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For years, I've been playing drums to amuse myself. Playing along to others' music is great fun, and it's better than not playing at all. However, now I need to play live, and whilst singing lead, and as with any skill there comes a point where you have to start taking it seriously in order to improve. With the drums, that can mean only one thing:

Drill. More drill. Then some drill.

This is my drumkit

Getting the kit setup right is taking forever, especially since I've started playing an acoustic drumkit at rehearsals. (Life's too short to cart the TD-12K plus extras around.) It needs to be set so that I can switch smoothly between kits. At the studios I have a badly-tuned, uncared-for Mapex kit, which has size-mismatched, barely-tunable toms on annoying, difficult-to-set brackets. I'm having to take in more and more of my own hardware to deal with it.

Meanwhile, at home I've had to make more space so I can set the TD-12K up as I want it, rather than the only way in which it fits. Playing 45 mins a day is ok, but I'm doing three-hour stints at times right now, and having a badly set kit is painful.

There are many like it, but this one is mine

Actually, there aren't many like mine, at least not that I've seen at gigs. Certainly not at rehearsal studios. It's a slightly jarring transition from crisp-sounding, predictable V-Drums, to crappy-sounding acoustic, as well as never quite getting the positions right. It's a shame, because it's another thing to concentrate on, when I have enough to think about already.

I must master it as I must master my life

Having to sing makes drumming a lot harder. Essentially, because I'm not a very good singer, when I'm singing the drums have to be on autopilot. Sometimes this is easy, when the beat is simple and the lyrics follow a somewhat normal rock pattern. Sometimes, it's incredibly hard, when the lyrics cut across the beat, or the beat has all sorts of accents in funny places.

I think that's enough of the Rifleman's Creed.

There really is no substitute for just doing the rudiments. So, whereas previously I might just have put an album on and challenged my fitness, now I sit with a metronome and a stopwatch, and crank out steady notes on various parts of the kit for a set length of time, to build strength. It's tedious, but it works. And it hurts. I need to do it, because the fact is I'm a bit shy. I need to know that it's all in order before I do this stuff live, otherwise I'll be tight with self-doubt, and I won't enjoy it. If it's not fun, what's the point?

So: Drill some more.

I play drums as a hobby, and I'm in a band that are going to do (mostly) 80s and 90s heavy metal cover songs. I will almost certainly never make any money from playing music, it's just for fun. So it was with great trepidation that I made an outlay of £500 for a double bass drum pedal. Luckily my girlfriend is chipping in with some birthday present cash, because that's an awful lot of money for a hobby, especially a non-feepaying hobby.

I bought the Pearl Demon Drive double pedal, and I'm glad I did.

I'm not a good enough player to do a proper review of a drum pedal, so I'll go with what I know. The hype says this pedal is smooth, and it is fast. It's both of those things. Really, really fast. My old pedal was a bit cack, so anything would seem smooth after it, but I have to say I've never played a pedal quite like the Demon Drive.

The direct drive feature, where the footboard is connected via a simple mechanical linkage instead of a chain or belt, is one of those ideas that sounds like a gimmick. Then you play a direct drive pedal, and suddenly non-direct pedals seem a little old-fashioned. There is no lag. None. The footboard position maps directly onto the beater angle, with no delay on the upstroke. I'm not a jazz player, so I will miss the more subtle aspects of this, but playing fast is a dream - it's almost an embarrassment of riches.

Just as advertised, the slave pedal doesn't feel like a slave pedal. On every other double pedal I've every tried, the left pedal feels sluggish and/or at a different tension. You can compensate with spring tension, but that's not the point - it feels like you've got one slow pedal. The Demon Drive doesn't feel like that at all. I remember enough physics to know that it must be a little different due to the work going on inside the universal joints, but I can't feel it. Since I don't need to solve the equations of motion for the pedal system - just as well, because I was a bit crap at that even when I was supposed to be good at it, 15 years ago - I think it's easily good enough. I no longer care that it's a double pedal.

The conversion from split footboard to longboard is a bit more fiddly than the demo video suggests, but it took about five minutes to do. That's not a problem, because it's not something you're going to want to do, say, in between songs. It's a nice-to-have feature, because I want to try longboard, but I don't want to be stuck with it if I don't like it.

Right now, the jury's out on whether I prefer the longboard. I will have to convert back to split-board and try it, because right now I don't know where the extra speed is coming from. As it stands, I like the longboard a lot for fast stuff, but I'm not sure about it for slower, more expressive parts. I find myself sitting right back on the board so I can ground my heels properly, which makes it difficult to get soft hits because of the extra leverage. It's not impossible, as this is a very smooth and playable pedal, but it makes it a bit harder.

Right now, it feels like a lot of money well spent. I did a 90-minute practise session this morning, and there were a lot of smiles. I can no longer use the 'bad equipment' excuse for not being able to do some stuff, and I just have to get on with it. To my delight and somewhat to my surprise, a lot of parts that were out of reach are now really not too much of a problem.

Add to that the solid build quality of the pedal, the nice case it ships with, and the fact that it's actually nice to look at, you have one seriously compelling piece of kit. I love it.

...and yet it fails to be a reliable way of getting legitimate copies of music.

I shall explain.

Every time I've gone to buy a single track from the iTunes store, it's been marked as 'album only'. For non-iTunes users, that means that whilst you can download most individual songs, the most popular ones - i.e. those you'd most want to download individually - can only be obtained by purchasing the entire album.

Traditionally, this is the point in the blog post where a big rhetorical 'why' would be deployed. That's not necessary here; it's perfectly obvious why that do this - money. At least, I'm sure that's the reasoning used to justify giving the user an annoying experience. Trouble is, I doubt that it actually works.

I'm one of those that believes that musicians, filmakers, actors and so forth should be paid for their work. So, whilst I frequently torrent stuff, if I watch it and like it, I make a sanctimonious prick of a point of buying it. Battlestar Galactica is the best example, but there are many others. I've spent a fortune on DVDs based on an initial torrent download.

Unortunately, the reverse also applies. If I've tried to do the right thing and buy legitimately, only to be frustrated by shitty DRM or brainless album-only restrictions, I really don't have a problem with torrenting the tracks I want, and paying noone. I tried it their way, and failed. Move along. Nothing to see here.

There's nothing more wonderful than having high expectations exceeded. I love the music to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica - music is a pivotal element of TV and film for me - and I expected the soundtracks to be good. They are exquisite.

A great deal of TV soundtrack is generic and predictable, either badly written, poorly produced, or both. I loved the Sopranos' use of recorded songs, largely because it would have been criminal to ruin a great show with predictable score. That's definitely not the case here - the variety and poignancy of Bear Mccreary's music for Battlestar is a simple delight.

It's a dark show, and a lot of the music reflects that; but I like the tone of the show, and I feel it in the soundtrack. In Battlestar there were even a few opportunities for the soundtrack to lead, and lead it did - especially the fantastic version of 'All Along the Watchtower' that ends season 3. It's great to hear it in full, with no distractions.

What amazed me on listening to the OSTs is how so many of the themes and one-offs were etched into my memory from watching the show. I've not heard the soundtrack separately before today, but I feel like I've known much of it for years. I had the same experience with the glorious soundtracks to Lord of the Rings and Gladiator; it was a beautiful surprise to feel again another, somehow more personal, aspect to a fine piece of art.

 

A while ago I was bitching about fast double bass. Most of that still stands. However, now that I'm a bit fitter (from running) and have practised a lot, I can actually do the really fast double bass stuff, for short bursts anyway. 16ths at 220+ bpm and all. No Longboards were required.

It's really quite good fun. So I like it now. Go figure.

Looks like I'm in a band again. I haven't played live in eight years, and I haven't been a band since I was at university. I have no idea whether I'm as good at playing drums as I think I am, because I've not had that confirmation of being able to play well amidst other good musicians.

I'm exhilarated at the thought of playing live, but I have to admit I'm slightly terrified of subjecting myself to peer review after such a long time. I think I'm a pretty good player, but I just don't know any more.

It's time I got myself back into a band. While it's fun playing to iPod tunes in my garage, I really need to get out there and play music with others again. A cover band would be fine, probably more fun and less ego. There's a problem, though.

I like heavy metal music. I'm a reasonably decent drummer. Yet I can't play a lot of contemporary tunes, because the emphasis is so much on insanely fast double bass drums.

About twenty years ago the same thing happened with guitars. Undoutedly fine players like Yngwie got famous simply by playing very, very quickly. Now, the same thing happens with drums - players are rated by the speed of their pedals. After a while it ends up sounding the same, and while it's impressive it's not exactly musical. At the extreme end it's so fast it loses definition, and ends up sounding like a buzz.

I'm sure this sounds bitter, but that's ok. I'm not twenty any more, and it takes a whole lot longer to get the fitness and muscle memory to play like that. Thing is, there are so many other areas that I could be spending rehearsal time on, and yet all I seem to do is get frustrated at not being able to play 16ths at 220 bpm. Why? Because if I can't, I'm not a 'real' metal drummer, it would seem. Pathetic.

Don't get me wrong: I think Joey is a great player, and I just know he'd be just as great if he never went double bass ballistic. Many super-fast bass drum players are really just great players who play fast double bass. Still, it seems that so much metal at the moment simply uses insanely fast, clicky bass drums to cover a lack of imagination. Why construct a neat fill or change the accents when you can simply impress by blasting out meaningless 32nd notes on your Axis Longboards?

 I'm not the only one who thinks Metallica's Death Magnetic hasn't been engineered or mastered properly. There is now a petition for people who think that way.

More on the Death Magnetic overcompression fiasco. Here are Audacity renderings of three Metallica songs: Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (1984), Harvester of Sorrow (1988), The Unforgiven (1991), and The Day That Never Comes (2008).

I don't have to be a sound engineer to know that the last one is a hapless victim of the Loudness War. Worse, not only is it overcompressed, but in places it's clipped and distorted as well. What a waste.

Metallica's new album Death Magnetic has been released a bit early, which is fine by me. I've now listened to most of it, and it sounds great.

Weeeellll...

What I mean is, the songs sound great. Solos make a welcome return, and I like the longer songs. I'm glad the bin-lid snare drum sound is history. I've not listened enough to 'bond' with the album, but the first listen has been enjoyable.

The sound quality of the CD isn't great, though. Actually, in places it's very poor. There appears to be some kind of clipping going on in loud, bassy sections. (No, I haven't blown my speakers, and no, it's not an mp3/aac artefact - I get it on CD audio too, as well as AAC 256Kbps and Apple Lossless.) The effect is especially noticeable at the end of The Day That Never Comes - just where one least wants it, in fact.

I'm sure it's collateral damage from the Loudness War, and it's just not good enough. Absolutely the last thing I expect is to be checking if I haven't somehow blown the shit out of my speakers even when I'm typically listening at no more than 20% volume.

Out of desperation I checked it on my PS3 as well, to see if it only occurred on a PC. It's just as bad on Sony's finest.

I can't quite believe it. The boys release their best work since the Black Album, and the CD master is fucked!