As we find ourselves at the end of the month, I just wanted to remind those of you who were thinking about subscribing and downloading Volume II that the clock is ticking. In less than twelve hours from now, Volume II will be yanked from the shelves and replaced with the much anticipated and highly touted, Volume III. By subscribing before midnight (EDT), you'll have the chance to download over 200 loops in the next 24 hours... all for the stupidly low price of $9.95.
For those of you n...
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OK, enough with the dorky mathematical fusion and spacey jazz loops. I can't let things get totally lame around here, so it's time to bring back some rock. I don't want Lemmy to cancel his yearly subscription.
[caption id="attachment_3695" align="alignleft" width="199" caption="Lemmy - Subscriber since \'09"][/caption]
Loop #86
For today's loop, I recorded the drums as dry as possible.... which means I brought out the t-shirts again and covered up half of the snare. I recorded this w...
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While cleaning up my studio and preparing for the big move, I stumbled across a folder of notes and lesson materials from my Berklee days. Inside this folder was everything from Max Roach solo transcriptions, to South Indian rhythmic cycles, to 4-way independence studies. Flipping through the pages of sheet music was like stepping into a time machine and being transported back to the grimey, unventilated practice studios on Mass Ave. Awh, the good old days.
[caption id="attachment_3657" al...
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It's almost as if it were a sign from God. I was driving around earlier today, trying to think of something interesting to record and desperately scanning the FM dial for some inspiration. Then, out of nowhere, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Well, a ton of bricks drenched in obscene amounts of reverb.
[caption id="attachment_3619" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tommy Aldridge - Reverb and Aqua Net"][/caption]
"Is This Love" by Whitesnake. One of the penultimate power ballads ...
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I've recently received a lot of requests for more reggae loops. Some via email, some via the comments section and some via the hippie who decided to camp out in front of my house and play his djembe all night. To prevent any sort of rogue drum circle from forming in my neighborhood, I spent the majority of today laying down new reggae infused loops.
I began by setting the click to 166 BPM and experimenting with different delays on the snare channel. As I've mentioned before, this is a tr...
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Loop #82
Well, not totally backwards... but I did displace the traditional bembe bell pattern by two eighth note triplets. Does this really matter? Nope. I think the Afro-Cuban police will let it slide.
It's one of those grooves that can be felt in 3, 4 or 6/8. Throw this under your next arrangement of "Afro Blue" or "My Favorite Things" and let the 20 minute modal improvisation begin. If this groove has you foaming at the mouthpiece for more, you can get the complete set of fills a...
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There seemed to be a lot of interest in the mambo loop I posted a few days ago, so I figured I'd share this concert footage from 1959 of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers live in Paris. Even FASTER than the original recording, this version of A Night In Tunisia will show you why Art was one of the greatest drummers to ever walk the planet.
Be sure to check out the ending. Pure Rock and Roll! I'm pretty sure if Art had access to a 60" Paiste gong, some kerosene and a match, it may have s...
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Excessive crash cymbals? Check.
Excessively large 2B drum sticks? Check.
Excessive amounts of reverb? Check.
Excessively loud brass snare drum with coated blackdot heads? Check.
Excessively nerdy gear checklist. Check.
[caption id="attachment_3545" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Excessive bass drum diameter"][/caption]
Loop #81
Why just use a touch of compression on the bus when you can throw limiters on every individual track? This loop comes from the "more is mo...
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