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Everything Matters

Hey guys—I had a busy, productive, and awesome January, starting with my CreativeLive class, “Advanced Drum Production” on January 16-18. Over the course of three days, we covered everything there is to know about recording and editing modern rock/metal drums—and even had the legendary Sean Reinert (Cynic, Death) join us in the studio. From there, I went straight to NAMM, like a lot of people reading this.

Hey guys—I had a busy, productive, and awesome January, starting with my CreativeLive class, “Advanced Drum Production” on January 16-18. Over the course of three days, we covered everything there is to know about recording and editing modern rock/metal drums—and even had the legendary Sean Reinert (Cynic, Death) join us in the studio.

The class was an exhausting three days, but I’m really proud of how it came out and we had just shy of 10,000 people watching live. Pretty cool!!

The big takeaway from the class is simple: EVERYTHING MATTERS. Any given “drum sound” is the product of everything you see above in The Tone Pie™—a lot of kids want a magic bullet, aka “the one big secret to great drums sounds,” but there just isn’t one.

It’s not about this mic, or that preamp, or those samples. It’s the sum total of a million little decisions, which all add up to what you hear on the recording.

If you like or don’t like what you hear, and you want to know what’s going on, go back to the Tone Pie. Yes, it’s complicated, but if you use the Tone Pie as your guide, you won’t go wrong.

From there, I went straight to NAMM, like a lot of people reading this. Lots of people complain about NAMM, but I love it because it’s like a high school reunion and I get to see what the bar is for new gear.

CreativeLIVE ‘Music & Audio’ executive producer Finn McKenty, producer Sam Pura, and the talent.

And, of course, it’s a great place to network. I see a lot of people trying to “close deals” on the show floor, which in my opinion is the wrong way to go about. It’s great when things work out that way, but you shouldn’t try to force it or you’ll just be that annoying, pushy guy (which is pretty much the worst possible way to come off in the music industry). I look at it as planting the seed for the opportunities that will grow and mature over the course of the next year. Don’t worry about “closing a deal” then and there; just say hi, introduce a potential idea, and go from there.

As always, if you want to ask me any questions about recording or songwriting, hit me up in the comments below or on my Q&A Tumblr.

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