than everyday consciousness. This is the ultimate goal of artistry, and it doesn't happen at every gig, regardless of the technology one is using, but I do know that it can and does happen with the KAT - this is the challenge of playing in a band, to reach that higher level with your collective music. As much as the trapKAT digitalizes and compartamentalizes the drums, it offers other challenges and opportunities for being artistic, and I will continue to face these challenges and strive to capture these creative opportunities for not only my own pleasure, nor only for the pleasure of my band mates, but for all who listen to the music. After all, that's what it's all about - the music, baby, the music! YEAH!

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Thanks for listening!
Come back soon to see what I've been working on.