Outoftheboxdrums is my take on the well-established online drum-recording phenomenon.  It’s both my livelihood and my love – bitten by a bug to give legs to interesting music with fresh sounding textures – drummy and otherwise.

Drums are always the support for music – it’s bones. The aim is to transmit emotion in the most economical way.  I’m a great follower of the “minimum voltage” in Michael Stavrou’s  “Mixing With Your Mind”.

Just as an acoustic guitar can be made to resonate above a pounding drum kit, brush strokes can put a shiver through programmed beats. Microphone gain can be used to refocus the incredibly quiet as the foundation of a song’s tone leading to interesting places.

Playing drums with all surfaces of brushes beaters and sticks confuses the ear’s regular diet. “Acousmatic” describes an area of electronic music and relates to music being generated behind a screen – When you can’t hear what’s making the sound it’s more interesting. Like being tickled.

Power is frequently attributed in drumming to volume. A light touch and tone less-so. The technique of playing in a controlled way and magnifying it brings out the humming sympathetic resonances of real drums. Pure mic signals sound punchy and three-dimensional when recorded like this. They get subtly even better going through valves and compression. If you’d like these kind of tactile drums for your music do get in touch. I’d be really interested to hear your project.

I was working on a track recently akin to the sleeve notes of Squarepusher’s Feed Me Weird Things where he allegedly experiments recording an ant walking on sand. Headphones came in really handy!