Kniferide wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:53 am I will say that the more drums a kit has the more boring the drum playing gets.

Many many many years ago, my band had a show in beautiful, cosmopolitan Worcester, MA opening for the Dismemberment Plan. We're loading in and the local band was setting up their stuff onstage. The drummer had a full-on double kick, four rack tom, two floor tom setup. With an appropriate number of cymbals to match.

I'm a drummer but I was playing keys in this band. Our drummer turns to me and says "that dude has more drums on his kit than yours and mine combined." Which was no exaggeration.

We figure anyone who's gonna go to the trouble to lug all those drums to a gig is gonna put on a fearsome display, so we hurry across the street to eat and get back in time for their set.

You've already correctly guessed that dude proceeded to play nothing but a slouchy Peter Criss style boom bap boom boom bap the whole night, and his only fill was 'digga digga digga digga' around the toms.

We were so disappointed.

The next night we went to the Middle East in Cambridge to see Euphone, and watched Ryan Rapsys absolutely destroy a little 4 piece kit.

Acceptable and ideal are two very different things IMO.

I think ideal is two. Three is acceptable because my old vintage kit came with three. And I have all three set up because putting one away somewhere is guaranteed to fuck it up. I'd rather have the entire kit age together in the same way.

I have one floor, and two mounted. I like it just fine, it's what I learned on.

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:55 am The next night we went to the Middle East in Cambridge to see Euphone, and watched Ryan Rapsys absolutely destroy a little 4 piece kit.

Dude is a killer player. I remember watching him do a solo show where he was playing bass synth with his left hand while playing drums. He was also alternating between singing and playing harmonica.

If I wanted to win this thread I'd have said "I play with no toms, no cymbals and only half a hi-hat, and I kick the bass drum head directly, no pedal"

twelvepoint wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:56 am I haven't had a steady rock band in 3 years and I played my last pickup gig 2 years ago. The next time I play in a rock band writing original tunes (whenever the hell that will be) I wanna approach it more non traditionally, looking at beats more as ostinato patterns that incorporate components in less of a kick/snare/hi-hat way. I'd be interested in challenging the whole 4-piece punk drum kit thing I've always done. Definitely don't want to get into Tool territory though.

I have this insane vision for a band with two percussionists, both standing. Picture one with something like Mimi Parker's kit (floor, snare, ride, mallets, toys), and another with with some combo of a standing bass drum, some kind of djembe or congas (hit with sticks or mallets) and a distinctly different snare from the other player, plus some collection of wood blocks, claves, maracas etc. I often wonder what would happen if you composed rhythms for rock and roll music that two people played with their hands, as opposed to one person using hands and feet. I figure if nothing else the groove/pocket would be unique.

Next time it's time to start a new band I'll have to corner two different drummers and sound like a crazy person trying to indoctrinate them into a weird musical cult.

What about the acceptable quantity of drummers? Is the 2 drummers fad over yet? That always seemed a gimmick to make up for boring music

Chud Fusk wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 12:06 pm What about the acceptable quantity of drummers? Is the 2 drummers fad over yet? That always seemed a gimmick to make up for boring music

If I were starting a band now, I'd go with zero drummers. To me these days, a drummer seems to be the biggest limiting factor as to how a band sounds and expresses itself. You got a drummer, you got yourself a buncha songs in duple time without any rubato.

Nobody dances anymore anyway. Every show I've been to in the past 25+ years is a bunch of dudes standing around with pint glasses, nodding. If someone can't follow the rhythm and groove of music without having it pounded out for them with unpitched transients, that might be an affliction on their part.

2 drummer thread kerble:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=69166&hilit=drummers

This thread is for figuring out how many toms I need to throw away so I can better fit in.