The Return of the Acoustic Drum kit?

The video from the Peel gig showed Steve playing on an acoustic kit, no? Nice to see, for some reason I would rather Steve played 'traditionally'. If he was, was it just because they were playing JD songs or has he changed his mind on electronic drums? Probably the former.

all I know is that the electronic toms sound like a family of roaches having a wank on a biscuit tin when they are used on Atmosphere.

Wasim wrote: The video from the Peel gig showed Steve playing on an acoustic kit, no? Nice to see, for some reason I would rather Steve played 'traditionally'. If he was, was it just because they were playing JD songs or has he changed his mind on electronic drums? Probably the former.

Talking of which. Imagine NO playing an acoustic set. What would that be like? Would it show the great craftmenship of the band, and how great the songs are in their purist form? Or would it be a complete shambles?

Steve Campbell wrote: all I know is that the electronic toms sound like a family of roaches having a wank on a biscuit tin when they are used on Atmosphere.

Uncanny, I've often thought that. Please ditch the electro kit or keep it for practising quietly in the spare room.

Steve Campbell wrote: all I know is that the electronic toms sound like a family of roaches having a wank on a biscuit tin when they are used on Atmosphere.

That would be intersting to see, Roaches wanking on a biscuit tin....intersting description

I think i can do without witnessing it, just picturing the sound (or stick 5:11 on).

Don't get me wrong, I like the Vdrum things, they seem to actually play like drums ( I think they have real drumheads), and for electronic sounding tunes they're the dog's bollox, but he needs to either use real toms, or do some serisouly clever sample hacking, cos atmosphere dies a very nasty death with that pitter patter noise.

Having said that, what's to stop him keeping his vdrum brain and using mics or transducers as trigger sources on an accoustic kit (he did this WAY back when it didn't really work very well).

I also miss the completely moronic Yamaha(i think) snare he used to have, the one that sounded like someone had got drunk and mounted a snare bed on a floor tom.

NO Regret wrote:

Wasim wrote: The video from the Peel gig showed Steve playing on an acoustic kit, no? Nice to see, for some reason I would rather Steve played 'traditionally'. If he was, was it just because they were playing JD songs or has he changed his mind on electronic drums? Probably the former.

Talking of which. Imagine NO playing an acoustic set. What would that be like? Would it show the great craftmenship of the band, and how great the songs are in their purist form? Or would it be a complete shambles?

It happened once, in Chicago in 1983, when the sequencers failed during Your Silent Face, 5 songs into the set. Unfortunately they'd already played four guitar songs before this, and what followed was apparently a bit shambolic and put Preston to shame! Sadly there is no known recording of this disaster.

Do you mean the snare on the original Temptation and a couple of other songs?

are you all seeing a different video from the John Peel gig than i did? looks exactly like Steve's playing the electronic Roland V-Drums to me.

the v drums you are talking about have the ability to mimic drum shell size, resonance, pitch and have an effects router built in to add effects to all drums. steven morris knows exactly what type of tom tom sound he wants for atmosphere as he can play it in his sleep.my thoughts are that the guy on the mixing desk never put enough eq on the toms and thats why they sounded thin.

not slagging you off

bondy 05

the happy one

I tend to agree, if anything most electronic toms are evil sounding ( I know this cos Rich has a passion for making all his basslines with them). But you gotta admit, thos V-drum toms sound apalling on atmosphere, whether it's the goon on FOH or not (there have been a few crimes behind the main console of late).

Could be worse, the same idiot who can't EQ an electtonic kit would be the one in charge of miking an accoustic one.....YYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: I was just musing to myself about the beauty of a system like vdrum, or indeed any decent electronic percussion machine. An electronic kit will never sound as good as an accoustic one (for accoustic material obviously) that's been peoperly set up, tightenned, tuned, miked by a genius and soundchecked for about an hour. But this is such a rare event it aint worth contemplating, more likely some moron roadie dumps the recently transit-van shaken, freezing cold kit down willie-nille on the stage while some other loon fires high temp lights at it periodically. Then it gets set up by a drum tech (beware anyone who's job title is "failed drummer"), who proceeds to shove some mics in vaguely the areas yelled to him by the FoH guy. Then a hungover, bitter, twisted drummer, who's been forced out of bed at the appalling hour of 4pm, soundchecks it by ignoring the sound guy's reequests to play one drum at a time by repeatedly soloing. Then the ambient temperature and humidity go mad for a few hours as the band clear off and the hall fills up with people. Electronics sound great every night :)

[1} I once created he perfect drumsound by accident while soundchecking for a gig. we had all day to do it, and I just got carried away on the kit. it ROCKED, and we had complaints from the pub downstairs that people couldn't hear themselves eat. then I changed drummers, and as the new guy got in, he touched ONE snare mic, and moved it about 3mm.....the whole sound turned to shit, and I never got it back (I'm not THAT good). Good job anyway, there's NO way the rest of the band would have been audible, fact is, the kit had no business being in the PA at all in such a small venue, but we were taping it, and I'm far to lazy to set up 2 seperate mixes (for free).

These are interesting comments, but I can't help feeling that this kind of perfectionism is pretty much a waste of time. The performance is what matters - yes, the gear has to be well set-up and functioning, but when we're down to arguing about the precise timbre of a tom we might as well give up and just listen to the records. But then maybe we'd find fault there too!

I would absolutely LOVE to see NO ditch a lot of technology for their next record.

Oh and is the old Yamaha snare the one that's used on Hurt? If so I agree that it sounds hideous.

you cannot comment on the performance if you can't hear it but, or if it sounds horrendous.

As for ditching tech, they alredy did that, they use tape now. F* that, bring back live machines.

BTW if you want to see real perfectionistic stupidity, watch any gig where a grand piano has to play to more than a few hundre people. mate of mmine went to see fats domino once, after one tune he sulked off and they spent 90mins fixing the piano mics. This "no production is cool" thing is down to nirvana and all that grunge rubbish which convinced a whole generation you could make an album like nevermind on a 4 track for 50 quid, you can't, Nevermind cost a fortune and was recorded in a big ass digital studio ( and then the retards put a "no samplers" sticker on their records and further tards believe it....News for you....a digital tape machine is a sampler, so is a digital delay, chorus, flange, you name it.)

New Order records have, with the exception of their own first efforts, always had stunning production and engineering.

if you wish to hear REAL overproduction, listen to Leftfield......it's like Dire Straits for E-heads....it sound like they spend 3 weeks in commmittees to settle on the EQ on a hi hat.

Steve Campbell wrote: ....a digital tape machine is a sampler, so is a digital delay, chorus, flange, you name it.)

slightly pedantic that Steve..

so are the first tape delay units then

I have a degree in pedantry :)

You may be right, but only if you consider a melotron a true sampler as well. And if you wanna get RIGHT down to it, a lot of reverbs use techniques that really only come under the heading of synthesis.

But the point is basically, that the cry of the Luddite :"everything digital sucks" rings awfully hollow when listening to music swimming in digital reverb.....on a cdplayer :)

Steve Campbell wrote: you cannot comment on the performance if you can't hear it but, or if it sounds horrendous.

As for ditching tech, they alredy did that, they use tape now. F* that, bring back live machines.

BTW if you want to see real perfectionistic stupidity, watch any gig where a grand piano has to play to more than a few hundre people. mate of mmine went to see fats domino once, after one tune he sulked off and they spent 90mins fixing the piano mics. This "no production is cool" thing is down to nirvana and all that grunge rubbish which convinced a whole generation you could make an album like nevermind on a 4 track for 50 quid, you can't, Nevermind cost a fortune and was recorded in a big ass digital studio ( and then the retards put a "no samplers" sticker on their records and further tards believe it....News for you....a digital tape machine is a sampler, so is a digital delay, chorus, flange, you name it.)

New Order records have, with the exception of their own first efforts, always had stunning production and engineering.

if you wish to hear REAL overproduction, listen to Leftfield......it's like Dire Straits for E-heads....it sound like they spend 3 weeks in commmittees to settle on the EQ on a hi hat.

Steve - not sure what you mean about not being able to comment if you can't hear it. Uh?

No production is cool? Where did I say that? Look, I KNOW everything you've said (and yes, obviously Nevermind took hours of toil and shitloads of dollars to sound that way) and clearly New Order records are made with a high-level of quality control and lots of care. But....what I am saying is that LIVE, you can still sound good without spending all day soundchecking the shit out of everything. I hear what you say about reliability and consistency of electronic percussion sounds, but for me live sound and records are two different things entirely. Onstage I want a performance, and I think you can sacrifice perfect replication of sound for that.

sorry I didn't mean to ascribe those comments to you.

And as for not being able to hear... I mean that Buddy Rich would sound shite if his kit sounded like cardboard boxes.

And I agree 100% about not having a replication of sound live. That's why i hate the tape machines so damned much.....give me blue monday cranked out of some steam powered, half insane rack of electrical accidents waiting to happen.