Communicative Saturations was first drum solo using DrumKAT

First Electronic Drum-Solo, played and recorded by Vince Schaefer

Für eine deutsche Übersetzung dieser Seite Klicken Hier:

Pour une traduction française de cette page, ce déclic ici:

Para una traducción española de esta página, el chasquido aquí:

Communicative Saturations - a drum solo

Communicative Saturations was my first attempt at recording a solo on my own. Previously, I'd recorded things with studio master: Doug Heaps, Pittsburgh Art Institute; or with various bands I was in, so this was just me!

Toby Bryant co-produced this project, in that he lent me the four track recorder and microphone to do the project. Back when I got home from touring with Energy Rush, I helped Toby develop purpose for, and purchase a bunch of gear from Pianos n' Stuff Music Store, and helped him start his studio. This was the first time I'd ever been in this position to set up a home music studio, so it was a freebie. Soon after, his wife had some sort of breakdown, and I and my free work were tossed aside. This was the project that I tried to use to come back from those wasted months, so Toby was happy to help with the equipment.

My drum-set consisted of: an 8 ply Maple Rogers XPE kit, with Evans Hydraulic Heads, and triggered a DrumKAT 2.5. Rogers best drum kit, triggered a DrumKAT, which played a Roland R-8 It was done around 1989 during Christmas vacation, at the Ruxton Street Studio, before the days of Common Laugh Productions. It was a chore trying to go back and forth getting levels set, but by the end of the week, I had choked out two hours of material. Three shots at the solo and a bunch of other stuff. I played the solo from beginning to end (or attempted that) every time I played it, so because it's technically a jammed solo, I got some interesting and different tracks! One of the highlights of the work, is a jam by Toby and me. This was months after he had started playing bass guitar, and it was the first time we had a good solid jam together with him on bass. We had jammed many times before on percussion, and even played together in a few ensembles, including: Steel City Ambassadors, and he taught one year at Carrick High School Marching Band with me! We had many successes together.

I used Fantasticks drum-sticks, a Simmons One, Tymbali, Zildjian cymbals: 12" Splash, 14" New Beat HiHats, (drilled) 16" Medium Crash, 18" Crash-Ride, 18" High China Boy. The recording channels were: Track 1 = left R-8; Track 2 = right R-8; Track 3 = Microphone. This was the project that I realized how accurately the drumkat triggered, because after it was recorded I could listen to individual tracks, and saw (heard) that it caught every note! This was the beginning of the road to losing the acoustic kit.