I found this photo today on my laptop.  Wow.  I used to like Carter Beauford.  A bunch.  Can you tell?  I still have a heavy dose of respect for him, don’t get me wrong.  I’ve just moved on.  No hard feelings, just moved on…

Photo taken – Summer of 2001

Other ways I’ve moved on:

1. Monstrosity of an electronics setup.
   • SP202 sampler.  Ancient.
   • Both an Alesis DMPro (for the sub kick sound) and a D4 (for the click sound (the Tama triggered the D4)).
   • MIDI loom both to and from the 50lb Drum Kat.  Professionally loomed with cheap blue, green, and white electrical tape.
   • Two Mixers, harder to see is the blue Rolls mixer in the rack
2. Percussion
   • Woodblock – I do not miss it. You shouldn’t either.
   • Cowbell – I should bring this back.
   • Tambourine – The Hi Hat mic is really competing for space now.
   • Wind Chimes!!!
3. Other
   • I used to organize my stick bag.
   • My ride was mounted vertically (and it’s a Z-Custom!)
   • Extra pedals – Subkick and bank change switch.
   • Splash Cymbal – Shane Wilson won’t give this one back.

If there’s something I’ve missed.  Let me know.

I’ve recently made a major switch in my use of loops on stage. I’m now using ableton live as a software sampler instead of the sampler built in to the roland spd-s sampling pad. I still use the spd-s but only for triggering the loops in ableton.

I’m calling this a work in progress because for now i am still working out bugs and leaving hogan’s rig untouched until we decide if this route is stable enough to rely on full time. Hogan and I talked about eventually having his rig minimized with maybe a 303 sampler for a few sounds and loops he needs to run with the turntables and his synth setup. So far I am pretty impressed as ableton has not had one glitch or foul (any errors so far have been mine (sweet!)).

One of the biggest advantages to using ableton is having my click and loops locked in at all times. I can bring loops in and out of songs and all the while the click never changes. Also, ableton’s editing and clip features makes any changes to loops or arrangements quick and painless.

I’m using an edirol fa-101 as my audio and midi interface as well as my monitoring system and mixer. The hardware monitoring feature allows me to mix any of the four stereo inputs (eight if mono) with any audio from ableton to the headphone out. So my monitor mix from the engineer goes into inputs 1/2 and loops from hogan are in 7/8. I’m sending the loops from ableton out of 3/4 and the click out 5 using aux sends in ableton. Doing it this way I can monitor the loops directly and still have control of the amount i’m sending to the band both for loops and click. The spd-s is sending its midi into the edirol fa-101 to control ableton.

The little silver device is a griffin powermate. It is basically a simple usb volume knob, but I’ve implemented it as a scroll wheel and launch button for live. In its preferences you can have it send keystrokes so i used that to cursor up and down through scenes in ableton. The controller next to that is an original oxygen 8 that i’ve cut down to just the controller section and recased in plywood (kind of a temporary solution inspired by frugalpole’s stimey controller). I also removed the spring from the pitch bend wheel so i could use it as a volume fader along with the mod wheel. Eventually i want to make it a little smaller (maybe an electronincs project box) and replace all the knobs with faders and turn the key inputs into launch buttons.

Here is the back of it…

edit: i forgot to mention that i’m using a lexar lightning jump drive to hold the samples which makes latency from the drive practically nothing. copenhagen talked about this in another thread so i tried and it worked great. i got the lexar lightning because it boasts the most bandwidth, which is important for streaming audio. at this point the only latency i’m dealing with now is about 7ms of midi latency from the drum controller.

I got a chance to see this group at Yoshi’s in Oakland a couple nights ago. A friend of mine currently getting his doctorate in math at stanford (fun!) is a big fan and has seen them like six times. He actually went back the night after we went for their third and final performance. They reminded me of Matt Chamberlain’s band Critters Buggin who I saw at Stubbs in Austin with Joey Parish a few years back. Both groups are driven by awesome drummers and capture the audience from begining to end with their intensity and musical wit. I highly recommend both groups as must see performances.

critters buggin site
the bad plus site