Damian KICKS ASS in Studio!

So we’re done with the drums and it feels like they just flew by. I dunno if that’s a good thing or not but it was an interesting experience to say the least. I’ve recorded drums only a handful of times and it was usually 2 or 3 songs a day, which wasn’t the case this time around (although we did end up doing more than 1 song a day) as we planned on tracking a song a day.

Things started off smoothly but as you probably know they don’t always stay that way, so there were a couple of issues but we pushed through them. One thing I do remember from the recording experience and the room I was recording in was that it was fricken HOT! Summer plus drum room equals me being a sweaty mofo but I think I made up the kg’s I lost sweating in Cloud studios by eating a whole bunch of crap during these holidays. I’m not 100% sure what I’m supposed to be talking about in this little paragraph, seen as it’s another first for me but lets talk drums!

I used a Mapex M birch kit for this recording, which we completely re skinned excluding the resonant skin of the bass drum. We used REMO Emperor batter skins and standard Ambassador resonant skins on the toms which were a 10 inch rack (mounted on a snare stand) and a 16 inch floor tom (with legs). The bass drum was 22 inch where we used a clear powerstroke 3 and the snare was a 14 piccolo with a coated powerstroke 3 on top. Pretty standard stuff if you ask me. I’ve been experimenting with different tom setups and realized that the old school jazz vibe of “one up, one down” works for me. It means my second rack tom gets replaced with my floor tom, which I love the sound of, and I get to use my snare a bit more when working out the fills for certain sections. The real truth of the matter is…
…well there’re 2 reasons.

1; the venues here (South Africa) almost never have a 10 (inch) and a 12 (inch) tom so I thought let me just get used to using either. My personal preference would be to use 10 rack and 16 floor but most of the time I’ll have to use a 12 instead of a 10 which I’m trying to get used to, it’s just a little more distance to cover when doing fills. Oh yeah! The other reason is I’m lazy, I’d call it efficient but yeah, the fewer things I have to carry to a gig the better. I’m sure all you drummers out there will agree.

Ok, so onto cymbals. Now I have to start off thanking a few people, mainly Sean (Nunan), Sebastian (Guile) and Kyle (Gray) thanks so much guys. I used mainly Zildjian cymbals, both my crashes and hi-hats were zildjian but I used a few other makes as well, which include a Sabian (AAX metal) ride and splash and a Wuhan China.

I rocked my awesome pearl elims on this recording. One thing I’ve realised about pedals is that the more time you spend playing them the better. I’ve had some popo (shitty) pedals in the past but I got to a certain stage even with them that I felt comfortable.

That’s pretty much it from me, all in all it was an awesome experience recording with friend and fellow band member Dean Bailey, he definitely cracked his whip and stood up to his reputation but in the end what we were left with are some awesome takes. Thanks Deanius!!! You the Man!!!

- Damian Rijkers

(Photo’s by Robin Bernstein)

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