Messing with the EAD 10

I got a Yamaha EAD 10 recently— a popular interface/recording device for making drum cover videos. It's suddenly clear why there has been such a proliferation of those videos— there's infrastructure for it now. You can really do it with just the EAD 10, a phone and phone app, and a drum set.  

It's pretty cool, getting a reasonably decent recorded sound from the drums with just a little unit that clips on to the bass drum hoop. It has a lot of audio effects and triggering capability, which aren't of much interest to me. I'll do a more detailed post on it soon.   

I may as well share some videos I've made while figuring out the device, and my set up— like this one, playing along with a loop sampled from the intro of Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man, from Headhunters:

The first part is drums and loop, at 4:50 you hear it again with the drums soloed. 

Here's another one of me playing with a longer sampled section of Tunji, from the John Coltrane album Coltrane. Drums are soloed after 5:18.  

I'm not trying to make good music or a good accompaniment to the recording, I'm practicing being at ease playing my stuff while being really self conscious about how my timing is going to sound with the recording. I had a lot to say about that, but it's not forming itself well into writing right now, so that'll have to wait for another post... 

Very occasional quote of the day: electronics

“A kid who doesn't have to whack the drums to me is kind of missing something. He is going to buy a bunch of pads and not even know what it is like to lay into a bass drum. It's like piano and synth. I couldn't imagine getting chops on a synthesizer unless you know how to play piano. There is a direct physical link between a human and the drums that, as far as I'm concerned, you just can't get with the machines. And the beauty of it is not hitting it the same volume every time and not in the same spot. It's the little nuances that makes the difference. 

When you hit a pad, it triggers a pick-up that creates voltage. Maybe it does it faster than a drum head vibrates— and the electronic drum brain is a great alternative for sounds— but you just can't recreate that physical interaction you get with acoustic drums. I don't think the electronic drum brain can translate two small notes played on a drum. It measures it and spits it out exactly, whereas on a drum it was not mean to be exactly the same. 

The microprocessor turns voltage into sensitivity. Wonderful. But it's no the same as hearing a cymbal encompass your whole body, or hearing a bass drum, or if you stand in front of a giant gong and you feel those waves go through your body. Sure, with electric you can feel the PA speakers through the floor, but you don't need that to get it from a gong or drum set. It's just different.” 

- Vinnie Colaiuta, interview in Percussioner International, 1987 

Mike Snyder on triggering

I put together thousands
of these things. 

This is really just a quick link share for a friend— I have nothing to say on the subject of electronics, other than to give the reasons I don't use them. But for a couple of years in the 90's I did work for Mike Snyder, building drum triggers, when he still had his company Trigger Perfect. He was a studio drummer in LA in the 80's, and came up with the first decent trigger, and no one knows more about the subject than him. There tends to be a lot of confusion and frustration among drummers about this, due to lack of education, so here, from Mike and Drum! Magazine, is the latest, best information on triggering electronic sounds from an acoustic drum.