NAMM 2017: Remo Rhythm Lid Review

Aloha!

While walking through the terrifying drum hall at NAMM, I stopped in my tracks as soon as I saw the Remo Rhythm Lid Display. These products are not new for 2017, but I had never seen them before and I am blown away that nobody came up with this idea years ago.

Surely you have seen YouTube or Facebook videos of people using plastic buckets as drums, and often very well. Apparently it was only a matter of time until someone made affordable drum heads that fit easily onto the plastic buckets that everybody has kicking around their yard or garage That somebody would be Remo.

These 13 by 2–inch units are pre-tuned (no keys or hardware to lose) and fitted to Acousticon drumshells. They should fit most of 5, 6, and 7 gallon buckets like the ones you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes; they press on to the bucket with a slight downward pressure that “creates a ‘Press Fit’ seal that produces the quality tonal frequency.”Mmm hmm.

They Rhythm Lids do fit well, and when hit with sticks, mallets, or hands, they have a lovely warmth and resonance to them. There are four different heads available, as well as a snare attachment, so there are quite a few different sounds available. They might not be for everybody, but street drummers and parents that are looking for something to occupy their kids (for not a lot of cash) will find this to be a pretty cool option.

Best of all, the Remo Rhythm Lids are not very expensive. A quick check of a leading online retailer shows that these are selling for $36 to $63, with the snare models being at the top end of the price range. And, if you are unable to find your own bucket, you can buy the Rhythm Pal which comes with a Rhythm Lid AND a nifty black bucket. How could you go wrong?

Donald Ray Johnson – These Blues, the Best of Donald Ray Johnson | Album Review

Donald Ray Johnson – These Blues, the Best of Donald Ray Johnson

Self Release

www.donaldray.com

13 tracks / 59:00

Donald Ray Johnson has certainly managed to get around, and has come a long way since he was born in Bryan, Texas. As a young man he worked the cotton fields and learned how to play the drums, leading to a career that started when he was 14 with legendary blues pianist, Nat Dove. After an all expenses paid trip to Southeast Asia (courtesy of the US Navy), he returned to Southern California, where he hooked up with the blues scene again. You may know of him as a member of A Taste of Honey, which won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1979.

Johnson moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1989 and since then he has recorded six mighty fine blues albums, and his voice is just as good as his work on the traps. These Blues, the Best of Donald Ray Johnson is a compilation of nuggets from this body of work, though it must have been tough to narrow it down to only an hour of material. The thirteen tracks on this disc reveal a lot of versatility as it includes a little rhythm and blues and a touch of country, but it is mostly hard-hitting Chicago style blues. For a Canadian citizen that grew up in Texas and honed his craft in LA, he has a lot of the Windy City in him!

Nine of these tracks are originals, and he included four pretty cool covers for good measure. Donald opens the set with one of these, the Reverend Al Green’s “Ain’t No Fun to Me” which has a rock-solid backline (not surprisingly, he is a drummer after all), with plenty of harp, horns and Hammond. Johnson’s voice is a wonderfully hearty, but still smooth. This is a great tune, and all of the other tracks are just as good, which makes it hard to pick favorites, but I will give it a shot. Here are a few:

- It seems like every great bluesman has written at least one drinking song, and “Me and Jack (Daniels)” is Donald’s contribution to the community. This romp features a popping bass line, and an incredibly visual depiction of a man’s battle with the bottle. In this case the bottle always wins…

- “Always On My Mind” is one of my all-time favorite tunes, and this one provide a cool contrast to the most famous version, which was done by Willie Nelson (sorry, Elvis fans). Though this one also uses mainly country-style acoustic guitar as accompaniment, Donald’s voice is so much smoother than Willie’s that it makes this sad song new to me again.

-Johnny Taylor’s “Last Two Dollars” makes my list, as Johnson lays down some of the sexiest rhythm and blues lyrics you will ever hear. Of course, it helps that he started out with a very well written song that motors right through when played by one of the tightest bands you could put together.

- “No Guitar Blues” has plenty of guitar in it, courtesy of Michael Huston. This slow-rolling smooth blues track bemoans the fact that the blues community expects a front man to have an axe over their shoulder, and not be sitting behind a drum kit. The lyrics are witty and there is a glorious sax break and killer leads from Huston. This original song defines what Johnson is all about, so there was no way he could leave it off this “best of” compilation.

If you are not familiar with his work, These Blues, The Best of Donald Ray Johnson would be a perfect way to become familiar with his work. But be careful, after hearing it you might end up buying his other six CDs!

Review: Ibanez MTZ11 Multi-Purpose Tool for Guitars

Good day!

It is disheartening to arriving for a gig to find out that your guitar is not playing well, and not having any tools to try to make things right. At the least, a guitarist should make sure that they have a few basic tools with them at all time, and there are dozens of different multi-tools out there that fit the bill. I found my favorite a few years ago when I was in Japan and I needed to do some work on an axe I picked up over there. This tool is the Ibanez MTZ11.

The MTZ11 comes in cool colors (I chose red), and it is small enough to fit into any gig bag pocket. It measures around 3.75 inches long by 1.4 inches wide by 1.3 inches tall. It has 11 tools in it, including two Phillips head and a flat head screwdriver, 5 hex wrenches (1.5 to 5mm), a 7mm hex that will accept standard bits, and a 50mm ruler. These tools are made of high-grade steel, and I have not noted any wear to the screwdrivers or hex wrenches despite fairly heavy use.

But what really sets this one apart from the other tools on the market is the 50mm steel ruler. This is really handy for setting action and pick-up heights, and I would not buy a multi-tool that does not have a ruler in it if I had to buy another one.

The Ibanez MTZ11 multi-tool is cheaper than buying all of these tools separately, and it certainly is a tidy package. It is not terribly expensive, coming in at around $21 on Amazon, which is really cheap insurance if your gig is at stake. Check one out if you get the chance!

Mahalo!

Digital Reference DRDK4 Drum Microphone Set Review

Buenos dias, amigos!

There comes a time in every sound man’s life when someone says, “Hey! Can you mic these drums?” And it turns out that there are a lot of things to think about when miking the drums, first and foremost would be: what sort of microphones am I supposed to use. Second would probably be how to mount the microphones so they pick up the drums properly.

You can handle both of these problems in one fell swoop by purchasing a pre-made drum microphone kit. My favorite would have to the Shure DMK57-52, which comes with three SM57s, a Beta 52A and three really trick mounts. But, unfortunately these cost around $400 bucks on the street, which is a screaming deal for what you get in the package, but that is too much cash for many folks.

A super-cheap (but still viable) alternative is the Digital Reference DRDK4 4 piece drum microphone set. This kit includes three DR-ST100 snare/tom microphones and one DR-K100 kick drum microphone. It also comes with clips for each microphone, three universal tom mounting clips, and a nice form-fitting carry case that looks like it should have a gun in it.

The microphones are made of metal (not plastic), have a nice heft to them and are visually pleasing. They are compact and the clips adjust so that you can minimize their profile and hopefully not get them whacked by an errant drum stick. The supplied cips are cheap, but do a reasonable job of holding the microphones in place. They are made of plastic and can get buzzy if you are not careful about where you put them on the rim.

The DR-ST-100 super cardioid tom mics have a 50Hz - 15kHz frequency response and a 600Ω output impedance, and the DR-K100 cardioid kick drum mic has a 50Hz - 10kHz frequency response and a 300Ω output impedance. With some EQ work and compression, the tom mics sound good enough for gig use, with plenty of punch for the drums, and they pick up cymbals pretty well too. The kick drum microphone left me wanting, as it did not really translate the power of the drum very well. It works pretty well as an extra tom mic, though.

For recording, these microphones do not cut the mustard. They are not clear enough, nor do they translate sounds as accurately as is needed in the studio. But they are cheap. How cheap? How about a street price of $99.99 for the whole kit and caboodle? That is pretty cheap…

And surprisingly, these microphones come with a 10 year warranty, which is amazing at this price point. And from my research, it appears that Digital Reference is an off brand of Audio Technica, so they might actually be around in ten years. But then again, who is going to save a receipt for 10 years?

Anyway, I guess I am saying that these are a heck of a deal if you are just doing the occasional live show. And if you add a decent kick drum microphone you might get away with this set for a long time as long as you aren’t heading into the studio.

Mahalo!

Shure Beta 52A Microphone Review

Sugoi!

Like many others, I am a big fan of Shure microphones, and they build them for almost every application you can imagine. Today we are going to take a look at the Shure Beta 52A, which is one of the most popular microphones on the market for kick drums and bass instruments. I have used a cheap set of drums microphones for a long time and finally decided to upgrade my kick drum mic and this one has worked out very well.

For starters, the Beta 52A is a big, gnarly dynamic microphone with a large diaphragm. It was designed with a focus on low low-frequency characteristics and with an ability to handle very high pressure levels (up to 174db at 1000Hz), which makes it perfect for picking up a kick drum. You could actually mount this microphone inside the drum, but I have found my best sound by positioning it just outside the port.

The frequency response is rated from 20Hz to 10kHz, with boosts in the lows and high-mids. Positioning the microphone very close to the sound source, the Beta 52A provides around +6dB per octave from 700Hz down to around 50Hz where it plateaus. Of course, you will not see as much bass boost if the microphone is moved further away. And the Shure Beta 52A has a supercardioid polar pattern that is rotationally symmetrical about the microphone axis. This provides high gain (before feedback) and excellent isolation from unwanted sounds.

This is a stout unit, coming in at around 22 ounces. It has a hardened steel grill and a pretty silver blue enamel finish over its die cast metal body. No plastic here. The Beta 52 uses a neodymium magnet for high signal–to–noise ratio output, and it has a pneumatic shock mount to minimize transmission of mechanical noise.

There is a neat built-in stand adapter that locks into place and does not move by itself even when subjected to the intense vibration s that a loud kick drum will produce. In the stand adapter is an integrated male XLR connector that positions the microphone cable so it does not stick out too far, which is nice if stage real estate is at a premium.

When using this microphone, I have found that it can provide as much bass output as anybody would ever want, so some modifications to your equalizer settings may be needed. This will help it to not drown out the bass guitar. It is particularly nice with smaller kick drums, as it can really bring them to life.

The Shure Beta 52A is not the world’s cheapest microphone. In fact, you can buy a set of 5 cheap drum microphones with crummy mounts for half the price of this mic, but this one is worth the money and it is the best drum microphone in its price range. It has a list price of $236, and a street price of $189. If you are going to purchase one of these I would stick with a major retailer, and avoid craigslist or eBay deals that are too good to be true. Due to the popularity of Shure products, they are being counterfeited like there is no tomorrow, and you don’t want to get burned.

Mahalo!

The Dead Weather: Sea of Cowards Album Review

Hi there!

How are we supposed to find great new music if it is never played on the radio? I only heard about The Dead Weather’s new album, Sea of Cowards, by accident. This is really good stuff.

The Dead Weather has some real talent going for it: Jack White, Alison Mosshart (the Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs). There are a lot of shared responsibilities for percussion, drums, guitars and keyboards within the band, so I am not even going to try to sort it out.

By the way, how does Jack White keep going? He is three active bands, and in between recording and touring, I am surprised he can get it all done. This also makes it amazing that The Dead Weather was able to put out Sea of Cowards less than a year after their debut album Horehound.

The Dead Weather is a side-project for everybody involved, and you know what side-projects usually are: crap that cannot be put out by your regular band. Not that this is crap, or even unlistenable (is that a word?), but it is arty and experimental. Experimental blues rock, that’s it!

Well, maybe there is a good reason I have not heard this album on the radio. It is a little weird, and does not really have any songs that I can picture as being a radio-friendly hit. It is not a White Stripes album, for sure.

But don’t get me wrong, I like Sea of Cowards, but it took awhile to get used to it. I set it up as background music while I was writing a few weeks ago, and after a few listens, I started to appreciate it a lot more. It gets darker, sexier and more sordid the more I listen to it.

The dark and sexy vibe definitely comes from Alison Mosshart, who provides most of the vocals. Jack White also gets his fair share of vocal credit, although sometimes I am unsure who to attribute the various guttural growls and snarls to. They have a great chemistry, which adds to the overall sexual tension that I hear in the album.

The rest of their bandmates do a great job, with the overall vibe being rough and sleazy. The guitar lines are ragged and the rhythm of the bass and drums are throbbing. There are no real guitar hooks, which combined with the roughness of the music probably keeps Sea of Cowards off the radio. But I do not see this as self-indulgent, but as more of an adventure and a sign that the band is not trying to stay within the conventional rock box.

Anyway, I am running out of space here for today. Run out to your local record store and buy The Dead Weather’s Sea of Cowards. Just kidding, there are no record stores any more. Go download it and give it a few listens. It will be worth it.