Kelly wrote:
Love how clean and simple it is Greg.
I don't mean simple as in playing I mean really easy to listen to. A line to follow that sounds really nice and understandable. I can hear the drums, the cymbals and the thoughts. And all very clearly. Very cool.
Sounds "Alive". The processed internet recordings have really taken their toll on me.
Quite a compliment, Kel. As player, the thing was flowing fairly well up to about 0:53, where I got backed around and never quite got back on straight. Perhaps the weakness there was overly worrying about where it all went rather than adapting.
The issue of processed sound is one that has been background of my drum purchases over the last couple of years. As Cliff said to me, "Sounds as if the Gretsch are the kit you were looking for when you bought the Classix." Right on all levels. I was playing a rented Gretsch about that time and the thing terrified me. It was like getting in a Ferrari and discovering the force of the throttle; you tromp on the brakes to reassure yourself you have control. I played those things with damping rings because I couldn't handle the sonic presence of the kit. If you keep driving the Ferrari, eventually you discover that the acceleration is controllable and the brakes good enough; the same applies to learning a kit like the Gretsch. While you may still be circling several laps behind the lead cars, you can still get it around the course.
Much of processed sound results in a smoothness that is tricky to produce on a kit, particularly one with open tuning. "Process" in my vocabulary has come to be the training and discipline before the recording rather than after, most of which happened as I began to get the finger sticking in hand. Hitting the Gretsch as I used to strike Signatures capped by Pinstripes resulted in runaway resonances. Now I am beginning to be able to massage the tones out of the kit that I want by placement and force of the stick, as well as by tuning. Note the shift of sonic character in the GRETSCH DESIGNER AND TEARDROP thread. I can't begin to light those drums up in the same way, though there are things about those drums that I very much enjoy that the Gretsch will not do.
A flat ride is a terrific cymbal for an open kit; it encourages soft playing by virtue of its own resistance to explosion; you can hit it with a baseball bat and it won't get any louder than it will with a medium hit with the shoulder of a light jazz stick, so there's no overwhelming wash to cut through. Get as excited as you want on the flat ride but you never need to compete with the drums.
Don't know if this addresses anything you were thinking about...
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