< PreviousModern Drummer August 2022 18 Meinl’s Pure Alloy Custom 20 " & 22 " Medium Thin Rides By Brian Hill Warm, Somewhat Dark, and Extremely Articulate The folks at Meinl sent over one of their Pure Alloy Custom Medium Thin Rides for us to look at, and we’re glad they did. Unlike the Byzance line which is hand hammered in Turkey with a B20 Bell Bronze alloy, the Pure Alloy Custom series is made in Germany utilizing what Meinl calls “Pure Alloy.” The result is a very musical and professional grade instrument. When I received the box from Meinl, I was initially surprised to see only one cymbal in the box. Normally, I would expect a mix of different cymbals from a specific line to review. I thought, this must be some “plate!” Well, it turns out that this really is, “some plate!” There’s’ a whole lot going on here, so let’s get started. Specs Meinl’s Pure Alloy Custom line has been turning heads since its introduction as a high-end professional cymbal. The Pure Alloy Customs have a clean and very musical quality that compliments all styles of music. However, according to Meinl, many requests were coming in requesting thinner versions within the line. The result is the medium-thin models represented here in the Custom 20” Pure Alloy Ride that we are reviewing. The first thing that I noticed was its striking August 2022 Modern Drummer 19 appearance. The body of the cymbal is precision hammered and lathed, while the bell is what I like to call “virgin.” It has no hammering or lathing, just a smooth, raw-looking bell that really stands out. Meinl finished the top playing surface with a beautiful finish called “Custom Smoked-Bronze.” This finish gives hint to the over-all character of warmth and darkness inherent to the line. The underside of the cymbal is polished to a brilliant finish. Sound Meinl describes these rides as “Complex, Full-bodied, Sensitive, Smooth, Warm, and Musical.” I fully agree. With a medium to low pitch and volume range, I find these rides to be extremely responsive and controllable. The stick response was exceptional and the stick “ping” had a great clarity. The cymbal’s attack was warm and soft, and it’s decay was fast. This is a cymbal that won’t get lost in the mix at any volume. The wash of the cymbal brought a nice musicality to the mix without being overpowering. The mid to dark timbre works well with it’s mid to long sustain characteristics. The bell was certainly clear and present, while the smooth raw appearance made it a great target that seemed hard to miss while playing. Another thing that I noticed was the consistency and high quality of the cymbal. While tapping from the base of the bell to the edge, I found an even consistency of pitch from high to low, and in note width from thin to wide. I checked this characteristic with several rides that I had in my studio and thought the Meinl Pure Alloy Custom ride was actually superior in this respect. This is a well engineered piece of metal! Because of the medium thin make-up of the cymbal, it also provided a great crash without being too overbearing. Conclusion As with all aspects, I found this to be a very high-end offering to the over-all cymbal market. This is certainly a professional grade instrument worthy of real consideration. It seems that the Pure Alloy collection was created not only to be a superior cymbal line, but also to compete with established high-end offerings from the other major cymbal companies. The Pure Alloy Custom cymbal line (along with the Byzance line,) have solidly placed Meinl as one of the “Big Four” cymbal manufactures along with Paiste, Zildjian, and Sabian. The Pure Alloy Custom Ride is a great general “go-to” cymbal that complimented everything I did with it. I like the dark and earthy qualities that are inherent to the cymbal’s musicality while playing different styles of music. After playing this cymbal for a couple weeks, I couldn’t imagine not wanting it in my set- up. I liked it so much that I actually bought it! Check out these beautiful and musical plates and all that Meinl has to offer at meinlpercussion.com.Modern Drummer August 2022 20 Ash Soan: I t’s All Music! By Mark Griffith David PhilipsAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 21 H e’s played on the Olympics with Mike Oldfield, the British version of The Voice for seven years, toured with Del Amitri, Squeeze, Faithless, The Waterboys and Mike Scott, Will Young, James Morrison, Marianne Faithfull, Sinead O’ Connor, recorded with everyone from Rod Stewart and Billy Idol to Adele and Cher, as well as Seal, Celine Dion, James Morrison, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith, Robbie Williams, Elton John (The Lion King) and Alicia Keys. Also live shows with Bryan Adams, Van Morrison, Belinda Carlisle, Terry Reid, Jeff Lorber & Jimmy Haslip, Trevor Horn, Seal and Lol Creme of 10cc. He is at the top of the list for producers like Trevor Horn, Mark Taylor, Jimmy Napes, Steve Lipson and Fraser T. Smith, and he does soundtrack work with Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe. Now he is touring with Tori Amos, and Joss Stone, and he just recorded with Bob Marley (yes you read that right!) However, unless you are one of his millions of followers on social media, you might not even know his name. His humility is as big as the Atlantic, and his pocket is just as deep. He considers himself to be a 30-year overnight success, and he is sincerely excited that drummers “on this side of the pond” are learning his name. His name is Ash Soan.Modern Drummer August 2022 22 MD : For a drummer as prolific as you are, it’s amazing there isn’t a whole lot of information on you out there yet. Your career has really begun to take of in the last 10 years, but you have been building your career for a long time. May I ask, how old are you? AS: I’m 53 in December, and yes, my career has really begun to take off in recent years, but I have been working for a long time. It’s strange, as a musician gets a little older, usually some doors start to close. I have seen that happen in generations before me. I consider myself very fortunate to have somehow kept myself in people minds, and the doors seem to keep opening. MD: Let’s go back to your beginnings as a drummer? AS : My first musical inspiration was when my dad played me Sandy Nelson’s “Let There be Drums.” That is when I decided this is what I am going to do, and no one was going to tell me any different. Thanks to blind faith and good luck, I’ve managed to do this all of my life. There are no musicians in my family, but my Mum and Dad were very supportive. A friend of the family would send me recordings of Shelly Manne, Art Blakey, Buddy Rich and all of these fantastic big band records and tapes. So I recognized their names and when their bands played near us, my dad would buy tickets and we would go and see them, I was lucky enough to meet Art Blakey and Buddy Rich in 1984. When I was 11, I played in a jazz trio with my music teacher from school, it was piano, bass, and drums. We would play at dinner-dances and PTA meetings and such. I learned at that age that jazz was cool, and that playing the drums was a viable thing to do. I didn’t have any interest in anything else. My parents saw my passion in music and God bless them both, they nurtured it. I began studying music and recording in Manchester at Salford, in 1989 I then attended a small school called Drumtech in London in 1991. I’m glad to say that we studied and listened to American jazz and groove drummers at Drumtech. I started my professional journey by moving to London when I was 21. This is in the pre-internet days, so the options were London, New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, or Chicago really. The internet has changed things. Today, if you are a drummer living in a small town in the south of Spain for instance, you can get seen and heard through social media. And if you are a great drummer, you can grab someone’s attention, but in the 90s if you were keen to start a career in music you had to make David Philips David Philips David PhilipsAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 23 the move to one of the music capitals. When I moved to London, my career was an empty canvas. I immediately tried to get some club and pub gigs in London. I’ve had some really lucky moments in my career, one of them was that I was really fortunate to have moved to a nice part of town and believe it or not I lived on the same street as Pino Palladino. MD : That is lucky. AS: I was coming back to my flat after a gig with a pint of milk, and I saw a bass player walking out of his house. I remember thinking, “Great, another musician lives on my street, that’s wonderful.” He proceeded to walk over and get into a brand new 7 Series BMW. I remember thinking, “Either this is not really a bass player, or he is a VERY good bass player.” I saw his face and his height and realized it was Pino. He saw me looking and he came over to talk, and 30 + years later we are still very good friends. He was the most open and giving person that I have ever met, and he still is. I continually bent his ear and I showed up to his house with donuts almost every day, and I asked him hundreds of questions. I asked him about all of the drummers that he was working with. Jeff, Gadd, Vinnie, everybody. That was in 1991. In 1993 I was playing in a pub and the bassist from Massive Attack came in. He hired the guitarist and myself for a singer-songwriter named Tom Robinson that was my first name gig and tour. Around that same time Pino called to tell me that there was a band called Del Amitri that was looking for a drummer, and he wanted to know if I would be up for it. I was 24 at the time, I jumped at the opportunity, and my life changed. When I got to the audition Chris Whitten was already in the room playing, I asked someone who was playing drums, and when I learned it was Chris, I thought, “Well there’s no way I’m getting this gig.” Chris had already toured with McCartney and Dire Straits I thought it was game over for me. That was actually very fortunate, because I totally relaxed and figured, OK I’m here, I might as well go in and play and learn from the experience. I could go back to London with a bit more experience and knowledge, and hopefully get the next audition. Knowing what I know now, you get gigs because of your playing, personality, and sometimes your price range. And my price range was considerably less than Chris Whitten at the time. Del Amitri was about to embark on a huge global tour, and (simply put) I think Chris was just too expensive. Chris had just finished up the Dire Straits tour and I don’t think he was keen to do another slog of promo and another big tour. The next thing I knew I was on a plane headed to Los Angeles to start rehearsals for the Del Amitri tour. We rehearsed in an old sparring gym of Muhammad Ali’s, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were rehearsing next door. After rehearsals I sneaked into see Chad’s kit and played it….. the next day he was on me and said have you been playing my drums?! I couldn’t understand how he knew so I shamefully said yes and he shouted I knew it!!! He knew because he always puts his sticks on the floor tom when he finishes playing and I’d put them back on the snare!! I was caught! Anyway, my fifth gig with Del Amitri was Woodstock ’94. I was literally dropped directly into the deep end, and that was the start of my professional journey. MD : When you joined Del Amitri, did you have aspirations of becoming a session drummer, or were you just looking for a gig? AS : Great point, I just wanted a gig, I wanted to play. One of the biggest things that I learned from Pino was that it was alright to like all kinds of music. He told me, “It’s all music, and you are a musician.” That might sound strange to US musicians, because in the US it is alright to like and play all kinds of music. But in the UK, it was a little different back then in the 90s. If you played groove music, jazz, or fusion you weren’t accepted by some pop musicians and producers. Recently Jeff Lorber made an observation to me, he said, “England is interesting, isn’t it? If you can actually play your instrument, you aren’t ‘cool.’” And he’s right in a way. There was a point in the 90s when Britpop was big and everything was about bands like Blur and Oasis, and not individual musicians. Becoming a session drummer wasn’t all that possible. All of the attention was on bands, and band drumming. And I was very aware of that. MD : There is a very distinct tradition of British drumming that is interesting. I’m glad that you mentioned what Jeff Lorber said. But is that the British drumming tradition? Or is it something else? AS : From what I am aware, all of the great American drummers I know have done some sort of drum line in their past and have a strong understanding of rudiments. MD : Which could be a formal drum corps, a high school marching band, or some aspect of the military tradition of snare drumming. AS : Yes. However, we don’t have any of that in Britain really, so straight away that’s different. My rudimental knowledge was almost non-existent. Most British drummers have a low bar for, and a low supply of, technique. But what isn’t in low supply in the UK is bands and creating music. All of the British drummers who have become successful and influential I feel have looked at American drummers and said, “Wow look at that technique, listen to that feel.” We have been inspired by American drummers. But (in general) we Brits didn’t develop the technique. We tried to emulate the American drummers without having the technique to do it. Because of that lack of technique, everything just comes out sounding different. The same thing happened with the bands. British bands sometimes try to sound American, we sometimes get it wrong, and something else happens that is uniquely British and beautiful. For instance I think Barrimore Barlow (one time drummer for Jethro Tull) is a perfect example of that. I should say that I have developed singles, doubles, paradiddles and a few things like that along the way. I just don’t have the knowledge of that side of drumming. I am working on that. I love the new Gaddiments book! On the other hand, it’s all just a way to express music. MD: And like Pino told you, “It’s all music.” I just wanted a gig, I wanted to play. One of the biggest things that I learned from Pino was that it was alright to like all kinds of music. He told me, “It’s all music, and you are a musician.” That might sound strange to US musicians, because in the US it is alright to like and play all kinds of music.Modern Drummer August 2022 24 AS : Yes, Pino was right. As a musician you can do a gig in Rio and contribute to a Brazilian pop session, or you can play with a Death Metal band in the Netherlands and contribute there as well. I loved jazz as a kid, and loved being in a band in the 90s, it was all just music. I always had aspirations to play all different kinds of music, and through Pino’s confirmations, I learned that was OK. In fact, Pino is the perfect example of that, it wasn’t that long ago when he was playing with The Who and D’Angelo at the same time. MD : “It’s just music” has always been one of my mantras, it’s interesting that you said that. Did you realize or have the hopes that being in a band would help you get into the session world? I think that many young musicians see those two things as separate entities, but it’s really not. AS: Absolutely. Getting in a band was a good start. I absolutely knew that if I played the Del Amitri songs well on record, it would be a good starting point for my career, and for the things that I wanted to achieve in music. MD : There is nothing as educational or helpful in a career as just playing every night, and when you are in a band, you are playing every night. AS: You are so right. Before this tour with Tori Amos, I hadn’t done a tour since I toured with Sinead O’ Connor in 2012. To prepare for this tour I did a bit of running, and I played through imaginary sets of music, I practiced, I did all of the preparation that I could. But truthfully, the only way to get really prepared for a tour, is to tour and play every night. It takes about a week or so of shows to become “gig fit.” MD : Can I ask you about the session scene in the UK? There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of session drummers in the UK. I am aware of a few. Gavin Harrison just hipped me to Tony Beard, I have always loved the late Jimmy Copley, but who was around on the session scene when you were breaking in? AS : The UK is incredibly small. There are only a handful of us who have managed to break into that scene and get a certain amount of work. Like in any city in the states, there are the same guys who get the movie soundtrack work, the record dates, the tours, and to break into that is very difficult. Ian Thomas is a Welsh drummer who is fantastic. He has toured with Clapton and Mark Knopfler. My first movie session was playing double drums with Ian on the Hans Zimmer/Lorne Balfe soundtrack for Terminator Genisys. Ian is such a warm hearted and gracious guy, and that’s what he sounds like when he plays. I have a whole mantra about musicians, and “you are what you eat.” When I met Gadd for the first time, he was so warm hearted and giving, and when you hear him play that is exactly how he sounds at the drums. Ian is the same way. I am actually lucky enough to sub for Ian with Hamish Stuart (from the Average White Band) occasionally. Ralph Salmins is another really great drummer who has been essential in the UK session scene. He has a different attitude about playing the drums. Again, he is just such a warm and friendly bloke. He toured with Van Morrison for years, and he also toured with the Waterboys after me. He can swing, groove, read, everything! Karl Brazil is another one. He plays with Robbie Williams and sounds great doing big record dates and tours in the UK. Us British drummers don’t usually make a big impact on this side of the pond (in North America.) To just be known in the US, and that companies like Gretsch and Zildjian have recognized and championed me is so wonderful and such an honor. Vic Firth and I are actually working on a signature stick for future release, Gretsch is making my signature snare, and I’m even working on a book for Hudson Music. These are true schoolboy dreams for any British drummer. On this tour with Tori, the number of drummers that have either reached out or made a point to come out If you sit and play along to Bob Marley records, it isn’t going to do you or your playing any harm whatsoever! That in-between straight and swung groove will always help your playing. David PhilipsAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 25 to a show has been amazing. Omar Hakim, Steve Ferrone, Stewart Copeland, David Garibaldi, Keith Carlock, Stanton Moore, and Mark Guiliana, these are my heroes. To make an impact here, and to earn the respect of American drummers, some of whom have become good friends, and to appear on the cover of Modern Drummer, I just can’t describe what that feels like. To find popularity as an independent British drummer is just so rare these days. My friend Gavin Harrison has made an impact in the US as an independent drummer. Then there is the club of “if you can’t beat them, join them” of Dave Mattacks, Steve Ferrone, and Simon Phillips. They made the decision to actually move to the US. MD : I am a big believer in career longevity, and all of the guys that you have mentioned have accomplished the ultimate goal of longevity, as have you, so you deserve to be in that group. AS : I consider myself to be a 30-year overnight success. MD: Now you are finding yourself working with younger artists. Have you found a difference in working with younger vs. older artists? AS: Not really no. The younger artists and producers still require you to play with feel, passion, and deliver a vibe. It doesn’t matter if it’s Ed Sheeran or Rod Stewart, they both require the same musical potion and approach. I guess that’s why some of the older musicians are still working, because it is still the same. MD : It’s all music. AS: The drumset has been a modern instrument for only about 100 years, and today we are really delivering the same stuff that Ringo was in the 60s. When Ringo started playing a consistent backbeat in a song back then with the Beatles, it was a whole new thing, and we’re still doing that today. Sound, feel, and personality on the drums still matters. People think that your personality isn’t as important as it was with the nature of modern technology and ProTools, because everything (warts and all) can get ironed out. But when you are laying it down, people still want to look through the glass and say, that feels good! Even though they might edit and re arrange your performance after you are done, they still want it to feel good when you are recording a part. MD: Have producers changed? AS : I work with some older producers like Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson. I learn a lot from working with them. I really like working with Fraser T. Smith on Adele’s music, Jimmy Napes on the Sam Smith music, and I love working with Mark Taylor on Cher’s music. Although that is two distinct generations of producers, they all require the same thing. They want a good feel, they want the musical attitude to be correct. Obviously, there are new things going on: samples, sound replacement, loops, groove replacement, but when you are laying down tracks people still want it to feel good. That hasn’t changed. MD: Has Trevor ever told you why he likes working with you? AS : He likes my jokes! He says I know when a joke is needed to keep the mood of a session up-beat, positive, and moving forward. But seriously, Trevor likes drummers that are consistent, drummers that use dynamics, and drummers that he can edit. At heart, Trevor is an arranger, so he’ll move sections of music around within the song. The second half of your verse might turn into a bridge. But it isn’t only a ProTools thing, he used to do that with tape too. Trevor really likes drummers whose parts he can edit and move around seamlessly. What it comes down to is that he likes old-school values from a musician. David PhilipsModern Drummer August 2022 26 MD : How did this tour with Tori Amos come about? AS: I played on The Voice here in the UK for about seven years, and it was the perfect gig at the perfect time. My kids were young, it was a regular gig, and I was home all of the time. I started to think about the future, and wondered if I would still want to be doing The Voice television show when I was 60 years old? Those thoughts coincided with building my studio and starting to record tracks at home, and I started to get very busy. I left The Voice in 2019 and I was doing recordings with Alicia Keys and Ed Sheeran, and there were some bigger names that were starting to knock on my door, and I figured that I had to give it a go. I have continued chipping away at it, and here I am. I left The Voice to leave myself open for some more artistic ventures. When the pandemic hit, I was very fortunate to be one of the only guys in the UK that was set up to do drum tracks remotely, so that was fantastic and very lucky for me. Last year Tori’s management emailed me and asked if I would be interested in doing a tour. I knew that if I was going to go back on the road, it would have to be financially right, musically engaging, and it would have to be with an artist whom I could learn from and engage with musically. Tori ticked all of the boxes and more. The next day Keith Carlock emailed me asking me if I would be interested in touring with Tori as well. I think Keith put in a good word for me, and I got the gig. I’m very thankful for Keith’s friendship and support. MD : Matt Chamberlain has put a huge thumbprint on Tori’s music, and she has allowed him to leave a thumbprint on her music. How did you deal with that aspect of the gig? AS : Obviously, those are enormous shoes to try to fill. Matt is so stylistically perfect for the gig, and he has such a brilliant voice on the drums, so yes it was pretty daunting. But the fantastic thing is that Tori was (and is) open to my interpretations of her music. Obviously, there are certain grooves and parts that can’t be changed, and I wouldn’t dare change them. For example, Matt’s groove on “Sweet Sangria” is part of the DNA of that tune, that is classic Matt Chamberlain, so I do my best to “be” Matt on that tune. But I can only go so far. Ultimately, and going back to the talk about British drumming, I sound like me playing Matt Chamberlain. MD : That has nothing to do with being British, that has to do with being human. You can only be you. AS: But there is a certain swampy American groove that Keith Carlock, Stanton Moore, and Matt Chamberlain all have. It’s an ingrained American gumbo of groove. We don’t have that in England, we have to immerse ourselves in it, and (try) to learn it. Tori is American but lives in England, so I guess that has worked in my favor, and her bassist Jon Evans has been an absolute sweetheart to work with. He has done the gig for 25 years with Matt, and has never done the gig with anyone else, and he has been so giving and understanding, I call him Obi Wan because he’s helped me like a Jedi master. It has been a fantastic learning experience because we do a new tune every day, so I get to listen to and learn from Matt David PhilipsAugust 2022 Modern Drummer 27 Courtesy Gavin Harrison Chamberlain every day. Although Matt and I have shared some records together, we have never met, but I am having fun learning from him and putting my own spin on the songs, and I hope we’ll get a chance to meet soon. MD: I don’t even know where I would start to find the entranceway into Tori’s music without trying to sound like Matt. How did you approach that challenge? AS: The first thing was that I changed my drumset. I am known for using a small Ringo or Charlie Watts type of set. But in my studio, I have a couple of sets, one has a drier bass drum, one is wide open. Tori’s husband mixes front of house on the tour, so he is very dialed in to sound. So I created a bigger set that covered all of the sounds that Matt used, and tried to cover all of the stylistic bases for Tori’s wide variety of recordings. Sonically, my drums can get close to the sounds Matt created. Feel-wise it will never be identical. MD : What tunes do you enjoy playing the most? AS: I like “Cornflake Girl,” which I don’t think was recorded by Matt. It swings, and I made the brazen decision to play a halftime shuffle on it and it works, it’s sort of swampy, so that’s a highlight. I like to play “Pancake” and the song “God”. She has some fantastic big cinematic songs that I play shakers and atmospheric stuff on which are a lot of fun. MD : What is working with Hans Zimmer like? That is the film equivalent of playing with the Beatles. AS: I adore Hans, and almost everyone who works with him adores him. I did Terminator Genisys with Lorne Balfe, and that led to Kung Fu Panda with Lorne but Hans was there too. That led to me working with Hans on The Lion King and Boss Baby 2. I just worked with Hans and Steve Lipson at British Grove Studios (Mark Knopfler’s Studio.) One of the first things that I noticed about Hans was that he treated everyone as an equal. The guy who brought Hans his tea was treated equally to a musician. With Hans there is no pecking order, everyone is an equal. The kid who is operating the ProTools rig, is as important as the 6’4” legend who is playing fretless bass. MD: That is refreshing to hear. AS : Because of that, it seems anyone will do anything for Hans. He has an amazing talent for making creatives feel that they are special, and because of that he gets amazing results from them. Fortunately, that seems to be becoming the norm with the producers that I work with. Steve Lipson, Mark Taylor, and Fraser T. Smith are the same way. MD : When you are doing remote sessions how much communication do you have with the artist and the producer? AS : It varies. When I did the Seal record, he Facetimed me. When I work with Trevor Horn he and I communicate regularly. He is very good at referencing different grooves and such. Remote is a slower process but we always get there. Before the pandemic I still did a good deal of sessions in London where the entire rhythm section was in the same room at the same time, and I look forward to getting back to that. That world still exists. But there are a lot of younger producers who are coming from a different world. The fact is, that is how mainstream pop music is made, like it or not. You have to move with the times. MD : You have done a lot of records, what ones would you point to as being ones to check out? AS : I love working with producer Mark Taylor on the Cher records, and the single “I Hope You Find It” is a track that offers a good example of my straight pop playing. Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” is another track that everyone talks about. James Morrison’s You’re Stronger Than You Know is good and I’m on the whole record, Billy Idol’s Kings & Queens of the Underground is me rockin’ a little harder. Back in 2001 I did a record with producer Ross Robinson who produced Korn, Slipknot, and Limp Bizkit. The band was called Vex Red and the record was called Start with a Strong and Persistent Desire. No one would even think that is me playing, but it’s a really good example of me playing hard rock and metal. Ross Garfield provided the drums for that record, and he brought a beautiful Gretsch kit and the famous Tama Bell Brass snare that Dave Grohl used on Nevermind, and it was amazing. That record with Vex Red is a great example of my playing. The drum sound is fantastic, we recorded to tape, I just love that record. I also really like the Seal records Seven and Soul 2 and the Rod Stewart record that I did with Trevor producing. The new Julian Lennon record that I did just came out and it turned out great. And believe it or not I am doing a Bob Marley album right now. MD : WHAT??? A “new” Bob Marley record? AS: They are adding strings to some of the old Marley records, and the Marley family is fully supporting the project partly because it is an ethnically diverse orchestra and it’s really being done right! Believe it or not, I had to replace the Carlton Barrett drum tracks to make the re-recording possible. MS : That sounds like sacrelige. AS: I know, unfathomable right? When they approached me, I said exactly that, that’s sacrelige, you can’t change Carlton Barrett’s drum parts! MD: They are so slinky, and there is so much feel there. AS : I know, but when they sent me the tracks, I knew why they wanted to do it. The tracks are labeled kick and snare. It sounds like a 57 in the bass drum, and a 57 as an overhead, and that was it. Everything leaked into those two mics. They wanted to remix the tracks and they needed new drum tracks that were properly recorded to widen the drum sound. When I heard the tracks, I began to understand the need. That meant I had to go through the tracks and learn Carlton’s parts and play exactly what he played. MD: And more importantly HOW he played. There was a four-year period when I barely even played the drums, I just recorded, listened, and learned in my studio. After 10 years of work, my engineering skills have gotten to a good place. I did a Seal record, and a Rod Stewart track with Trevor Horn and he liked the final drum tracks, I knew that I was doing something right. Next >