Monday 19 September 2016

Roland SPD-6

 I'm really not a drummer, but I got a used Roland SPD-6 off Ebay a few months ago to add a bit of live drums to my tracks. I used to program all the drums, but it's more fun to make up loops with this thing by playing them rather than putting dots on a grid in a sequencer:


It's got a few nice kits, loads of useless stuff like guns going off, explosions etc. 

I recorded the drum parts to this track with them.













Old School

I grew up in the Analogue world, as a musician that meant using 4 track porta studios to record half assed songs, and this frequently involved banging my head against a wall more often than not. Using ye olde drum machines was a lot more hassle than putting dots in a grid on a computer. 


 Then the digital age dawned, at first it was great, Myspace was really good. People genuinely found your music, I made some great contacts and found people who supported my music. Plus about 9 years ago I actually put together my first album using Cubase, I called it "TuLK"
 Move 10 years on I realize the digital dream, is a digital nightmare in some ways. Myspace died, and the sharks came in... people stopped buying music, NME and Melody Maker died, and one or two great bands who we'll never hear off never achieved the success the would have had they not disappeared in a digital swamp. To a certain extent that is all down to the digital world.


 So why am I moaning?, we'll I know it's not all bad... there's still some good music out there, and I don't miss paying £15 in 1995 for "First Rays of the Rising Sun" by Jimi Hendrix thank you very much!... But, i'm REALLY sick of looking at computer screens when I record my music... if I wanted to do that then i'd have gone into IT.