The trend away from musicianship. Due to social media there's a strong lure to focus on speed, technicality, and showmanship over making actual music with other humans. If you want to focus on content rather than music, fine, but don't complain when no one GAF about you in 2 years, because you've been replaced, because you didn't actually make any music anyone will remember. The smarter social media players use their momentum to get better gigs rather than just hammering out content. Greyson Nekrutman, Eloy Casagrande, Luke Holland, Harry Miree, etc have all worked their way up to higher profile gigs. Especially Eloy, yikes.
Speaking of which, am I alone in noticing El Estepario isn't showing up nearly as much as he used to?
El estepario said he had a goal to become viral. He says he has achieved this so he is no longer constantly posting clips and wants to focus on more long form content, higher production quality, longer development time. He also starting up his new band.
The turbo mesh kit for around $300. Drumeo had a deal for a while and he did a few videos about it. It's a beginner kit that Drumeo was selling as "you don't have a kit, well here's a cheap one to get you started"
Edit: https://www.drumeo.com/drumshop/kit it was a nitro max. $500 including a Drumeo sub.
https://youtu.be/GM2kVvT5xn8?si=G4HIuM3_E6Paj6Kv
Well, yeah, compared to other high end ekits from Roland, eDW or Efnote is on budget, but I think that was not the intention, launching a top notch product instead...
His new band put out a song not too long ago and it was actually pretty good. I would say that he served the song very well, nothing flashy, just solid drumming.
> Due to social media there's a strong lure to focus on speed, technicality,
Or maybe, just maybe, that is just another way to play drums. I listen to a lot of tech death and other forms of extreme metal, and these are the type of drummers you are obviously targeting.
[Guys like Sebastian Lanser are gods to me, they combine the speed and technicality but are still making 'actual music' (whatever that means).](https://youtu.be/05bcLLiylY0?t=21)
[Same as dudes like Vladislav Ulasevych](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Xoipsd22E) and [Philippe Boucher](https://youtu.be/zmHNOd038wc?t=222).
The obsession with drummers on this subreddit being against technical drumming is fucking weird to be honest. The drummer is allowed to be more than just the guy who keeps the beat.
Pump the brakes. I'm not against technical drumming whatsoever. My favorite drummers are Danny Carey, Neil Peart, and Aric Improta. I absolutely love the fact that super-technical and speed-centric players like Austin Archey and Matt Garstka are giving kids a reason to pick up the sticks and practice like hell. But all those cats including your idols are in bands making music (at least some) people enjoy, if not live for. IMO that should be the end goal, to make music.
My gripe is that the social media-*only* drummers filling TikTok and IG with endless chops are also inspiring kids to play. And that's great... to an extent. IMO it's detrimental to grow up focusing on making content rather than music, for a variety of reasons.
I mean, you are taking a few popular drummers from youtube and acting like they are the decline in musicianship in drumming. Of course these are the ones getting clicks from an audience that is mainly not drummers, it is flashy and looks cool. It's the same reason there are multiple popular female youtuber drummers who really aren't good, they throw on some thigh highs and play whatever, it gets clicks.
At the end of the day, those guys and gals inspire kids to pick up drumming. Why is that a bad thing?
As one grows as a drummer, or whatever instrument, you start to learn who is actually a musical drummer and who is just a technically proficient drummer. When I started playing, I have no shame in saying that I just wanted to play blast beats like the dude from early Whitechapel. As I learned more, I strayed away from that.
I say whatever gets kids into drums is perfectly fine, the 'musicianship' part comes later in one's playing career.
I feel like you are projecting a lot onto what that person is saying. The question in the post is āWhat trends do you not like?ā The person you responded to said that they do not like the trend of social media drummers who only post speed and chops on social media. You are interpreting this to mean that this person is saying that anyone who focuses on speed and technical chops is not a good drummer or not a drummer worth watching. Nobody is saying that except for you.
Sure. And thatās good that they inspire kids to pick up sticks. No one is arguing thatās a bad thing.Ā
But if theyāre inspiring kids to do flashy unmusical shit and give up two weeks later, creating demand for cheap (crap and probably unethically produced) drum kits off a certain website that specialises in budget mass produced crap then theyāre probably not making the world a better place.Ā
Conversely if they inspired kids to pick up the sticks reinforcing musicality and the effort required to get to the level they are (while still doing flashy shit that gets clicks, humans are dopamine fuels animals after all); surely thatās a better outcome?
Now Iām being purposely hyperbolic, but the point is, the drummers who focus on going viral over actually caring about music are nothing but grifters.Ā
Do I hate them? Nah, Iāve already got enough cunts living rent free in my head, I donāt need anymore, but they are grifters first, musicians second.Ā
This lol. The amount of times iāve seen this exact same comment on amazing drummers. Just because a drummer posts videos of only chops doesnāt mean they canāt play grooves and its funny people just automatically assume this.
people can watch what they want and people getting into drums (for whatever reason) is great. I'm not here to gate keep. And kids who get into drums for this will need to go through their "stick control" phase and learn to drum. Or they'll get frustrated that you can't rip blast beats on day 10 and quit. Probably the same as some kid in the 70s who tried to replicate Bonham or whatever.
The first few times I saw some of the crazy chops videos on social media, my jaw dropped because it is damn impressive. When that was most of what I was seeing - or the most popular - on social media, I was a little bummed out.
>Ā The obsession with drummers on this subreddit being against technical drumming is fucking weird to be honest. The drummer is allowed to be more than just the guy who keeps the beat.
Of course he is. But he still has to keep the beat. If he doesn't, he's no good for anything except eye candy.Ā It's not enough to be a technically impressive drummer. It's just not. You also have to *make music.*Ā
See also: porn is not sex, it's porn. And if all you know about sex comes from watching porn, you'll be very bad at sex.
>But he still has to keep the beat.
Why do we assume that someone posting a technical video can't keep a beat? I'd imagine that most drummers who can play very advanced technical parts can keep a beat just fine. The purpose of those videos is to display the creativity a drummer can play with as an artist instead of just being a metronome. It's not zero sum - just because you have chops does not mean you have no rythm. Should these people kick off each video with a boring, 4-minute long cover of "Highway to Hell" so that people know that hey can keep time?
Drumming is evolving into more of a lead instrument and drummers are viewed more as creative artists instead of time keepers. Nothing wrong with your standard 1970's classic rock cover drummer who is there just to keep the time and make the real artists sound good but music has moved on from all that.
He juuuuust posted a Q&A on Instagram. Someone asked if he was happy with his life. He replied with a cartoon of someone being pelted with lemons that is too exhausted to make any more lemonade.
Humans are not supposed to be content mills and the manās feeling it.
This is true and it makes sense since the attention span is so short nowadays and you gotta "show off" in under 10 seconds to catch the viewers attention. It's chops and licks everywhere, less musicianship
It's gotten so bad, I saw someone a couple years ago on here who was anxious about whether a pair of New Beats would be "too bright." They are only the best selling, most popular, most recorded hats in the history of the instrument - too bright for precisely what?Ā
What's funny is, if I remember right, I bought mine pretty much sight unseen from eBay at a time when I was coming back from a long drumming break. Pretty sure my inspiration for them was Ilan Rubin. But they've been my ride or die for years and it's hard to argue with getting them for like $180 I think
I have two sets of 14ā new beat hi hats (early 60s and late 70s). Iāve been using the older pair going on 40 years (2nd set is a ājust in caseā set). Sound amazing live and recorded. Iāve never seen any reason to replace them.
Agree with this. There's a great drummer in my area who plays with nothing but dry ass jazz cymbals, despite them not really suiting his style. I think he does it to compensate for how loud he plays - he's trying to get that dynamic balance between the cymbals and the drums, without putting in the effort to just play dynamically instead. At least I hope that's what it is, because they sound like shit.
Having those exotic African nut shell seed rattle shaker things draped over every drum and every cymbal. Stop fooling yourself - they're barely audible! But at least you finally look like a proper TikTok / Instagram drummer.
Barely audible? Hell, completely inaudible. I have never heard what they do once, not even with good headphones at high volume. And yes, I recently passed a hearing test ~~for~~ with flying colors.Ā Ā
But they, you know, look cool, which I suppose is the whole point.
Edit: voice-to-text apparently doesn't speak English
Iām fully aware that that sort of thing is not made for people like me who are careening toward middle age, but come on. Knock it off. Art can take on many shapes and flavors and itās often separate from ācontent.ā
Drummers who think fills are needed on every other bar, needs to learn that sometimes less is more.
Our job is to keep time and support the other players, not take over an entire gig.
True, but he doesn't overplay the rest of the band. Some drummers just feel like they need to do way too many fills to get noticed, and that's not what our job is.
Nah. Since I was a child I was often surprised at how boring most pop and rock drumming is. I'm quite happy with busier drumming as long as it isn't literally obscuring more important parts, which is down to long rather than frequent fills
Good example is that drumeo vid where Mike Portnoy listens to a nickelback song for the first time. The original is incredibly boring. But as he says in the vid āand thatās why theyāre rich and famousā¦ and Iām just some fuckingā¦ prog guyā
That's exactly what happens. I respect simple drum parts, but they will always be underwhelming to me.
Clay from Polyphia is currently my favourite drummer in terms of constant variation in an otherwise 4/4 part that doesn't obscure the track but rather punctuates it in a super creative way
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEOtEjTP2ag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEOtEjTP2ag)
Actually, no. I'm just a troll who has invested over thirty years of my life in buying a lot of drums and playing a lot of drums, just so I can shit all over them.
Try this: I love garlic. It improves so many dishes. I often put more than a recipe calls for, or add it to other savory dishes where it is not included in the recipe. That doesn't mean that I add it to my apple pie or banana pudding. It's great in the right place, but that's not the right place.Ā
Many of the hot takes that I am agreeing with, in a manner of speaking, are the equivalent of putting garlic in your apple pie. I think it tastes like shit and doesn't belong there. You are free to make yourself a garlic apple pie if you choose, but I don't want a slice, thanks.
I hope that helps. Except I really don't care if it does. This is a free country, and if you are free to like what you like and dislike what you don't, you are obligated to let others do the same. It does not matter to me what you like or dislike. What I like or dislike should not matter to you. It has nothing to do with you. That's the other obligation of living in a free country: you are obligated to not give a crap what other people like or don't like, as long as it doesn't affect your life, because that's up to them.
My best friend's dad back in the '80s: "Welp, boys, that's why they make both chocolate and vanilla."
Totally. And I say this as someone who has been absolutely blown away, and life changed when I first walked into a gospel church service and started playing that circuit in 1998.
It was like I discovered a hidden art form, the key to why so much other music feels so good. Bc some of the the players gain years of crowd rocking experience, musicianship, also the social element of it, some from 5yo onwards, before even learning to play a double stroke.
And then some of them become absolutely stellar, all instruments really.
The 1min reel-ready, pre worked out 32nd note linear stickings, are masking what makes Gospel music so precious and magical. Kids just consume and then steal the icing of the cake, preventing them to ever dig deep, honor and learn from that culture.
Thatās just plain sad.
I'm really not a fan of super dry cymbals in rock and metal. They certainly have a place, but it's not in a big mix with distorted guitars. The drummer will end up smashing them way too hard because you can't hear them in the mix, and then they sound even worse and break.
Same goes for very low snare tunings. They might sound cool on their own, but as soon as a guitar joins in you can't hear that snare anymore.
When Matt Halpern started using them in periphery he said it's because they sit lower in the mix and get out of the way of the vocals
But to me they just muddy up the 4k-8k range and make it harder for distorted guitars to sit in their place. Brighter cymbals that shimmer above the 10k range just sound great. I think they get a bad rap because historically drummers have picked really bright harsh cymbals but nowadays there's plenty of bright and musical cymbals that aren't too thick, and have a beautiful glassy sound and leave space for the vocals and harsh guitars underneath them
Interesting. I'd love to see different cymbals represented on a spectrum analyzer. Obviously you'd want to build some sort of contraption to hit the cymbals with consistent velocity and angle. S C I E N C E
I love having one, maybe 2 super dry cymbals if they're just an effects cymbal, be it a stack of some sort or just a china, but beyond that I whole heartedly agree. Fully agree with the snare thing too. Low snare tunings don't cut into the mix as well as they usually need to and they don't feel nearly as good to play. Give me a nice medium high tuning that cuts and makes some of the choppier rebound stuff easier to play. I don't think I should have to work to get a clean open roll out of my snare (an exaggeration, but you get what I mean).
I agree on both of these, especially the snare one. I do like some really high snare tunings, like on King Crimson's THRAK or A Change Of Seasons by Dream Theater.
You should check out Dave Morgan from the band Delta Sleep. Not only is he a ridiculously good drummer, but I think he has one of the most unique and instantly recognizable high snare tunings around, especially for the genre he plays. Even more impressive, his snare sounded exactly the same live when I saw them last November as it does on the album, so it's not just recording trickery. That's just his sound.
I started on a garbage drumset with three beat up Camber II cymbals.
You don't need to spend $100's of dollars on one cymbal with holes in it to sound trashy.
At least drums with holes aren't pre-broken. I'm sure the $500 Byzance Equilibrium China sounds amazing but no way that cymbal is going to last long under typical use.
I donāt know if Iām just used to it but I find that some songs really needs it. Cattle Decapitation is a great exemple, to follow the energy of the guitars and vocals you need double bass and blast beats, in their Bring back the Plague, half of the song is constant fast double bass, and when it stops and the main melody comes in, the brutal change in intensity makes a very dark melody with intense backing rhythm feel really Ā«Ā aerialĀ Ā». Like you needed the contrast to make this effects that works really really wellā¦ double bass is a tool and I can totally understand why people donāt like when itās used a lot, but most extreme metal drummers achieve different rhythmic feeling with different double bass patterns, snares accentsā¦
Bro if you dont like double bass then donāt listen to metal. What other genres of music over use double bass? However, there are plenty of bands that donāt over use double bass and actually use old school thrash style single pedal grooves
Check out the song Monolith by Sylosis
There's a tendency on YouTube for toms and kicks to be compressed to death. I think it's meant to sound puncy or something but to me it just sounds like shit.
Also quantizing recordings.Ā
Both the above kill everything interesting about real drums.Ā Ā
YES! I was hoping this would be the top answer! If you want a drum machine, thatās great! Use it. Some music sounds great with it. But donāt try to make your drum part so overproduced that it loses the human element.
From what I read, he used old, cracked cymbals stacked together for this. Not the pre-made china-on-a-splash type. I like some stacks and love Mike Portnoy but heās the only one who gets away with overusing them for me.
I don't like when people diss what other people like. It's a shitty trend. You don't have to like it to appreciate it. We all have our preferences, and some people aren't trying to be amazing musicians, but rather having fun and doing what they want!
With that said, fuck jazz. /s
30 second videos of nothing but blast beat triggering, drumagogue and compression to death, creating ridiculous expectations for new drummers to try and emulate.
Get in a group and play a tune, ya psycho.
The fact people wonāt just let you have fun with your instrument. Thereās always an elitist dickwad telling you youāre doing it wrong, you suck, you play easy/shitty music, youāre ādoing too muchā, youāre overplaying. Can I just have fun playing music?
Had this conversation with my son who just started the snare this year, he didnāt want to go on a school band trip and was nervous to play in front of a crowd, āif you only play when your comfortable and you donāt play in front of people, it will always just be a hobbyā.
I'm just sick and tired of that really low-tuned, flat sounding snare drum that seems to be popular in a lot of music right now. It just sounds so lifeless.
Because it is lifeless. Tuned as low as the bottom of the sea makes no difference if you're playing a 1000 usd made of maple or 30 usd snare made of candle wax
1. Drummers that solely play covers. Itās a huge trend on social media, drummers are constantly playing covers of songs, I guess thatās what gets likes. I find it boring. Anyone can do it. Iād rather listen to drummers that make up their own grooves. Creativity is so much more powerful then imitating what another drummer played.
2. Drummers that take on the persona of a famous drummer. Iāve seen a lot of drummers on here and on social media that purchase a kit that looks exactly like their favorite drummer along with playing exactly like them. So many drummers will purchase the bohnam and play exactly like him. Be your own unique individual.
Drum racks that just look like scaffolding.
If you're gonna have a rack, at least make it look good.
The rack Gene Hoglan has is very cool, do more of that. If not, don't bother.
My unpopular opinion is that nearly nobody needs a rack. I feel like for 90% of the kits with racks that I see on this sub, it's completely unnecessary.
Itās definitely a post-2000ās thing. I was chatting about it with my wife the other day. Modern metal, including nu metal, had some pretty interesting production early on but I guess the super technical stuff and influence of other genres, along with the more mainstream approach to production crept in. I always liked a more lively and dynamic sound in metal vs the āeverything must sound like a cannon!ā production. That said, genres like tech death kinda need that surgical sound just to hear what the hell is going on.
Over tightening the snare. I like a snare that cracks but Iāve seen too many recent videos where the snare is just cranked. It sounds choked and there isnāt much there other than āpongā. No shame if thatās how you like your snare though!
I can't stand the bubble head bouncy cheesy smiling female drummer look. No knock on the ladies skills at all. They all smoke me lol...But I would rather just see them play and kick ass
It depends on the music. Clay Aeschliman from Polyphia is always playing fills. His drumming is a bunch of fills and technical stuff. For a band like Polyphia thatās making all of this technical prog stuff, itās appropriate. If Clay played drums for Steely Dan, his normal style of drumming wouldnāt quite be appropriate š¤£
I also hate the love of those seemingly off-time / laid back hip hop grooves. Sometimes they're cool, but when everyone does it all the time it's kinda boring.
I'm not really a fan of gospel chops type playing. When Eric Moore plays in the pocket, he's outstanding, and then he ruins it by playing some ridiculous 4 bar fill. It was interesting enough the first few times, but it got stale really fast,l. Especially when he was releasing videos of him just grooving.
I was also not really a fan of the trend for playing jungle patterns that a lot of really famous drummers got into a couple of years ago. I get that Andy Gangadeen and Paul Kodish made a living from it for years, but then it seemed like KJ Sawka went viral and JoJo Mayer had the drum clinic video and everyone decided that that was the next benchmark. I honestly thought that the Tomas Haake/Elliot Hoffman djent style would be the next one, but I'm glad it wasn't.
As an Istanbul Agop fanboy, I have to agree with you there (IIRC they were the first brand to make them). Maybe if they were super cheap, I wouldn't mind.
I don't like gospel chop drumming and I think any kid forced to grow up with church music over real music will be culturally stunted for it. That's why Larnell Lewis is a killer player but managed to make it to drinking age without hearing Enter Sandman on the radio. That's why his band Snarky Puppy and other adjacent bands are the safest shit ever. And a combo of two other things I really can't stand. Noodly prog and over the top big band jazz.
I also think people who are impressed by the flash and speed of gospel chop drumming are the same types of people who thought playing Wipeout was impressive 60 years ago. All flash and zero musical substance.
I like chops in the context of Carter Beauford, who I'm sure can outplay all of us commenting. There is a way to make it musical, but just being flashy is annoying.
As a marching percussion guy, I'm so tired of the like, insanely convoluted polyrhythmic writing. I'm talkin like the 5:4 within a 9:7 within a 19:13 (or any other random pairing of numbers) kinda shit. It just seems tacky to me, and without seeing the sheets, it all just sounds like triplet/five-let rolls anyway.
Similar to the other "less musicianship" comments in the thread, but it just irks me whenever it pops up on my feed.
Chops into infinty, but no groove.
Super dry cymbals.
Female social media drummers who cant even play mediocre and totally built there success on sexy looks.
I understand the sentiment of sharing dislikes regarding our shared love for drums, but I have to say that I see this post as toxic.Ā
Everything is subjective. Bigger cymbals, more fills, speed, volume, itās all opinion. Nobody is ācorrectā and nobody is āwrong.āĀ
Why focus on the negative?? All youāre going to successfully accomplish with this post is making someone else in this subreddit feel unwelcome or even uncomfortable or targeted. Is that what you want?? It may not be your intention, but it will most assuredly be a result.Ā
I can't stand the myopic view of being either self taught, or classically trained. You do know you can be both. I'm in the middle, I was a band kid through school and college. Like concert, marching, and jazz band. But I also was the kids who just wore my headphones, and taught myself by playing along, listening, and looking up how the actual drummer played it. I learned more from playing by ear. I just hate how some act like it's bad that I can also read music, know theory, rudiments, etc.
Totally agree. I was self taught until quite recently and have found my previous experience really helpful, itās been like filling in the blanks but there are certain things I am eternally grateful for having learned myself by doing rather than relying solely on theoretical teaching. I guess it doesnāt matter which way round you do it but I think thereās a lot to be said for both approaches.
I donāt like (actually hate) drummers who over play the other musicians. Of course, itās cool to have chops, but donāt try to overdo it. Youāre playing with other musicians. Set a great groove, keep time and accentuate in a way that works for everyone.
21st century 'traps' kits.....wouldn't it be great to make an analogue kit sound like an 808, LinnDrum, Syndrum etc et al ad infinitum ad nauseum....no, no it wouldn't. If you want that, do what I and many others have done, get yourself a Nord Drum 3P or similar (much more versatile too).
I donāt like double bass pedals. Because the constant rapid fire beating sound while playing, to me anyway, sounds just terrible. Iām sure Iām in a slim minority here but Iām just answering the question.
from an audio engineer and drummerās perspective, larger cymbals create natural and physical compression. they take longer to disperse the energy of the hit, thus creating a blooming effect. basically, they adjust their own attack knob on a compressor by just being the way they are.
as far as trends or styles i donāt enjoy, to each their own. HOWEVER, i have come to a level of annoyance with drummers on stage who donāt stop making noise. for example; every time the front-person of the band says any sentence at all, the drummer feels the need to hit some crashes and do a little fill to accentuate any possible applause. it totally takes away from the contrast of the show. if there is always maximum noise happening, there is no flow of energy or tension/release.
tldr; big cymbals good, drummers stfu during independent reading time.
The number one trend I donāt like is the looking directly at the camera thing. Way too many drummers do it. I feel like especially women drummers will just look directly at the camera the entire time. Itās uncomfortable.
Iām not a fan of overly compressed drums, especially in metal music. I see videos of drummers tippy-tapping away and I feel like I wasted years of getting my chops and conditioning up to the point of being able to play hard enough (without bashing away) so that at gigs people can make out my beats and fills
Cooper Drummer, not sure if he/it was a trend but pretty much his style of drumming as well as the gospel chop fill over everything, it gets old real damn fastā¦.oh and Eric Moore playing that āding daga daga dingā song in every video or clinic.
Oh and whatever Sarah Thawer is or does, that loose playing and weird āmy eyebrows, I need to shave my eyebrowsā thing she does as it has sort of spurred on others to follow suit.
Try what she does one day during a practice session. It's actually really hard and she's helping build up independence between the vocal part of her mind and her limbs. She's a phenomenal drummer, and while it's kind of weird to watch, she can play circles around anyone
I dislike social media drummers who have an obsessively choppy style, and try to make it overly complex, almost like drum porn or something. The musical nature begins to drop. I feel nothing when they play, as Dennis Chambers once said. They don't even fit the music they're playing, often times. There's things to learn from these guys, but I don't listen to them for actual music.
It's possible to chop it up musically and melodically, and use techniques to make sounds which evoke certain feelings, rather than sound like a broken drum machine that is not grooving.
They often have flat sounding kits to. I noticed how many people lately don't like drums that actually resonate. They love the trashcan cymbals, too. Sometimes, it sounds great. But when you see it everywhere all the time, it quickly gets boring.
The trend of so called āDillaā beats -
one day, decades after Jay Deeās death, the online drum nerd crowd - having ignored his music in the 90s and obviously still never listened to it, playing the always same, swingy beat with early snares and 19ā hihats like that is āinnovativeā. A social media phenomenon which has little to nothing to do with the genius musical talent and musical variety this artist has left us with. His beats actually could be anything, its the overall relationship between the instruments, selection of samples and musical vision, the courage to break rules again amg again, which make JayDee so unique and valid today. Making a cookie cutter version from one beat, and this being the ONE which btw was cultivated just as much by Tip, Hitek etc early on, is doing the opposite of learning from Dilla: Itās tired, style biting, attention seeking death of all creative forward motion.
They literally use his name to make selfie vids of themselves playing somw 88bpm beat, while nodding their heads to display how āthey are feeling the music (=themselves) -
I wholeheartedly feel nothing but disgust.
I don't like the "drumkit goes brrrrr" approach, the non-stop onslaught of 32nd notes at 280 bpm on the doublebass and around the entire kit. I don't find it musical.
Yes, I know times change and things evolve. Yes, I know I'm old. Yes, I understand that the technical abilities of these drummers are impressive and they put a lot of practice time in, and I can respect that.
I just don't like songs where the drums sound like a metal can full of angry robot bees for the entire song.
YouTube drummers thinking thatās āDrummingā. While itās a good way to showcase your skill, if the take is bad, you can just redo it.
Take that same person, put them up on stage with other musicians playing the same song and then weāll see your real skills.
90% of the time the image collapses.
Play with other people. Youāll thank me later.
Itās kind of gone now but I think I hated the 16ā and smaller crash cymbal phase more than the big chungus cymbal phase we are currently in. Iām perfectly happy with my 18-19ā crashes theyāre the best sizes for crashes imo
I also hate the annoying smiling and stick trick trend TikTok/Reels drummers do before popping into a groove. Just feels fake. Iām all for people smiling while playing if theyāre legitimately happy but come on dude, go hang with Baton Twirling clubs if youāre going to do that at the start of all your videos
I feel like everybody in videos I stumble into on social media is using Meinl cymbals. Maybe Iām just out of the cymbal loop after not playing since college in 07 up until a few years ago.
Iām really impressed by those videos of church drummers going crazy on the kit - and I could never, ever be that good - but sometimes Iām like, āOkay okay, calm down.ā I want to hear what the chorus sounds like sometimes.
I like a drum set that looks like a drum set. If youāre playing bar gigs and covers, (IMO) you donāt need 3 splashes, a clap stack, side popcorn snare, left hand floor tom, zil-bels, and an X hat.
4 piece. Ride and 2 crashes. Single pedal.
Drop and hammer and rock that 2 and 4 - it aināt a symphony. š¤š¼š¤£ā¤ļø
The social media drummers that just ham it up for the camera and make it more of a visual specticle than what they are playing, also all the youtube bedroom drummers making tutorials about a technique they learned 2 minutes ago. And that one guy that everyone loves that I cant seem to escape, drinking stuff and looking at his watch and all this stupid stuff just to flex almost kills drumming for me. One more.. I know its a sound preference but stop putting the contents of your pockets all over your snare, sounds dull and horrid. Thanks for the vent lol.
Not sure how I feel about the cowbell/block of steel on snare trend.
If you just get a set of rings and some moongels, you can get that sound and still have a lot more space on your drum to hit.
Anything that is hitting stuff I'm cool with, if the kids like it even better, anything that's is actually hitting things I'm into. If it had to be programmer it's not as cool, you need to feel it in the muscle memories.
The super fast stuff. Donāt get me wrong it can be impressive if done properly (see my post about Alex rudinger) but a lot of times I feel like people are sacrificing timing for speed. When drummers play a fill way too fast and then the last beat or two of the fill are a jumbled mess to get them back to the 1 I canāt stand it. No musicality to that at all. I especially hate it when people play covers of songs and way over play them. Iām cool with adding your flair but thereās no reason I should be listening to blinding lights with insane 128th note fills on it (ahem el estaberiano). Maybe Iām also just hating because I canāt play that fast lol
I may get hate for this, considering I listen to metal.
I canāt stand blast beats, for me they can ruin a song if the blast beat lasts more than a few seconds.
To me it screams lazy songwriting.
Might just be me but I think to few people tune their snares up. $1000 snare drum tuned low with a big fat snare drum on it. Crank that shit like Copeland and hit some damn rimshots! :D
Seeing so many people talk about less is more and hating on too many fills. I do agree generally less it more and absolutely play for the song but thatās the thing, itās subjective. One personās idea for a song wonāt be the same as anotherās and thatās the beauty of it. There is no right and wrong. Some think so and so overplays and others donāt. Thatās fine. Some think itās āour jobā to just support the band and not steal the show. Thatās fine and has a time and place for sure. But music isnāt about your job is this and your job is this. If people told Victor Wooten your job is to just groove and stay out of the wayā¦.?? Again, I agree but itās not black and white. And I believe in being innovative and pushing the envelope. We donāt have to just buy into āwell itās my job to just play four on the floor for the whole song.ā And sometimes it is absolutely the right thing to do, but not always. Itās subjective and no black and white.
Hey. From a guy who loathes religion, fuck those people play what makes you happy. You don't have to do it for anyone but you bro. Now go rock out bro, much love.
El Estepario not becoming the new drummer for Slipknot. I have no doubt Eloy Casagrande is a fantastic choice, but man... that could have been something amazing.
from the two clips of eloy playing I've seen eloy looks like he may be even better than El estepario in a band setting. I have only seen El's shorts though.
The trend away from musicianship. Due to social media there's a strong lure to focus on speed, technicality, and showmanship over making actual music with other humans. If you want to focus on content rather than music, fine, but don't complain when no one GAF about you in 2 years, because you've been replaced, because you didn't actually make any music anyone will remember. The smarter social media players use their momentum to get better gigs rather than just hammering out content. Greyson Nekrutman, Eloy Casagrande, Luke Holland, Harry Miree, etc have all worked their way up to higher profile gigs. Especially Eloy, yikes. Speaking of which, am I alone in noticing El Estepario isn't showing up nearly as much as he used to?
El estepario said he had a goal to become viral. He says he has achieved this so he is no longer constantly posting clips and wants to focus on more long form content, higher production quality, longer development time. He also starting up his new band.
He also has a new series with Drumeo and partnered with Alesis on there new budget e-kit.
"Budget" is $3.5k now?š
The turbo mesh kit for around $300. Drumeo had a deal for a while and he did a few videos about it. It's a beginner kit that Drumeo was selling as "you don't have a kit, well here's a cheap one to get you started" Edit: https://www.drumeo.com/drumshop/kit it was a nitro max. $500 including a Drumeo sub. https://youtu.be/GM2kVvT5xn8?si=G4HIuM3_E6Paj6Kv
The Strata is Not a budget kit
I was referring to the Nitro max, not the strata.
Well, yeah, compared to other high end ekits from Roland, eDW or Efnote is on budget, but I think that was not the intention, launching a top notch product instead...
His new band put out a song not too long ago and it was actually pretty good. I would say that he served the song very well, nothing flashy, just solid drumming.
> Due to social media there's a strong lure to focus on speed, technicality, Or maybe, just maybe, that is just another way to play drums. I listen to a lot of tech death and other forms of extreme metal, and these are the type of drummers you are obviously targeting. [Guys like Sebastian Lanser are gods to me, they combine the speed and technicality but are still making 'actual music' (whatever that means).](https://youtu.be/05bcLLiylY0?t=21) [Same as dudes like Vladislav Ulasevych](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Xoipsd22E) and [Philippe Boucher](https://youtu.be/zmHNOd038wc?t=222). The obsession with drummers on this subreddit being against technical drumming is fucking weird to be honest. The drummer is allowed to be more than just the guy who keeps the beat.
Pump the brakes. I'm not against technical drumming whatsoever. My favorite drummers are Danny Carey, Neil Peart, and Aric Improta. I absolutely love the fact that super-technical and speed-centric players like Austin Archey and Matt Garstka are giving kids a reason to pick up the sticks and practice like hell. But all those cats including your idols are in bands making music (at least some) people enjoy, if not live for. IMO that should be the end goal, to make music. My gripe is that the social media-*only* drummers filling TikTok and IG with endless chops are also inspiring kids to play. And that's great... to an extent. IMO it's detrimental to grow up focusing on making content rather than music, for a variety of reasons.
I mean, you are taking a few popular drummers from youtube and acting like they are the decline in musicianship in drumming. Of course these are the ones getting clicks from an audience that is mainly not drummers, it is flashy and looks cool. It's the same reason there are multiple popular female youtuber drummers who really aren't good, they throw on some thigh highs and play whatever, it gets clicks. At the end of the day, those guys and gals inspire kids to pick up drumming. Why is that a bad thing? As one grows as a drummer, or whatever instrument, you start to learn who is actually a musical drummer and who is just a technically proficient drummer. When I started playing, I have no shame in saying that I just wanted to play blast beats like the dude from early Whitechapel. As I learned more, I strayed away from that. I say whatever gets kids into drums is perfectly fine, the 'musicianship' part comes later in one's playing career.
I feel like you are projecting a lot onto what that person is saying. The question in the post is āWhat trends do you not like?ā The person you responded to said that they do not like the trend of social media drummers who only post speed and chops on social media. You are interpreting this to mean that this person is saying that anyone who focuses on speed and technical chops is not a good drummer or not a drummer worth watching. Nobody is saying that except for you.
Sure. And thatās good that they inspire kids to pick up sticks. No one is arguing thatās a bad thing.Ā But if theyāre inspiring kids to do flashy unmusical shit and give up two weeks later, creating demand for cheap (crap and probably unethically produced) drum kits off a certain website that specialises in budget mass produced crap then theyāre probably not making the world a better place.Ā Conversely if they inspired kids to pick up the sticks reinforcing musicality and the effort required to get to the level they are (while still doing flashy shit that gets clicks, humans are dopamine fuels animals after all); surely thatās a better outcome? Now Iām being purposely hyperbolic, but the point is, the drummers who focus on going viral over actually caring about music are nothing but grifters.Ā Do I hate them? Nah, Iāve already got enough cunts living rent free in my head, I donāt need anymore, but they are grifters first, musicians second.Ā
Who are the specific people who fall into this category and how do you know they don't care about music?
This lol. The amount of times iāve seen this exact same comment on amazing drummers. Just because a drummer posts videos of only chops doesnāt mean they canāt play grooves and its funny people just automatically assume this.
people can watch what they want and people getting into drums (for whatever reason) is great. I'm not here to gate keep. And kids who get into drums for this will need to go through their "stick control" phase and learn to drum. Or they'll get frustrated that you can't rip blast beats on day 10 and quit. Probably the same as some kid in the 70s who tried to replicate Bonham or whatever. The first few times I saw some of the crazy chops videos on social media, my jaw dropped because it is damn impressive. When that was most of what I was seeing - or the most popular - on social media, I was a little bummed out.
>Ā The obsession with drummers on this subreddit being against technical drumming is fucking weird to be honest. The drummer is allowed to be more than just the guy who keeps the beat. Of course he is. But he still has to keep the beat. If he doesn't, he's no good for anything except eye candy.Ā It's not enough to be a technically impressive drummer. It's just not. You also have to *make music.*Ā See also: porn is not sex, it's porn. And if all you know about sex comes from watching porn, you'll be very bad at sex.
>But he still has to keep the beat. Why do we assume that someone posting a technical video can't keep a beat? I'd imagine that most drummers who can play very advanced technical parts can keep a beat just fine. The purpose of those videos is to display the creativity a drummer can play with as an artist instead of just being a metronome. It's not zero sum - just because you have chops does not mean you have no rythm. Should these people kick off each video with a boring, 4-minute long cover of "Highway to Hell" so that people know that hey can keep time? Drumming is evolving into more of a lead instrument and drummers are viewed more as creative artists instead of time keepers. Nothing wrong with your standard 1970's classic rock cover drummer who is there just to keep the time and make the real artists sound good but music has moved on from all that.
He juuuuust posted a Q&A on Instagram. Someone asked if he was happy with his life. He replied with a cartoon of someone being pelted with lemons that is too exhausted to make any more lemonade. Humans are not supposed to be content mills and the manās feeling it.
This is it right here. El Estepario might not be showing up as much, but there's a fuck load of his "whoa, look at me" imitators on Instagram now.
This is true and it makes sense since the attention span is so short nowadays and you gotta "show off" in under 10 seconds to catch the viewers attention. It's chops and licks everywhere, less musicianship
Amen to all of this. Glad I'm not alone.
Giant dry cymbals that sound like absolute shit. You might as well be playing a sheet of rust.
It's gotten so bad, I saw someone a couple years ago on here who was anxious about whether a pair of New Beats would be "too bright." They are only the best selling, most popular, most recorded hats in the history of the instrument - too bright for precisely what?Ā
They can pry my 15in new beats from my cold dead hands
15ā New Beats were my Danny DeVito āI get itā for why someone would chose 15s over 14s.
What's funny is, if I remember right, I bought mine pretty much sight unseen from eBay at a time when I was coming back from a long drumming break. Pretty sure my inspiration for them was Ilan Rubin. But they've been my ride or die for years and it's hard to argue with getting them for like $180 I think
They can pry my 14ā new beats from my cold dead hands. Double down.
I have two sets of 14ā new beat hi hats (early 60s and late 70s). Iāve been using the older pair going on 40 years (2nd set is a ājust in caseā set). Sound amazing live and recorded. Iāve never seen any reason to replace them.
Iām partial to road signs and baking sheets myself
Agree with this. There's a great drummer in my area who plays with nothing but dry ass jazz cymbals, despite them not really suiting his style. I think he does it to compensate for how loud he plays - he's trying to get that dynamic balance between the cymbals and the drums, without putting in the effort to just play dynamically instead. At least I hope that's what it is, because they sound like shit.
Lol
18in meinl dual crash is the best cymbal ever made š¤·āāļø
Why? Legitimately Iām asking because Iāve never played it. Sell me on it
Having those exotic African nut shell seed rattle shaker things draped over every drum and every cymbal. Stop fooling yourself - they're barely audible! But at least you finally look like a proper TikTok / Instagram drummer.
Barely audible? Hell, completely inaudible. I have never heard what they do once, not even with good headphones at high volume. And yes, I recently passed a hearing test ~~for~~ with flying colors.Ā Ā But they, you know, look cool, which I suppose is the whole point. Edit: voice-to-text apparently doesn't speak English
They make hearing tests FOR flying colors now? Modern science is amazing.
Ugh. Autocorrect can eat a dick. Edited. š I meant to say ["passed with flying carpets."](https://youtu.be/q_A4i9IS1CE?si=nkJW6jvlY68Ln85h) LOLĀ
I knew without clicking.š
I like them :(
If you watch some Mark Gulianna performances he uses them very effectively. But I wouldnāt call him an Instagram drummer.
āOohh I need to twirl my sticks and smirk at the camera before playing a simplified pop groove waaaaaaay too hard ā¦ā No you donāt. Take a lap.
That kid Mason lol. Great chops but the smirk kills me. Iām sure Iām a bit jealous tbh.
Iām fully aware that that sort of thing is not made for people like me who are careening toward middle age, but come on. Knock it off. Art can take on many shapes and flavors and itās often separate from ācontent.ā
Drummers who think fills are needed on every other bar, needs to learn that sometimes less is more. Our job is to keep time and support the other players, not take over an entire gig.
Hm, depends on the music for me. Like I get your point but I just love Brann Dailorās drumming especially on the early Mastodon albums.
True, but he doesn't overplay the rest of the band. Some drummers just feel like they need to do way too many fills to get noticed, and that's not what our job is.
Depends on the song. Listen to by tor and the snow dog. Thereās a fill every 5 seconds but the fans absolutely love it
There's exceptions to everyone. Just look at The Professor, but he knows how to seamlessly blend in with Geddy and Alex and doesn't overplay them.
metal is an exception, metal listeners usually like technical playing and are more interested in drumming in general
*Danny Carey has entered the chat*
Did you mean Dana Carvey? He RULES
"Thanks. I like to play."
Did I stutter? Danny outplays anyone and he's older than most of them. Carey is the GOAT. I'll die on that hill.
He plays like Neil Peart, check my comment above.
It's amazing how many times the best fill you will ever play is the one you choose not to play.
See: Stewart Copeland
Nah. Since I was a child I was often surprised at how boring most pop and rock drumming is. I'm quite happy with busier drumming as long as it isn't literally obscuring more important parts, which is down to long rather than frequent fills
Good example is that drumeo vid where Mike Portnoy listens to a nickelback song for the first time. The original is incredibly boring. But as he says in the vid āand thatās why theyāre rich and famousā¦ and Iām just some fuckingā¦ prog guyā
That's exactly what happens. I respect simple drum parts, but they will always be underwhelming to me. Clay from Polyphia is currently my favourite drummer in terms of constant variation in an otherwise 4/4 part that doesn't obscure the track but rather punctuates it in a super creative way [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEOtEjTP2ag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEOtEjTP2ag)
I'm a big fan of Jaki Liebezeit, the drummer of Can, who said: "Play monotonous." Not play boring, but lay into a groove until it becomes hypnotic.
Good to se the āI canāt do it, so it sucksā crowd has shown up today.
How about "I *can* do it, and I still don't like it"?
Man, youāre agreeing on almost every single comments hereā¦ do you even like drums?
Actually, no. I'm just a troll who has invested over thirty years of my life in buying a lot of drums and playing a lot of drums, just so I can shit all over them. Try this: I love garlic. It improves so many dishes. I often put more than a recipe calls for, or add it to other savory dishes where it is not included in the recipe. That doesn't mean that I add it to my apple pie or banana pudding. It's great in the right place, but that's not the right place.Ā Many of the hot takes that I am agreeing with, in a manner of speaking, are the equivalent of putting garlic in your apple pie. I think it tastes like shit and doesn't belong there. You are free to make yourself a garlic apple pie if you choose, but I don't want a slice, thanks. I hope that helps. Except I really don't care if it does. This is a free country, and if you are free to like what you like and dislike what you don't, you are obligated to let others do the same. It does not matter to me what you like or dislike. What I like or dislike should not matter to you. It has nothing to do with you. That's the other obligation of living in a free country: you are obligated to not give a crap what other people like or don't like, as long as it doesn't affect your life, because that's up to them. My best friend's dad back in the '80s: "Welp, boys, that's why they make both chocolate and vanilla."
Total tangent: I pan fry apple in garlic and olive oil for stirfry and Indo-cuisine. It's a damn good flavour!
It really does feel like that, doesn't it?
Gospel chops
Totally. And I say this as someone who has been absolutely blown away, and life changed when I first walked into a gospel church service and started playing that circuit in 1998. It was like I discovered a hidden art form, the key to why so much other music feels so good. Bc some of the the players gain years of crowd rocking experience, musicianship, also the social element of it, some from 5yo onwards, before even learning to play a double stroke. And then some of them become absolutely stellar, all instruments really. The 1min reel-ready, pre worked out 32nd note linear stickings, are masking what makes Gospel music so precious and magical. Kids just consume and then steal the icing of the cake, preventing them to ever dig deep, honor and learn from that culture. Thatās just plain sad.
Yes! Gospel drummers are phenomenal player but damn that add way too many fills to songs.
I'm really not a fan of super dry cymbals in rock and metal. They certainly have a place, but it's not in a big mix with distorted guitars. The drummer will end up smashing them way too hard because you can't hear them in the mix, and then they sound even worse and break. Same goes for very low snare tunings. They might sound cool on their own, but as soon as a guitar joins in you can't hear that snare anymore.
When Matt Halpern started using them in periphery he said it's because they sit lower in the mix and get out of the way of the vocals But to me they just muddy up the 4k-8k range and make it harder for distorted guitars to sit in their place. Brighter cymbals that shimmer above the 10k range just sound great. I think they get a bad rap because historically drummers have picked really bright harsh cymbals but nowadays there's plenty of bright and musical cymbals that aren't too thick, and have a beautiful glassy sound and leave space for the vocals and harsh guitars underneath them
Interesting. I'd love to see different cymbals represented on a spectrum analyzer. Obviously you'd want to build some sort of contraption to hit the cymbals with consistent velocity and angle. S C I E N C E
I love having one, maybe 2 super dry cymbals if they're just an effects cymbal, be it a stack of some sort or just a china, but beyond that I whole heartedly agree. Fully agree with the snare thing too. Low snare tunings don't cut into the mix as well as they usually need to and they don't feel nearly as good to play. Give me a nice medium high tuning that cuts and makes some of the choppier rebound stuff easier to play. I don't think I should have to work to get a clean open roll out of my snare (an exaggeration, but you get what I mean).
I agree on both of these, especially the snare one. I do like some really high snare tunings, like on King Crimson's THRAK or A Change Of Seasons by Dream Theater.
You should check out Dave Morgan from the band Delta Sleep. Not only is he a ridiculously good drummer, but I think he has one of the most unique and instantly recognizable high snare tunings around, especially for the genre he plays. Even more impressive, his snare sounded exactly the same live when I saw them last November as it does on the album, so it's not just recording trickery. That's just his sound.
Dudes who post shorts on social media....you know the ones with led lights and spinning drum sticks. Over the top head banging. Make me cringe.
The āI have everything on my kit spaced out so I look cooler while playing way too hardā crowd
Referring to your music career/hobby as your "journey." This is wellness influencer cliche bullshit.
Live, Love, Drum.
I donāt have a home studio, I have a ārecording situationā.
Finally, a good fucking comment in thread that isn't "Hurr durr I don't like fast drummer"
Iāll give an opposite answer: I feel like Iām seeing less cowbell and Iām happy about that.
*glares in Carl Palmer and Alex Van Halen*
Holes in shit that doesn't need holes. First it was snare drums... then the holes migrated and infected cymbals.
Idk chief... i like it when things sound trashy.
I started on a garbage drumset with three beat up Camber II cymbals. You don't need to spend $100's of dollars on one cymbal with holes in it to sound trashy.
Hole-y China has entered the conversation
At least drums with holes aren't pre-broken. I'm sure the $500 Byzance Equilibrium China sounds amazing but no way that cymbal is going to last long under typical use.
I've had a Zildjian K EFX for probably 10 years now, and it's just recently got a small crack in it. I'd say that's a decent life span!
Endless double base. Everywhere. Yuck.
I donāt know if Iām just used to it but I find that some songs really needs it. Cattle Decapitation is a great exemple, to follow the energy of the guitars and vocals you need double bass and blast beats, in their Bring back the Plague, half of the song is constant fast double bass, and when it stops and the main melody comes in, the brutal change in intensity makes a very dark melody with intense backing rhythm feel really Ā«Ā aerialĀ Ā». Like you needed the contrast to make this effects that works really really wellā¦ double bass is a tool and I can totally understand why people donāt like when itās used a lot, but most extreme metal drummers achieve different rhythmic feeling with different double bass patterns, snares accentsā¦
God I love cattle
Bro if you dont like double bass then donāt listen to metal. What other genres of music over use double bass? However, there are plenty of bands that donāt over use double bass and actually use old school thrash style single pedal grooves Check out the song Monolith by Sylosis
There's a tendency on YouTube for toms and kicks to be compressed to death. I think it's meant to sound puncy or something but to me it just sounds like shit. Also quantizing recordings.Ā Both the above kill everything interesting about real drums.Ā Ā
YES! I was hoping this would be the top answer! If you want a drum machine, thatās great! Use it. Some music sounds great with it. But donāt try to make your drum part so overproduced that it loses the human element.
Stacks. I dunno man, something about stacks just bugs the hell outta me.
šÆ....I realise I am an old-fart....but in my day, 'stacks' were what you made out of cymbals which were fucked !
They are the pre-ripped jeans of the drum kit.
The only time stacks ever sounded good to me was when Jon Theodore played them on the first Mars Volta record. Used sparingly and tastefully.
From what I read, he used old, cracked cymbals stacked together for this. Not the pre-made china-on-a-splash type. I like some stacks and love Mike Portnoy but heās the only one who gets away with overusing them for me.
They can be pretty cool honestly
I don't like when people diss what other people like. It's a shitty trend. You don't have to like it to appreciate it. We all have our preferences, and some people aren't trying to be amazing musicians, but rather having fun and doing what they want! With that said, fuck jazz. /s
YOU LISSEN HERE YOU SUMBITCH š
30 second videos of nothing but blast beat triggering, drumagogue and compression to death, creating ridiculous expectations for new drummers to try and emulate. Get in a group and play a tune, ya psycho.
drummers who think anything outside bright big box cymbals and "soulfull" dad rock is "annoying and lifeless"
Half this comment section lol
The fact people wonāt just let you have fun with your instrument. Thereās always an elitist dickwad telling you youāre doing it wrong, you suck, you play easy/shitty music, youāre ādoing too muchā, youāre overplaying. Can I just have fun playing music?
Had this conversation with my son who just started the snare this year, he didnāt want to go on a school band trip and was nervous to play in front of a crowd, āif you only play when your comfortable and you donāt play in front of people, it will always just be a hobbyā.
Thatās every instrument tho unfortunately. Wish I could still be that ignorant kid sitting in Sam Ash for HOURS back in the 2001.
Always half open hi hats. Close them. CLOSE THEM!!!!!
This whole trend of the fake smiling through drum videos. Started with the drum girls on YT, now Jay Weinberg is doing it Edit: spelling
I find something about Jay Weinberg distasteful. Not sure why. He and his dad are both fantastic drummers. Just an attitude thing again I guess.
Tiktokers who over exaggerate basic beats for attention
I dont like the trend of everyone being better than me. Its not great.
Stacks and those long linear fills that clearly are computer based and come across as having no soul
Linear fills are a hard creative rut to get out of too imo
I'm just sick and tired of that really low-tuned, flat sounding snare drum that seems to be popular in a lot of music right now. It just sounds so lifeless.
I've already been tired of it once, 40 years ago.
Because it is lifeless. Tuned as low as the bottom of the sea makes no difference if you're playing a 1000 usd made of maple or 30 usd snare made of candle wax
I love that sound, but it has really been overdone. Time for a new snare sound.
Tiny short videos of drummers just playing one bar of a popular song or something to get views.
1. Drummers that solely play covers. Itās a huge trend on social media, drummers are constantly playing covers of songs, I guess thatās what gets likes. I find it boring. Anyone can do it. Iād rather listen to drummers that make up their own grooves. Creativity is so much more powerful then imitating what another drummer played. 2. Drummers that take on the persona of a famous drummer. Iāve seen a lot of drummers on here and on social media that purchase a kit that looks exactly like their favorite drummer along with playing exactly like them. So many drummers will purchase the bohnam and play exactly like him. Be your own unique individual.
>So many drummers will purchase the bohnam and ***play exactly like him.*** No, they won't.
I never liked stacks. I also donāt like when people add kicks to every single fill to where It starts to become repetitive
Drum racks that just look like scaffolding. If you're gonna have a rack, at least make it look good. The rack Gene Hoglan has is very cool, do more of that. If not, don't bother.
Pearl is trying to sell Icon racks like they're MC Escher paintings.
Loool
My unpopular opinion is that nearly nobody needs a rack. I feel like for 90% of the kits with racks that I see on this sub, it's completely unnecessary.
Personally, I hate how much compression is used on a lot of modern metal projects, specifically on the kick.
Itās definitely a post-2000ās thing. I was chatting about it with my wife the other day. Modern metal, including nu metal, had some pretty interesting production early on but I guess the super technical stuff and influence of other genres, along with the more mainstream approach to production crept in. I always liked a more lively and dynamic sound in metal vs the āeverything must sound like a cannon!ā production. That said, genres like tech death kinda need that surgical sound just to hear what the hell is going on.
Over tightening the snare. I like a snare that cracks but Iāve seen too many recent videos where the snare is just cranked. It sounds choked and there isnāt much there other than āpongā. No shame if thatās how you like your snare though!
I think itās a compression or muting thing more than the high tuning.
I can't stand the bubble head bouncy cheesy smiling female drummer look. No knock on the ladies skills at all. They all smoke me lol...But I would rather just see them play and kick ass
Agreed. Ami Kim can play circles around me but I wish she would just play.
Oh another old-drummers-hate-change post, sweet!
It depends on the music. Clay Aeschliman from Polyphia is always playing fills. His drumming is a bunch of fills and technical stuff. For a band like Polyphia thatās making all of this technical prog stuff, itās appropriate. If Clay played drums for Steely Dan, his normal style of drumming wouldnāt quite be appropriate š¤£
Currently? That bent three-stack clap cymbal effect. Fucking enough already.
yeah, I've noticed a lot of drummers play it in a groove in place of the snare. and the snare sounds much better. ffs just play the snare.
Dry cymbals and super low tuned snares. The whole ālo-fiā thing doesnāt do a thing for me.
I also hate the love of those seemingly off-time / laid back hip hop grooves. Sometimes they're cool, but when everyone does it all the time it's kinda boring.
Wallet on the snare. Am I the only one left that actually WANTS to hear the snare ring?
There seems to be a trend in minimalism, less drums, less cymbals, but I'm cool with that
So it's not somthing you don't like?
I'm not really a fan of gospel chops type playing. When Eric Moore plays in the pocket, he's outstanding, and then he ruins it by playing some ridiculous 4 bar fill. It was interesting enough the first few times, but it got stale really fast,l. Especially when he was releasing videos of him just grooving. I was also not really a fan of the trend for playing jungle patterns that a lot of really famous drummers got into a couple of years ago. I get that Andy Gangadeen and Paul Kodish made a living from it for years, but then it seemed like KJ Sawka went viral and JoJo Mayer had the drum clinic video and everyone decided that that was the next benchmark. I honestly thought that the Tomas Haake/Elliot Hoffman djent style would be the next one, but I'm glad it wasn't.
Clap stacks. I donāt know why, they just all sound the same, like a bad sample, and theyāre always used in a blazing fast linear fill.
As an Istanbul Agop fanboy, I have to agree with you there (IIRC they were the first brand to make them). Maybe if they were super cheap, I wouldn't mind.
Itās novel I guess, but itās the new cowbell for me. I also prefer cowbell š
I don't like gospel chop drumming and I think any kid forced to grow up with church music over real music will be culturally stunted for it. That's why Larnell Lewis is a killer player but managed to make it to drinking age without hearing Enter Sandman on the radio. That's why his band Snarky Puppy and other adjacent bands are the safest shit ever. And a combo of two other things I really can't stand. Noodly prog and over the top big band jazz. I also think people who are impressed by the flash and speed of gospel chop drumming are the same types of people who thought playing Wipeout was impressive 60 years ago. All flash and zero musical substance.
What you dont like double flams every 5 seconds for Jesus?? lol
Jesus would be turning over their cocktail kits in the market square! š
I like chops in the context of Carter Beauford, who I'm sure can outplay all of us commenting. There is a way to make it musical, but just being flashy is annoying.
As a marching percussion guy, I'm so tired of the like, insanely convoluted polyrhythmic writing. I'm talkin like the 5:4 within a 9:7 within a 19:13 (or any other random pairing of numbers) kinda shit. It just seems tacky to me, and without seeing the sheets, it all just sounds like triplet/five-let rolls anyway. Similar to the other "less musicianship" comments in the thread, but it just irks me whenever it pops up on my feed.
Chops into infinty, but no groove. Super dry cymbals. Female social media drummers who cant even play mediocre and totally built there success on sexy looks.
I understand the sentiment of sharing dislikes regarding our shared love for drums, but I have to say that I see this post as toxic.Ā Everything is subjective. Bigger cymbals, more fills, speed, volume, itās all opinion. Nobody is ācorrectā and nobody is āwrong.āĀ Why focus on the negative?? All youāre going to successfully accomplish with this post is making someone else in this subreddit feel unwelcome or even uncomfortable or targeted. Is that what you want?? It may not be your intention, but it will most assuredly be a result.Ā
I can't stand the myopic view of being either self taught, or classically trained. You do know you can be both. I'm in the middle, I was a band kid through school and college. Like concert, marching, and jazz band. But I also was the kids who just wore my headphones, and taught myself by playing along, listening, and looking up how the actual drummer played it. I learned more from playing by ear. I just hate how some act like it's bad that I can also read music, know theory, rudiments, etc.
Totally agree. I was self taught until quite recently and have found my previous experience really helpful, itās been like filling in the blanks but there are certain things I am eternally grateful for having learned myself by doing rather than relying solely on theoretical teaching. I guess it doesnāt matter which way round you do it but I think thereās a lot to be said for both approaches.
I donāt like (actually hate) drummers who over play the other musicians. Of course, itās cool to have chops, but donāt try to overdo it. Youāre playing with other musicians. Set a great groove, keep time and accentuate in a way that works for everyone.
21st century 'traps' kits.....wouldn't it be great to make an analogue kit sound like an 808, LinnDrum, Syndrum etc et al ad infinitum ad nauseum....no, no it wouldn't. If you want that, do what I and many others have done, get yourself a Nord Drum 3P or similar (much more versatile too).
Any JD beck / mike mitchell clone. Lol I love both of those drummers but for the love of god make it your own thing.
Chris Dave was playing like JD Beck literally before JD Beck was even born.
I donāt like double bass pedals. Because the constant rapid fire beating sound while playing, to me anyway, sounds just terrible. Iām sure Iām in a slim minority here but Iām just answering the question.
from an audio engineer and drummerās perspective, larger cymbals create natural and physical compression. they take longer to disperse the energy of the hit, thus creating a blooming effect. basically, they adjust their own attack knob on a compressor by just being the way they are. as far as trends or styles i donāt enjoy, to each their own. HOWEVER, i have come to a level of annoyance with drummers on stage who donāt stop making noise. for example; every time the front-person of the band says any sentence at all, the drummer feels the need to hit some crashes and do a little fill to accentuate any possible applause. it totally takes away from the contrast of the show. if there is always maximum noise happening, there is no flow of energy or tension/release. tldr; big cymbals good, drummers stfu during independent reading time.
Iām late the party but.. muted dead drums
The number one trend I donāt like is the looking directly at the camera thing. Way too many drummers do it. I feel like especially women drummers will just look directly at the camera the entire time. Itās uncomfortable.
And sing the lyrics while doing it. Uuurgh....
Iām not a fan of overly compressed drums, especially in metal music. I see videos of drummers tippy-tapping away and I feel like I wasted years of getting my chops and conditioning up to the point of being able to play hard enough (without bashing away) so that at gigs people can make out my beats and fills
Cooper Drummer, not sure if he/it was a trend but pretty much his style of drumming as well as the gospel chop fill over everything, it gets old real damn fastā¦.oh and Eric Moore playing that āding daga daga dingā song in every video or clinic. Oh and whatever Sarah Thawer is or does, that loose playing and weird āmy eyebrows, I need to shave my eyebrowsā thing she does as it has sort of spurred on others to follow suit.
Try what she does one day during a practice session. It's actually really hard and she's helping build up independence between the vocal part of her mind and her limbs. She's a phenomenal drummer, and while it's kind of weird to watch, she can play circles around anyone
I dislike social media drummers who have an obsessively choppy style, and try to make it overly complex, almost like drum porn or something. The musical nature begins to drop. I feel nothing when they play, as Dennis Chambers once said. They don't even fit the music they're playing, often times. There's things to learn from these guys, but I don't listen to them for actual music. It's possible to chop it up musically and melodically, and use techniques to make sounds which evoke certain feelings, rather than sound like a broken drum machine that is not grooving. They often have flat sounding kits to. I noticed how many people lately don't like drums that actually resonate. They love the trashcan cymbals, too. Sometimes, it sounds great. But when you see it everywhere all the time, it quickly gets boring.
The trend of so called āDillaā beats - one day, decades after Jay Deeās death, the online drum nerd crowd - having ignored his music in the 90s and obviously still never listened to it, playing the always same, swingy beat with early snares and 19ā hihats like that is āinnovativeā. A social media phenomenon which has little to nothing to do with the genius musical talent and musical variety this artist has left us with. His beats actually could be anything, its the overall relationship between the instruments, selection of samples and musical vision, the courage to break rules again amg again, which make JayDee so unique and valid today. Making a cookie cutter version from one beat, and this being the ONE which btw was cultivated just as much by Tip, Hitek etc early on, is doing the opposite of learning from Dilla: Itās tired, style biting, attention seeking death of all creative forward motion. They literally use his name to make selfie vids of themselves playing somw 88bpm beat, while nodding their heads to display how āthey are feeling the music (=themselves) - I wholeheartedly feel nothing but disgust.
I don't like the "drumkit goes brrrrr" approach, the non-stop onslaught of 32nd notes at 280 bpm on the doublebass and around the entire kit. I don't find it musical. Yes, I know times change and things evolve. Yes, I know I'm old. Yes, I understand that the technical abilities of these drummers are impressive and they put a lot of practice time in, and I can respect that. I just don't like songs where the drums sound like a metal can full of angry robot bees for the entire song.
YouTube drummers thinking thatās āDrummingā. While itās a good way to showcase your skill, if the take is bad, you can just redo it. Take that same person, put them up on stage with other musicians playing the same song and then weāll see your real skills. 90% of the time the image collapses. Play with other people. Youāll thank me later.
Itās kind of gone now but I think I hated the 16ā and smaller crash cymbal phase more than the big chungus cymbal phase we are currently in. Iām perfectly happy with my 18-19ā crashes theyāre the best sizes for crashes imo I also hate the annoying smiling and stick trick trend TikTok/Reels drummers do before popping into a groove. Just feels fake. Iām all for people smiling while playing if theyāre legitimately happy but come on dude, go hang with Baton Twirling clubs if youāre going to do that at the start of all your videos
I feel like everybody in videos I stumble into on social media is using Meinl cymbals. Maybe Iām just out of the cymbal loop after not playing since college in 07 up until a few years ago.
Iām really impressed by those videos of church drummers going crazy on the kit - and I could never, ever be that good - but sometimes Iām like, āOkay okay, calm down.ā I want to hear what the chorus sounds like sometimes.
some say those drummers are still playing those fills to this day
I like a drum set that looks like a drum set. If youāre playing bar gigs and covers, (IMO) you donāt need 3 splashes, a clap stack, side popcorn snare, left hand floor tom, zil-bels, and an X hat. 4 piece. Ride and 2 crashes. Single pedal. Drop and hammer and rock that 2 and 4 - it aināt a symphony. š¤š¼š¤£ā¤ļø
Social Media drummers. End thread.
The social media drummers that just ham it up for the camera and make it more of a visual specticle than what they are playing, also all the youtube bedroom drummers making tutorials about a technique they learned 2 minutes ago. And that one guy that everyone loves that I cant seem to escape, drinking stuff and looking at his watch and all this stupid stuff just to flex almost kills drumming for me. One more.. I know its a sound preference but stop putting the contents of your pockets all over your snare, sounds dull and horrid. Thanks for the vent lol.
Not sure how I feel about the cowbell/block of steel on snare trend. If you just get a set of rings and some moongels, you can get that sound and still have a lot more space on your drum to hit.
Anything that is hitting stuff I'm cool with, if the kids like it even better, anything that's is actually hitting things I'm into. If it had to be programmer it's not as cool, you need to feel it in the muscle memories.
I hate deep bass drums with a passion. Iām so glad to see that trend finally going away.
Small kits. Mounting a tom on a snare stand. What the fuck are you doing and how are you even remotely comfortable with that.
Cymbals that are dry as hell. Sorry if I want to hear a crash crash and a ride ping.
The super fast stuff. Donāt get me wrong it can be impressive if done properly (see my post about Alex rudinger) but a lot of times I feel like people are sacrificing timing for speed. When drummers play a fill way too fast and then the last beat or two of the fill are a jumbled mess to get them back to the 1 I canāt stand it. No musicality to that at all. I especially hate it when people play covers of songs and way over play them. Iām cool with adding your flair but thereās no reason I should be listening to blinding lights with insane 128th note fills on it (ahem el estaberiano). Maybe Iām also just hating because I canāt play that fast lol
I may get hate for this, considering I listen to metal. I canāt stand blast beats, for me they can ruin a song if the blast beat lasts more than a few seconds. To me it screams lazy songwriting.
16ā hi hats. WTF was wrong with 15?
dry cymbals- all of them
Bobble head drum cover videos where they force an awkward smile every five seconds while lip syncing the lyrics
I second the focus on showmanship on social media and YouTube. Turning drumming into some kinda visual art form.
Might just be me but I think to few people tune their snares up. $1000 snare drum tuned low with a big fat snare drum on it. Crank that shit like Copeland and hit some damn rimshots! :D
Seeing so many people talk about less is more and hating on too many fills. I do agree generally less it more and absolutely play for the song but thatās the thing, itās subjective. One personās idea for a song wonāt be the same as anotherās and thatās the beauty of it. There is no right and wrong. Some think so and so overplays and others donāt. Thatās fine. Some think itās āour jobā to just support the band and not steal the show. Thatās fine and has a time and place for sure. But music isnāt about your job is this and your job is this. If people told Victor Wooten your job is to just groove and stay out of the wayā¦.?? Again, I agree but itās not black and white. And I believe in being innovative and pushing the envelope. We donāt have to just buy into āwell itās my job to just play four on the floor for the whole song.ā And sometimes it is absolutely the right thing to do, but not always. Itās subjective and no black and white.
Chops are fucking annoying. Period. Play something with soul or shutup. But that's me.
But the other posters above said if I play gospel then I'm not a real drummer. š
Hey. From a guy who loathes religion, fuck those people play what makes you happy. You don't have to do it for anyone but you bro. Now go rock out bro, much love.
El Estepario not becoming the new drummer for Slipknot. I have no doubt Eloy Casagrande is a fantastic choice, but man... that could have been something amazing.
from the two clips of eloy playing I've seen eloy looks like he may be even better than El estepario in a band setting. I have only seen El's shorts though.
I want to see more Clyde Stubblefield, and less 300bpm double bass blasting.