Drum Tech POV | Starting a New Gig
Waddup, dudes :) Welcome to Season two of the Drum Tech POV series! Same job. Different band. I apologize for the wait! I had to get comfortable with a new work flow and a new crew before I brought the camera out. I had to prove that I'm here to work and not to make content, ya feel??? Word is out that i'm the YouTube guy lol Anyway... Catering I don't usually eat breakfast, but today I was feelin' famished. Just a little plate to get the day started. Will he grab a DC??? Mental battle...
I'll go with a juice. ...for now ;) I'm in early, so I'm gonna check out the view. Waddup, Cleveland. Check out that backdrop! Wish I was watching the show instead of working it haha Had to fight spiderwebs the whole way down those bleachers. Let's see where the stage is at.
Not looking good for backline. We are very behind today... There's no dock, so the trucks are taking turns dumping gear. And with no dock, there's basically no room on stage to put anything.
Every department is fighting for space, so we really have to work together today to make it happen. I'm outta here for now though lol Let's check and see if there's been any progress. Nope. This is Pip, our stage left guitar tech. I chose a hell of a day to start the series... One hour past our scheduled backline dump.
At least I have something to look at. Tug boat. Nice green water. Bryan, our stage right guitar tech, and I are gonna get the ball rolling. I have to change headds today too... I chose a hell of a day to do that too... lol
This drummer uses Remo P4's on the toms too :) This is usually someone elses job to get gear out of the truck, but today is a different story. Like I said though. We have to work together to make this show happen. Two hours past our scheduled backline dump. Paul, our lead carpenter or "carp" has gotten my drum riser built.
Which means I can finally get to work. This is Paul. This dude is a HARD worker, and always has a good attitude. I have to build the drums from scratch every day on this tour.
We'll start by placing the rug. I have three seperate drum boats. This is "D1" and houses the kick drum and two snare drums. 14" Remo Emperor X for our main snare. We call this "The Chicken". It's really a Phoenix.
I'm working with a very nice SJC kit on this tour. If you saw my interview with Nick DeLaCruz... shhhhh 14"x24" kick drum Mahogany with Maple reinforcement rings on all the shells but the snare drum. 8 lug 6.5x14 Hammered brass snare drum.
I don't know the dimensions on this lil guy. He's just a lil guy. This controls the Porter and Davies drum throne. Vic Firth Extreme 5B drum sticks.
Chicken. Using Kick Blocks and these little velcro things on the rug for mapping. If anyone knows what they are called please let me know in the comments below. There's no branding on them. Cables for kick in, out, and the trigger for the gates. This is my boy "D3" he houses all the hardware.
I'd never used a Porter and Davies throne, but this thing is AWESOME. Popcorn snare stand. The throne has a built in butt kicker so you can feel when you hit the kick drum. So effin cool. Basket mounted rack tom on this gig. Getting the drum riser in place.
DW 5000 Series double pedal. We use the felt side of the beaters on this gig. Also, thats a Clear Powersonic head on the kick drum. These Kick Blocks work really well. I'm going to buy some for the other gig. DW 9000 series two legged Hi-Hat stand. Deck surfing.
All DW 9000 series hardware. The best. You can't change my mind. I put a little piece of green spike tape on the rug and one of the snare stand legs, so that I could remember which way the stand sits. He's just a lil guy. Pretty sure it's a maple shell. Thats about all I know about this drum. Time to change out some skins. Whiping off any gunk or dust on the hoop.
As well as the bearing edge of the drum. Always check that the hardware is secure. Lining up the hoop and tension rods. I greased all these tension rods the day the kit came in. For some reason they don't spin freely still.
It makes it very hard to feel how much tension im applying when tuning. you'll see what im talking about in a second. Seating the head so that it sits on the bearing edge evenly. I'll start with about a full turn on each rod all the way around the drum Watch the left side of the drum. To me it feels like I have even tension but the rods are so tight that I can't tell that the whole left side is probably two turns looser than the right side.
So I start sending it on the left side of the drum lol I become confusion. I just crank the wrinkles out and I'll tap tune. Sounds even to me. 23 minutes until our scheduled line check... Shout out Rock Locks.
These heads have about 5 or 6 shows on them. These rods spin freely. Look how beautiful the inside of these drums look. 8x13" rack tom.
Getting all the rods finger tight. Aaaand there's the white noise from the PA. Seating the head. No point in trying to tune this with all the background noise. I'll move on to the floor toms.
The only reason there's moon gels is because I wanted to unbox the Snare Weights in this video lol All the boats keep ripping their fog horns in the background. 16x16" floor tom You know the drill... They started tuning the PA so I had to cut audio to avoid copyright. I got record and stop backwards after this and didnt get any footage of the 16x18" floor tom.
I am so stoked to work with some Zildjian Cymbals on this tour. Here we have an 18" Oriental China. 21" Sweet Ride. 19" A Custom Projection Crash. 18" K Custom Sweet Crash.
This might be my new favorite crash cymbal. Whoops. Wrong ones... 14" K Custom Light Hats These are definitely my new favorite Hi-Hats.
This is Matius, our audio tech. Our back up snare is a 6.5x14" drum made out of some type of metal. I have no idea but it's thick af and weighs a ton. Can't forget the 6" FX Blast Bell This thing has cables and needs power, so I don't really care to know anything about it other than how to plug it in. This is gonna need some work... It is incredibly hard to tune drums with all this background noise.
I don't have a choice though. Everything is behind, and we're all trying to get our jobs done. I'm getting a weird note, so Im just turning tension rods until I get something pleasant. I can't hear, so I'm just going to move on. This is my second time changing heads on this kit.
The first time was in a studio. A much more controlled enviornment lol Gotta work quick here and take advantage of the silence. Snare needs a lot of work... We're getting close.
There we go. Onto the next. Again, I can't hear so I'm moving on to the next drum. Sorry for all the thigh in this video. I'm getting a bit frustrated at this point. The snare doesn't sound bad, It's just not what im looking for.
I want a fat "splat" with no overtones. For this band i'm tuning for front of house's preferences, not the drummers. That's what the drummer told me to do.
Doin' a little fine tuning, but my ears are pretty shot already. As soon as it gets quiet... of course. Pyro test. Everything is against me today lol Back to business. I'm kind of using the snare rattle to my advantage here. A few of these lugs are making them go crazy. I'm happy with this.
Let's really round out the tones with some brand spankin' new... Snare Weights. We'll go with the M1b on the rack. And I'll put an M80 on each floor tom.
The wind blew the wrapper down the stage. I won't lock the lugs in place until after line check. Now we line check. I love a shallow kick drum. It's so punchy.
He's just a lil guy. The mic wasn't pointing at the center of the head like we like. Front of house was saying that the floor toms sounded too similar though the PA.
So he asked me to tune the 18" drum down more. We must go lower. This crash sounds FANTASTIC.
New season means new sound check song. Who can guess this one??? Comment down below! FOH wanted less overtones on the main snare, so im going to throw an M1b on there as well. I think this is a defective head. This is the 4th snare head change and I've never had to add more than one M80 on it.
Did the trick! Now i'll lock all the lugs up using some Rock Locks. The band will sound check, so no crew jam. :( That means we can take a listen from the pit though! Pretty sure he was complimenting the snare there.
Surely. Now i'll black out the kit. Using this massive fire proof/water proof "parachute". It takes forever. Time for a break..
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!! Time for some dinner. I missed lunch because we were so behind. It's fine though. I had a little breakfast, remember? All the department heads (which is me for backline" had to go to a loadout meeting.
We just discussed the order of operations for load out, so that it would go as smooth as possible. I'll take a little burger patty. Lil slice of cheddar.
Lil bit of mustard. Corn on the cobb always slaps. I'm sending it on the mac n cheese. Whatever.
Limiting myself to one Diet Coke a day, so fizzy water will have to do for dinner. And just like that... it's time for changeover. This thing is such a pain in the ass to get off lol Drums held tune pretty well. Quick line check to make sure everything still works. He's just a lil guy. Okay i'm done lol Because of pyro I can't sit behind the drummer on this tour.
So I hang out stage right with Bryan. As department head I make sure all of backline is ready for show, then relay that to our production manager. Josh runs playback. The band is on their way to stage.
GO FOR SHOW!!! Gotta get to my spot. It's very hard to see the drummer so I have to pay super close attention the whole set. We've got some cryo on this tour! That Oriental China straight rippin' Pyro and cryo at the same time. Hell yeah. AND A T SHIRT CANNON!!! Nice catch, Devin.
Awww come on man... Front of house asked me to tame the snare some more. I've never had to add so much muffling to a drum.
And we've got beach balls for the crowd. I like this song. This song has RGB, gamers. Aaaaand theres toilet paper lol Lot's of crowd participation in this show. This is right before the encore.
I was mouthing "one more song" to the crowd to get a chant going lol Alex approves. Go close us out, boys! And we have confetti cannons! Loud out was hectic and dark, and this video is already close to an hour, so I figured I'd save it for another video. If you're apart of the Start to Finish Crew...
Let me know in the comments below! Where muh dawgs at!?!? Arf Arf What a day man... We got through it and had an AMAZING show though. That's what we're here to do! If you haven't already... please like the video! And consider subscribing! Thank you guys for watching! Im excited to give y'all some new content for the next couple months! See you guys next time!
2024-06-26 22:05
