question for will

[keving]

Hey will,

My band and I have been pushing towards the idea of using samples, as well as some backing tracks and electronic drums in a similiar fashion to the way you guys do it, and I wanted to know how you approached this live. I noticed you had some kind of drum machine/sampler next to your drums. Could you explain your setup and how you trigger it?

[Thrill Kill Will]

word.
being able to pull everything off with live musicians is the ideal situation. there's nothing more exciting. but unfortunately you guys probably can't have 5 extra musicians on stage. straylight certainly can't have a second drummer, horn players, string players, extra keyboard players etc. so we use backing tracks.

for a while i was using an MPC1000. its a sequencer/sampler, where you build sequences from samples that you load onto the machine, then arrange them into songs. i would have to scroll to each new song, hit play, then listen for the count in, then count in the rest of the band. this worked really well because the main output was in stereo which is fun, and had a seperate out put for me to listen to the click track.

unfortunately with some of the songs off the new record, we recorded them without a click track, so it wouldve been a night mare to try to chop up the horns and strings and stuff and try to quantize them back to a click track just so they'd fit into the sampler's timing. so i went back to the old school way of doing things, we just took all the stuff we wanted for backing tracks, panned that to the left, then created a "guide track" (like a click track but it follows the free timing of the song) and panned that right. i loaded that mp3 onto an mp3 player. i split the signal, give the house sound guy the left channel with music, and i take the right channel with click. its pretty simple and fool proof. just make sure you have enough battery life in your mp3 player!!

i'd love to get back to having a stereo signal to front of house, but for now, its so simple and easy to change. give it a shot and see if it works.

-will

[keving]

so here's another question for you,

Basically every other youtube video and photo I see of you guys playing live you have a different kit.

sometimes a 20/12/14 setup
sometimes the black cat
sometimes you use bigger 13 and 16 toms

who KNOWS how many snares

where do you keep all your stuff? in storage? is your home a gold mine of vintage drums? or is a good portion of it borrowed

and whats the story behind the "noon drum co" kit i've seen, or did you just slap that logo on your reso heads



p.s. one more month til my C&C kit arrives, and loving my Istanbul Set

[Thrill Kill Will]

haha.

i have way too many drums. its true. but i like to experiment and i change my mind constantly.

i keep some of my drums at a friend's studio in brooklyn (24/12/14 black cats, 12/14 superstars, 80s pearl super gripper snare, ludwig supra, and maybe another). and the noon drum co kit i actually let steve from The Color Fred borrow. but most of it i keep stacked at home. some lives in the trailer at times, other stuff in the basement studio.

as for the noon drum co kit.
i was going through black cat, but i felt like the company wasn't willing to grow. which is a shame, because they are some of the best sounding and looking drums that i've ever seen. then i started playing C&C, but it was taking to long to get the kit i wanted. bill is great, and his drums are great, but his company was growing too fast for me, i wanted to be more involved. so i stepped back from the crazy world of drum endorsements. i started bringing out my old vintage drums and whatever i wanted. i finally decided to put some of my own ideas into motion. i designed some drums and had a kit built. it turned out pretty rad, but i'm still working on some edges. i'm also looking for a partner to help build. i'm in no rush, i'm just waiting for the right opportunity to build some great drums.

word
-w

[shaggythedrummer]

I've been interested in building or at least designing drums ever since ordering my C&Cs and talking to Bill but just know it will be a while to get funding as well as materials. My idea was to start out by getting some cheap used kits off of craig's list and fixing 'em up, but I don't know really where to go after that. Do you have any suggestions?