New Drums

I have a few new drums that have already been used on tracks for the new record. I’m gonna try and post what drums I use throughout recording for my own sake (my memory is pretty useless) and to give anyone who cares a little breakdown.

We played about a month ago at a church in Austin where a good friend of ours is the pastor. I used the church’s kit that night and it had a Yamaha Copper Snare. I loved it. All the attack and “crack” of a Ludwig Black Beauty but with warmer tones and a little lower pitch. This copper drum was on ebay pretty cheap so I couldn’t resist. The hammering and cast hoops only makes it darker and warmer. It was immediately used on the first two tracks we did “Can You Feel It” and “For A Thousand Tongues”.

Dan Hamilton of The Robbie Seay Band has an old Rogers Wood Dynasonic – Superten hybrid that has been a staple of Crowder records. I think it can be heard at its finest on “All Creatures” on Illuminate, but it has been used on numerous tracks over the years in many, many different ways. It’s basically a wood Dynasonic shell with Superten hardware, which I’ve read was a common thing to do in the seventies. It sounds fantastic. Anyway, I wanted one bad but thay are hard to find and pretty expensive, so i had Kieth at Risen Drums build me a clone. Ten Ply maple shell with reinforcement hoops, with a completely round bearing edge. It’s 14×6.5 and I think it really compares well to the original Rogers. We used it on “Glory of it All”.

I should also note that Kieth at Risen finished the drums from “A Collision”. We were gonna do a cloth wrap that was gonna look very vintage (like they had sat out in a barn for a hundred years) but it didn’t work out. So we did this kinda 70’s retro green fade with silver sparkle which looks crazy good. It has 24×16 and 26×14 kick drums (very big) and 12 14 and 16 inch toms. he also made a 14×8 snare to go with it.

Shane is coming…

this is pretty significant. if you do not already know, shane d. wilson is our engineer. he has been our engineer in the studio for as long as i have made records with the dcb. we like him a lot.

shane lives in nashville and does what most engineers do, deal with musicians and labels. his coming is significant because it means another recording begins tonight. see for me, recording begins the moment the truck that brought his gear to waco is unloaded and the aroma of nag champa begins to fill the studio. it is a smell that means recording to me. sometimes on tour or out shopping i’ll get a whiff of that scent and immediately i miss being in the studio, making records.

so with a bit of nervous excitement for whats to come, i now head to the barn to make another record.