Sounds like the title of a dystopian future novel, right? Well, it is, if we are talking about everyone’s life being a story they write as they go. This is something I have felt strongly about for some time, and I wanted to put this out there, for anyone that would care to read. The world we live in today is riddled with elitism (ie; the advocacy of the elite or high end/top quality/best as a dominating element in our society and social realms). More specifically to what I want to address is the way musicians, sound professionals, and people in the music and audio circles look down on others not using the most name checked or high profile gear. For drummers, the easy namechecks are DW, Zildjian, Remo, etc. For sound people, it’s EAW, Turbosound, QSC, Allen & Heath, etc. And there is nothing wrong with any of that gear. What is wrong is that if you don’t use that gear, you are often looked at as being less than, and that is the ugly truth. I try not to use absolutes as there are certainly exceptions, but for the most part, you are immediately considered sub-standard.

For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus more on the sound people. When you are new in the game and get inspired to start doing sound at any capacity, the first thing we all tend to do is start drooling over all of the coveted top tier gear and start imagining what we could do if we won the lottery. Nothing wrong with that, but for the majority of us that don’t actually win the lottery (or even play it) we end up right back here at startsville (the start if you really need me to spell it out). In our quest to become the best sound people ever, most of us ask advice from sound professionals we meet or admire. You hear alot of “whatever you do, make sure in invest in quality equipment.” On it’s own, it’s not bad advice, but most of us are working hard to just get by, we don’t have the funding to buy all quality gear at the start.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I personally have always had to work my butt off for everything I have ever had. Not saying there were not occasional niceties or a surprise gift here or there, but by and large, most everything was hard fought. I have never really had much money to my name. I have generally had to work with budget and low quality everything for most of my life. I learned how to make the most of my money and the things I could afford and it taught me a great number of invaluable lessons. Worse for me is sound was second to my primary money-pit, being a drummer. Even worse is that I loved the more progressive stuff and liked bigger kits, so my sound budget was always the last consideration. But that’s just me.

So here we are, new motivated sound engineer in the making, ready to get some gear and become a great sound person. So you pulled money aside from a few months of paychecks, sold some stuff you weren’t really using, got birthday money, mowed lawns, and on and on and on. So look at your sound gear fund and you have $600. Wait, that’s just me. I am going to assume you are better at life than me and had some cooler stuff just sitting around the house to sell. So you have $2,000 as a starting budget. If you asked the sound elites, they would tell you to keep saving and get something decent. I don’t know if that is right or wrong for you, but in my eyes, they just told you to keep dreaming until you can afford to be a sound person. We live in such a time that audio technology has really come a long ways and there are many cheap options out there that would rival or handily beat anything that alot of your favorite old recordings had when they were made. Not to mention that life is not guaranteed. If you want to do something, do it. Right now.

So okay, you are going to start your sound adventure today! Awesome! So what do you need? Obviously, some kind of mixer. At your budget, analog is your best bet, and probably the easiest way to learn as you work. You will need something big enough to use for bands, so at least a “12 channel” board (which usually means 8 mono channels and 2 stereo channels). You could go Allen & Heath for about $950, but then you have no budget for any speakers after cables and a few industry standard mics. You could go Yamaha which is pretty much the industry standard in anything they make. You can get the Yamaha MG16XU for about $630. Solid board. Or, you can get the knock off of that Yamaha board on Amazon called the Y-16 for $290. Plenty of other options, these are just a few.

So then you need a few main speakers. Mid level speakers could easily suck up your entire budget. Just for 2 powered 12″ or 15″. I would say for the purposes of starting and really just going forward, powered speakers are the way to go. Passive gear is generally cheaper, but then you have to buy power amps and extra cabling that makes it more expensive in the long run and if the power amp(s) fail, your whole system is useless. At least if one powered speaker fails, you still have the others. That said, after main speakers, you still should look at 2 monitors at minimum, and at least one subwoofer. That just isn’t possible buying big name brand. To me even if your gear doesn’t have the big name, if you have working gear, you can do the gig.

Some great options at lower price points are Rockville (which I still personally use) and the long time budget friendly company, Peavey. With Rockville, you could get two powered 15s with stands, 2 powered 12s, and a 15″ powered sub for about $1350. Pyle makes knock of SM57 mics (PDMIC78) that work well for just about anything (vocals, drums, guitar amps) and sells them for $22 on amazon, and I can attest that they sound pretty close to the real thing. Behringer makes a 2 pack of mini pencil condenser mics (C-2) that sound great for overheads, pianos, acoustic guitars, and even choirs for $60. One of the best sounding bass drums mics I have heard is the Behringer BA 19A that sells for $80 and gives the $250 Shure Beta 91A a run for it’s money!

For around $2,000, you could build a versatile PA that could get you working immediately and sounds good in capable hands. Even as a starting system, that PA would get you out and earning and growing your business and career. I can say that because it’s exactly how I launched my own career. I am still not rich by any stretch, but my business is growing, my clients love the sound they get from me and keep referring me to new clients, and all the while, I am not using anything from the elite approved gear list, but somehow, I am thriving and making positive moves every day as opposed to waiting for an empty future to one day let me start working on my dream. If you want something, don’t let anyone hold you back. Even if it’s little moves at a time. Your time is right now, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune! Don’t just dream about the future. Start living it today!

Let’s talk about ambidexterity in drummers. Ambidexterity is just a wordy way of saying using both hands in a dominant way. In drumming that means that you can lead or accent with either hand. Most of us have a dominant or preferred hand to use primarily. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing the tried and true cross armed technique. We generally as drummers, assign our dominant hand to the hi hats, and the non-dominant hand to perform the basics like the backbeat on the snare drum. I do this myself (most of the time). If you spend your entire life playing this way, I would not have a bad word to say about it. There is more beyond this, however.

Through the years, oddball drummers have popped out of the woodwork and challenged the traditional drum set norms. Left handed drummers playing on right handed set ups or drummers playing on odd or mirrored setups. Drummers like Gary Husband (Level 42), Simon Phillips (Session Great/Toto), and Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band) are a few notable examples. For me personally, Carter Beauford really opened my eyes to the benefits of “open handed” playing.

As a right handed player on a right handed kit, the benefits immediately opened up for me. If you can train yourself to play even semi-advanced patterns with your left hand on hi hats, and even being able to somewhat move between hats and snare, it opens up your dominant hand to take care of anything on your right side, with no interference from yours left. No crossed arms to get in the way. With some more development and experimentation (and of course tons of practice time to unlock those mechanics) you can begin to share lead duties between both hands, trading off hands in the middle of fills, beats, or rudiments, to create an economy of motion and placement. Tied together with a well designed and placed setup and good posture and stick technique, you can really open up sonic options and maximize your mobility around the kit. Check out the video below to see how ambidextrous playing can really benefit your playing.

So what’s left to tell
Retracted rumors
We buy and sell
Our own lies
At a great price
At a steal

Taken chair, to sit a spell
Falling back to
A prison cell
I won’t lie
I am failing
I will fail

Give me time
To find the will
To find the strength to
Carry on
I’ll mend in time
These wounds will heal
Sing my song
To find my feet
To find my way home
All in all
I am not dead
May not mean much but it’s
Something to be said

Back to eyes for eyes
A blind failure
To compromise
Without vision
We are losing
We are lost

What about the golden rule?
We punish our friends
For suffering fools
Too lightly
This immunity
Is the enemy

Give me time
To find the will
To find the strength to
Carry on
I’ll mend in time
These wounds will heal
Sing my song
To find my feet
To find my way home
All in all
I am not dead
May not mean much but it’s
Something to be said

Copyright © 2012 Christopher Michael McKinney. All rights reserved.

I don’t want to
Forget my past
Memories fade
As the moments pass
I have regrets
But you know
I’d live them
All again

The time that heals us
Can make us fond
Of the moments
We’ve left behind
I need to say
There is no pain
That I would
Wish on you

I cannot judge
Because I don’t hold
The missing pieces
To make you whole
In some
Forgotten corner
Deep inside
Your soul

Is there something
That you need said
It’s hard to tell
Locked inside my head
I leave the rest
Up to you
The keys are
In your hands

Copyright © 2021 Christopher Michael McKinney. All rights reserved.

Out of phase or maybe
Just a lost frequency
I cannot tune into
Transmissions of you

Tried to scan the bandwidth
All across the spectrum
Lost in translation to
Transmissions of you

Receiving on all channels
Static robs the meaning
Corrupted filters turn askew
Transmissions of you

Calling out
Sending doubt
As to where we parted ways
Receiving some
Confusion from
These transmissions of you

Copyright © 2009 Christopher Michael McKinney. All rights reserved.

And so it begins
This is the journey
Another adventure
Whose end is uncertain
This troubled mind can’t be
Bothered to imagine
What set me on this course
And where it will take me
I hope that it’s better
Than where I have been…

So what should I say?
My thoughts could betray me
The actions I’m seen in
Could be mistaken
And though I mean well
Perceptions will vary
The echoes of my life
Don’t often reflect inside
This negativity
Can get carried away

I’m taking my time
As much as is given
I am not in control
But I’ll choose what I can
My dreams are immense
As is my ambition
I will live what I can
And write down the rest
Don’t hold it against me
If nothing is left

It’s not the ending
It’s the Journey
[Where are you going?]

Copyright © 2023 Christopher Michael McKinney. All rights reserved.

I would like to preface this by saying that we live in an amazing age of electronics and audio technology. In and of themselves, these marvels are amazing tools for us to make great music with great ease, and when used as a tool, they are great things. The dark side to this technology is that it can easily overwhelm and take over the art. Technology is not meant to create the human art. It is meant to capture and enhance. I personally love electronic music and the moods it can create, so long as there is a human there, manipulating the technology to get his or her art across. So it’s clear, I love the modern music technology, so long as it is not the source of the music.

That said, I have no real desire to spend any time talking about the people generating prefab or programming “beats” or drum loops to take the easy way out in making music, or using electronic drum sets (which is also kind of cheating, though I understand the reasoning many use them to get their drums tracked. I am instead going to focus on the keys to recording great drums in the traditional sense of recording a drummer playing acoustic drums. With the technology available, I think just about anyone with a computer of some sort, a few mics, and some way to get them into your recording device or software, can easily record themselves playing drums. Here are some keys to get the best our of your recordings whether you are tracking in a major studio, in a smaller project studio, or in your parents garage.

1) TUNE YOUR DRUMS

You might think this is a pretty basic concept but for many drummers, this gets neglected. I can’t tell you how many drummers I have met with DW drums with gold hardware, brand new heads, looking amazing and sounding like absolute garbage. The beauty of drums is that they don’t have to be in perfect pitch to sound good, but tuning is important. Depending on your personal preferences and the song you are recording on, there are a near infinite number of ways that you can tune your drums and have them sound incredible. Head choices play a part (and should be considered for what you are going to record), the drum shells also play a part, and the room you are tracking in plays a part. You should start by getting each drum head tuned pretty close to the same pitch at each lug. I personally feel like you should develop an ear for pitch, but if you use a device or app, more power to you. Again, it doesn’t have to be a perfect pitch, so long as the drum sounds good to the ear when struck. Keep in mind that microphones are going to pick up sounds more accurately then the human ear will. If you faintly hear some oddball sound or buzz on your own, it will certainly be there on playback. The simple way to think about it is Good Input = Good Output. If it sounds good to your ears, it will likely sound good recorded as well (though there are always exceptions to that rule).

2) MUFFLE SLIGHTLY IF NEEDED

Before we dive in here, it is always best to get as much as you can from your drums. You can always do things in post to take away, but it’s very difficult to add anything. If you can, it is best to record your drums without muffling, or if anything, a slight muffling (maybe to control overtones or tame a frequency in a room). I personally play live and record with strips of Electrical Tape on my toms and snare because it really does not change the sound of the drums, save for tamping down stray high end frequencies and focusing the drum ever so slightly. Much more subtle than moon gel, which I find shortens the decay of your drums considerably, or O-rings which essentially turns your drum into a great sounding bucket. Your personal preferences come into play here, and there may be certain songs or situations where you want more muffling to achieve the sound you are after. I don’t want to chastise muffling your drums, but just remember, the more you take away before the microphone captures it, the less you have to work with in your recording. You can always EQ the drums to get the sound you want and less of what you don’t (to a point).

3) MICROPHONES AND PLACEMENT

So, now your drums are all set up in the recording space and sound great to your ears. Now, you need to Mic these bad boys up so you can get in the mix! Thankfully, you don’t have to spend a fortune on drum mics, or even necessarily need a bunch of mics to get a great drum sound. We live in an amazing age of technology for musicians and there are so many choices of microphones of any type and budget that will get the job done! I won’t get into specific mics this time around. Instead, I would prefer to talk about some placement options and what they do for you.

“Letting It Breathe” – You can capture a a nice general drum sound with this technique. Essentially, you mic the kick drum, and put up one or two pencil condenser or large diaphragm mics overhead, and a bit further away than usual to capture the overall sound of your drumkit as a collective. This configuration doesn’t allow for much mixing of individual parts, so it relies heavily on dynamic and musical playing, but for advanced drummers that enjoy a more airy and organic sound, this is still a very popular way to mic drums. This is also a very popular way of recording live drums on a limited number of channels.

“The Core 4” – This is kind of an extension of the “Letting It Breathe” configuration, and adding in a snare mic. The overheads also get back to a more normalized distance. It should be noted that anytime you use more than one overhead, you should make sure the overhead mics have an equal distance from the snare drum to avoid any major phase issues. The core 4 is probably one of the most commonly used micing setups for tracking drums in live situations or where there are a limited number of channels available. It is popular in rock music in particular where the thinking is Kick, Snare, and everything else.

“Live 5/6” – This was pretty popular back in the late 80s, and through the 90s. Most drummers were using 4 and 5 piece kits, so it made sense to try and get some control over the toms individually and really fill out the mix without going too crazy on mics. Typically, they mic’ed Kick, Snare, Rack Tom, Floor Tom, and an overhead (or two for the live 6). If you have three toms, they around stick a mic between two and one on the other drum that was by itself. This two for one mic deal works best with rack toms, as they are higher pitched and often require less EQ. Floor toms are best individually mic’ed to get the most out of them. Overheads can either be used to grab mostly cymbals, or to fill out the sound with the mid range opened up a bit for a “live” sound.

“Studio Direct” – The typical direct micing situation a studio uses is one mic per drum, and two overheads. Sometimes a snare gets an underside mic as well, and other variations, but for the most part, each drum is directly miced and the cymbals get two overheads. Larger kits may often add in a third overhead to make sure the cymbals get a balanced and complete representation. Hi Hats and rides may also get their own mics. For me, I typically record without a hi hat mic or ride mic. I tend to go for a balanced but equal cymbal sound (and my hi hat work cuts quite well on it’s own). Every drum gets an individual mic, as does Kick, and two overheads for cymbals. I find this is the best standard micing situation for most recordings (at least for me).

Now placement is a pretty debated subject, and there is lots of room for you to experiment, and figure out what works best for you. The more recent trend is for direct micing to aim flat at the drum head, about two inches inside the rim. I prefer the old school method of aiming into the center of the drum but that is just me. As mentioned before, make sure you keep your overheads an equal distance from the snare drum to avoid phase issues. If you have lots of toms, or may want to think about using a gate on each one to help separate them (or anything that might bleed over). I think gating your snare is crucial. Speaking of snare, mic placement is wide open here, but if you want a more direct sound, mic about an inch above the rim and aim into the center. If you want a more open sound, move the mic back from the rim about an inch and a half, still aiming at the center of the head. In conjunction with a bottom snare mic, this can really open up the drum and give you more or less articulation. For the kick, closer to the beater inside the drum gives you more attack and direct sound. More towards the port hole (if you have one) gives you more of a round shell sound.

4) DYNAMIC PLAYING

I cannot stress enough to you, that you are the most important part of your drumming. Recording or otherwise. Your passion, playing, feeling, and dynamics create your performance, and that performance is the real art. The gear are the tools you use to create and capture your art, but it is not the art. You are the artist! Just like a paintbrush or canvas board is not the painting, your drums and microphones are not your music! The best or worst gear in the world can do nothing without your performance! Make whatever music you track on come alive with your playing! Your musical voice is the most important part of the whole recording process. Ultimately, that is what will shine through on the track. Not the gear, not the drums themselves, but your voice. If you keep that in mind, there is nothing that you cannot accomplish! I have heard masterpieces played on junky kits and I have heard crap played on insanely expensive kits. Nice gear makes it easier to express yourself, but there is no limit to what an artist can do on whatever gear they use, if it comes from the heart! The music is in you, not your gear!

In summary, these are the most important keys to success in my mind. There is plenty of other stuff that I could vamp on, but at the end of the day, the keys to success in making a good drum recording are the following. Make the most of your gear (IE; Tune your drums, muffle if needed, make good head/cymbal/tuning choices for the music you are tracking for), make the most of the space you are tracking in (tuning for the room, muffling again if needed, microphone setups and placement), play dynamically, and the most important, have fun and remember that you are the artist! Let your musical voice shine and make the music sound it’s best!

– Chris McKinney

I would like to dive right in with a big word. Ambidexterity. This simply means the ability to use both right and left hands equally well. With drummers in particular, this is a very useful skill. Most of us learn to depend more on one hand from our early days and that becomes our dominant hand. A majority of people are right handed. It determines a lot of things, including how we set up our drums and how we move around them. Most of us assign our non-dominant hand to simple duties, such as playing back beats on the snare drum. There is nothing wrong with that, but what if we could open up our playing, or change job duties of different hands at different times? Think of the possibilities.

I am not the first to imagine this. Open handed players are less of an oddity these days, but I think it is still considered a rarity. Some drummers are fully committed to this approach. Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band), Gary Husband (Level 42), and Simon Phillips (Toto) are just a few more famous examples of open handed players. What about those of us who are already locked into that cross hand thing? There is hope. With patience and training you can develop your weak hand to get more out of it. I myself fall into this category, but while I might not be able to sign my name with my left hand, I am able to switch up after years of practice and working on my less dominant hand. With enough time and developments, you can open up some cool things such as left and right call and response, leading with your weak hand, or swapping lead hands.

By far the greatest gift that ambidextrous playing offers is the ability to hold the grove no matter what else you are doing on the kit. Keep the high hat and snare going while in the middle of a long drawn out drum fill. Dual ride/hat patterns are now possible. A more casual benefit that I use often is being able to interplay between the ride and hi hats in both continuous patterns as well as counter rhythms and poly rhythms when I am getting more adventurous. Here is a great example of how a little help from the weak hand can help really make life easier as a drummer! I encourage you to challenge yourself to work up that other hand and open up even more possibilities for yourself!

– Chris McKinney

I would like to talk about that thing that no one likes to talk about or admit that even exists. The elephant in the room for most of us (especially musicians and artists in general). Ego. For most people, when they even hear the word, they run for cover in a defensive dash, in preparation for getting called out or fear of receiving some ill derived toxic criticism. The term itself has taken on a negative status in our modern day of righteous indignation and virtue signaling (and other such deflections and redirections). So what is the deal with that damning term, “Ego?”

The almighty Google defines Ego as; “A person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.” In and of itself, that really isn’t a bad thing. The street meaning of Ego takes on a bit more negative view. That version reads more like; “A person’s false sense of self greatness and overly exaggerated self importance, often derived from an abundance of character flaws and negative intent.” I would like to hereby dismiss the widely accepted common version and get back to the real thing. I think it is important to have a good ego. Ego derives from your sense of self but translates into everything you do. I have a friend that put it in a great context for me many years ago, when I had mentioned that I did not want to be seen as egotistical. He said, “You need enough ego go out and put on your A game every time. However, anything more than that is a waste.” That stuck with me and I think it is right on.

It really is okay for you to have a good opinion of yourself. You should strive to be happy in and of yourself. If you aren’t, I encourage you to work on whatever is keeping you feeling that way. That is not to say that you should worship yourself, as that is pretty dangerous, but it’s okay to feel good about yourself. It’s sad that we live in an age where someone would even have to tell you that it’s okay to like yourself. It’s also healthy to always re-evaluate yourself, identify your issues, and work on them, but self loathing is a killer. Strive for the best you, daily, but like what you do good, and like who you are. You were given the unique gift of you, and it’s up to you to be a good steward [to manage and/or look after] of that gift.

More specifically to the musical end, you need a solid ego to play at your best, every time you sing or play your instrument(s). Confidence is a great quality. Cockiness is less admirable. The difference primarily comes from their use of ego. A strong ego used to put on a great performance falls under confidence. A strong ego used to outperform or make others look inferior would fall in the cocky category. At the end of the day, are you more interested in serving the band and music, or yourself? An ego check can help you re-align, and it’s never too late to get right.

So, what if someone plays more than they need to on a song, doesn’t that make them egotistical? Not necessarily. Again, what is their intention and what is their execution? There is nothing wrong with using your talents and abilities. Everyone has their own ideas about what is good and what is too much, but at the end of the day, if it works in the music, then it’s all good. I think some tolerance for personal expression is a good thing. I hear belly-aching from musicians sometimes about bands or other musicians, and it usually leads to an often misunderstood and over used word. “Pretentious.”

Google defines pretentious as; “Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.” This ties in with the ego discussion is it stems from a negative use of ego. We live in a day and age however, where so many seem to get upset when they see anyone else succeeding or even attempting to succeed. This also is detrimental as it has led to so many trying to ruin others they see as making any progress. We as a society should really start taking a look in the mirror. A little more tolerance could do wonders for everyone. And as a musician, I am often inspired by those that have something to offer or that make it. I have a hard time understanding the constant contempt for anyone that would do well.

So, where do we stand after we look at ego, and the negative and positives derived from it? At the end of the day, you should always strive to be the better you, and all that you pursue. There is nothing wrong with confidence and believing in yourself. You should feel good about you. With that, you should try to remain humble and be considerate of others, but know what you offer and know yourself. Represent yourself and never be afraid to better yourself and reach for the stars. Have the security in yourself to appreciate the success of others, even if it’s not your cup of tea, and who knows, maybe you can even learn something from them. If your intentions are good, you can yield good results from them. Don’t be afraid to check yourself and re-evaluate, but remember to like yourself. After all, you know you best, and you can make a great person with the hand you have been dealt, even if you have to work around some things [as we all do]. I believe in you, so there is a start right there. Get your ego right, and show the world who you are!

– Chris McKinney