Tyler Zarzeka Interview on my latest podcast episode

Tyler Zarzeka is a professional drummer whose credits include Charlie Puth, Kiiara, Noah Cyrus (Miley’s sister) and is currently on the road with Taylor Grey! He is currently on the roster for Q drums, Zildjain, Remo, Roland, Vic Firth, etc.

He’s a very down to earth and awesome guy, and I really enjoyed our conversation. We had a great talk about how to make the connections in becoming a pro drummer, what it’s like to be on the road, staying healthy while traveling and more!

https://www.tylerzarzeka.com/ Opening music is https://anthillrecordings.bandcamp.com and closing track is https://anthillrecordings.bandcamp.com

Friday Drumming Playlist

So, I upload a ton of different videos to my YouTube channel, but some of my work I am most proud of is the stuff I’m playing drums on. So I thought I would put them in a playlist (sorted by popularity) for everyone to check out.

I have a lot of different stuff on here, from my work with drumming to Vocaloid, Super Mario Songs, Milkytracker, to just original songs and bands I’ve played with.

Check it out!

Alesis Nitro Mesh Kit - Complete List Of Drum Sounds and Missing Manual

The Alesis Nitro Mesh Electronic Drum Set is probably the best electronic kit for the money, but the manual is strangely missing a lot of information, like the complete list of drum sounds included in the drum module.

In truth the drum module was designed by a company called Medeli and is internally exactly like their DD512 module. I’ve made it easy for those of you looking for the full drum kit list and you can see them below. As well as the full manual here for download.

Alesis Nitro Mesh May Be The Best Electronic Drum Kit For Under $500!

I recently picked up an Alesis Nitro Mesh electronic drum set, and am loving it! I have never purchased a new e-drum kit before, and didn’t (couldn’t) spend a lot of money on it. I did a ton of research and watched hundreds of YouTube videos about electronic drums before deciding on the Nitro Mesh.

I want to give a huge shout-out to Justin from 65drums for his incredible and insanely extensive videos on all things electronic drums. Without his channel I don’t think this would have been as easy as a decision.

The nitro mesh gives you a lot for the money. You get full drum kit with two cymbals, hi hats, quality module, pedals and even sticks, for only $350! Putting it together is a bit time consuming, but once together the kit is very solid. There’s absolutely no crosstalk on my set (crosstalk is when wrong drums trigger when hitting other drums). I’ve played more drums in the past two days than I have in months!

Making your own kits is fun and creative on the Nitro module, there’s a lot of settings such as changing pitch, panning, reverb, and volume for each sample, it has standard midi in and out, usb midi, stereo 1/4″ outs, headphone out, and expansion ports for two more triggers. I am very happy with this purchase so far.

 

Sticky Wicket is Becoming My Favorite YouTube Drummer

If you haven’t seen Sticky Wicket yet, you are really missing out. The YouTube Channel, Next Level Chops Has been featuring a series of videos with drummer, Sticky Wicket, who has an amazing collection of real vintage drums, and is a master drum historian.

Their Sticky Wicket Playlist has many great videos of Sticky giving drum history lessons, showing his old timey drums, as well as amazing demonstrations such as the one above. They are a true joy to watch and I highly recommend them!

Aquarian's Answer To The Classic Black Dot Drum Head (Classic Clear Power Dot)

So many great drummers swore by Remo’s C.S (Black Dot) drum heads over the years such as Tony Williams, Alex Van Halen, Steve Smith, and many more. But these days Remo’s quality sadly just isn’t what it used to be, thankfully Aquarian makes an alternative that is the same concept, but in a far more durable and consistent head.

I recently replaced my tom heads with these and made a video about it. Check it out below.

Recording Multi-Channel Drums With Limited Inputs

 

from one of my vids

Recording drums is an art-form, and there’s many ways to do it. In today’s era of cheap home recording equipment it’s easier than ever to record yourself. One problem though when it comes to drums is many commercially available and affordable computer interfaces have a limited amount of audio inputs. Most commonly 2 or 4.

When this is the case you have some decisions to make. You can either use less mics, by going for a more distant miking technique, or you can use a mixer to combine signals into less inputs. With this tutorial I chose the ladder. I wanted a more closely miked sound on my interface that only has 4 inputs. I used a small inexpensive mixer from Amazon, and my Behringer UMC404HD and combined some channels to use all 4 channels with the maximum amount of options to use later on in the mix.

In the video below I show you how I recorded kick, snare, overhead, two acoustic toms and two electric toms using only 4 channels, and still having the ability to adjust quite a bit of levels in the mix.