lately I have been working on ways to make mine and my partner (artist Chae Hawk’s) performances more interesting and more then just a “two turntables and a mic” show. We had always thought a band would have been dope, but I insisted if we were going to take any jumps to do something a little differently then other rap artists out there. Seeing the flaws in most other “Electronic” based acts (as hip-hop is electronic music as we all know) I knew we needed a traditional band layout with an unconventional twist.
Since we are pretty hip-hop based, we decided to make the jump to getting a drummer, yet this time on an electronic drum kit. The setup is essentially midi out onto a sound card wired to ableton live. We set templates up for the drum kit pre-made to the song, and on the turntables we put backing tracks that I can now manipulate on the decks live alongside the drummer’s use of the real drum sounds found in our songs. I don’t really need to go into detail though, I’m pretty sure we’re the first to do this in this context and I have to say it took a long while to get confident with, but it is MAD FUN and blows people away like none other. We did a benefit for a local high school to test it out in a live “larger” venue and it went great. You’ll see it below.
So enter Mikey T to my Team Radio crew, and we’re now officially a band with soon occasional guests.
I just wanted to show you guys what I’ve been up to. We hope to be able to get out and tour a little bit this summer between my residencies, so if you’re reading this and throw a party that you think we could kill…hit me up because we’re down!
For the rest, here’s a video/epk for you all to check out and see the drum kit in action alongside the group (consider it a lil preview): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-jWLep_N_8
and a mixtape I did a lil while ago to help promote
Yeah man I DJed a party they were at, very different then us of course but they’re doing their thing. I saw they were touring too which is always a good look…best of luck to them…we’ve got a pretty overlooked scene here in Buffalo so it’s tight knit as a result.
ugh, i was just thinking about how cool it would be to do this.
but honestly I would use an acoustic drum set. unless you are running a $5k roland set with mesh heads and multi touch cymbal pads, i personally don’t think another electronic set would sound good enough live. concept sounds good though.
on a side note, alot of drummers use acoustic sets with several digi pads thrown in to add numerous effects. might be something you guys would consider.
sorry i’m just totally anal about the sounds of drums.
The sound of the drum kit isn’t controlled by the drum kit, which is what makes this setup possible. I use MIDI out onto my laptop and control the sound from my laptop. Those mesh heads are over-rated btw…the toms don’t feel like toms at all…IMO. acoustic is cool, sure, but why follow the rest and do the same, when we could stay true to our sound? these days people want to hear the records they know when they see a band live. this way we sound like the originals yet with fills and improvisation that hiphop and other forms of electronic music can’t normally have. the sounds on the roland drum sets are not customizable until you get into the 5k set, or buy a discontinued Yamaha from a year or two back.
Essentially…no actual audio is sent from the drum kit…just MIDI.
but yeah…the sound is top notch considering it’s all coming out of my laptop’s external sound card (no, not some cheesy 1/8th inch shit into a massive PA but XLR out on a decent card). this way you’ll have a LOT less issues with drums (sound guy doesnt need to mic shit) and it’s digital, all sounds pre-made in a studio monitoring environment. can’t beat it.
You should use some drum sounds from the likes of the Art of Noise, Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, etc. Go super old school for a track. Get some breakin’ going on in the pit!!
Using the kit as a MIDI controller is a great idea, be sure to get some awesome acoustic sounds for it along with the other sounds. If you need some, I’ve got about 6 gigs of reason refills and there are some solid acoustic sets that can be used.
got a pretty decent sound. some of the the vocals are a bit Popish. I was hopeful that the sound would continue on from how the into sounded. For the most part the beats are top notch and the production quality is amazing. But like I said the vocals are too popy and generic. Sorry to say you fall just short of amazing and fall in around pretty good. I could see coming back and listening to this every once in a while. But it wouldn’t be getting frequent rotations.
OK after listening to whats on MySpace and seeing the video. The vocal sound in those is awesome, how ever content still fails. So the project gains a few points. But ultimately falls short by a little still. Still sounds like a damn high level to start at.
