[REF]

Dude, you are fifty? Are you kidding? Hmm. Wait, I thought I saw fifty somewhere. Now I don't. Just how old of a dinosaur are you? I'm 54. ELP, YES, Kansas, Gentle Giant, Passport, Mahavishnu, RTF, Jean Luc Ponty, those were the days when musicians really took off and flew. I cut my teeth on that stuff. Blue Man Group do some incredible things. Extreme imagination. To that end I really love STOMP, as well. But that's another subject.

I find LISA intriguing because of the one handed continuous triggering possibilities. I guess I can hone in on it and try to make it out more clearly. Is the ring some stock component for some other thing, like, say, an oven rack, if you know what I mean? Seems to me I have seen a ring like that before, I just can't place where or what it was for. I would like to have something like that in my own set up. I like unique things, and I like making things myself, if I can.

[Orb Vroomer]

Yes,indeed, in chronological terms I'm a geezer.Wish I was a weezer.I kept myself young by running sound @ a punk club for 6 years,6 nights a week & 3 to 7 bands a night.I used to do a lot of the new age & atmospheric type of sound before that.I was able to book into that (punk) club,but pretty music wasn't going to work so I tried to develop a little more aggressive & edgy vibe.If I post any of that it might make some sense to you. So we both like prog rock & making things.Why don't you show me something you made?I love to make things out of found objects,but I made LISA.I have zero metal work experience,but aluminum is a great thing to work with.It's soft,doesn't wreck your drill bits,etc.I always buy my 1.5" tubing at the scrap yard.I said something earlier,but there is a cool intersection of junk,electronics (think radio shack) & imagination.That's the intersection where people like Blue Man Group come from.Those guys are my heroes! I just saw earlier tonight my vids were on Alt tv.After the newsletter i didn't see them & assumed I wasn't in.Glad I was wrong! I think those guys had a back log & they are still adding more. orb.

[vindrums]

      Another DinoKAT  52 kansas zappa tomita etc
       On my video, the second bass pedal is an old jack plane turned bass.....and on an unrelated note: let me tell you, pvc drills even easier than aluminum!
    I remember a day in the 80's when RS told me they weren't selling piezos anymore. The guy found a way to order me 20, and RS always had them when I asked after that......but just imagine how scary...no more piezos

    What newsletter?

Vince

[REF]

DinoKAT. LOL.

The A.M. email newsletter, I believe.

Vince, you have a website with vids of your playing and stuff? What is it?

Orb, aside from the finger drum which can be seen in that thread here, most stuff I have made has been just typical DIY piezo triggers made from various things at Lowes or Home Depot. I'm making more now, matter of fact. Otherwise, acoustic drums, or hardware for acoustic drums, or modifying cymbals has been my pursuit.

I need to check out the new entries posted. I am thinking the final decision will be very close. Like you said, the academy award with no categories. Tough call. Might be interesting to know what people with no experience with edrumming or a musical instrument  would say.

I'll have to go back and look at LISA today. It appeared the job of bending the circle's configuration was done very precisely. Do you work with tools for adjusting metals?

[Orb Vroomer]

Vince &REF-I can't believe no one else has chimed in on these subjects! We all know the DIY crowd is out there,everywhere.Once I played on a stage with one of those giant-low-hanging HVAC-duct-headbanger deals right above my kit.So when life gives you lemons....I simply duct taped (first time in history a musician used it for it's intended usage!) a piezo to it.I just plugged it into my octapad (pre DK) & used it for my snare @ will.The funniest part was when the first break came & the club manager wanted to know "what other sounds I could get out of that duct!!"After cycling through the 4 sounds I assigned to it he still didn't get it.He thought I some how miked & processed it!!That's the mystery & magic part of it.Bottom line-the guy is completely blown away by the simplest thing (to guys like us) & comprehending the process is not necessary (for the audience).After that I ALWAYS had this ready to go-anything in the club can be a trigger! Just be careful with your heavy metal chops so as not to cause structural damage to the club!RE-LISA/REF--LISA does appear to be fairly precisely formed (hard to see on a lo-fi blurred vid).The one on that rig is proto type 2.I have more now & have mastered a method for forming them very precisely.As I stated earlier I have NO training/experience in metal 'shop',(except of course working on my ideas/rig).I believe it's referred to as American ingenuity. I'm now in need of my first drill press ($99 Lowes) as I'm having too much trouble drilling precise vertical holes.I forgot to mention earlier-WEEL is a found object turned trigger.I go to this place Shapiro Scrap Metals.It is awesome!It is this giant warehouse & you are allowed to scavenge & root around through the place.If you find something you want you can by it by the pound!!Doesn't matter if it is a manufactured product or a metal pile of whatever.There are Boeing (rejects) aircraft parts laying around with paperwork still attached!Never did figure that one out.These places are all over the country,I used to live in Ft. Collins,CO. & had no trouble finding one there either.The WEEL was (aluminum) black & silver when I found it & perfectly matched my rig! OK--Vince--yes PVC is great to make things out of.When the poles came out my friend started making PVC versions (piezo not FSR).Very cheap & easy to do--but a poor substitute for FSR technology! REF--please guide me to the thread with your finger drum-I'm new around here & haven't read much in the forum so far.To the rest of you 'Kat cats' -show us your wares-I know your lurking out there.

[vindrums]

       My site is the one listed in my posts. It's an old jalopy that needs to be started over, and hasn't been updated in at least seven years. (some of the dates at the bottom of the pages were or are automatic so don't go by that)...Hard to believe, but when it started there were no pop overs and all the stuff they added, and for some reason the pics don't work on the first page......a jalopy Sorry but no videos. Many audio samples from the 'A Drummers Laugh' album, and a little of this and that. The site is well over 250 pages and has over 250 real audio files though I can't begin to remember what they are. Lots of info on my equipment back then, and my ideas on how to approach 'drumming music'. Examples of orgs I worked with?? Anyway, it's in a free area that's closing down, so I need to do something new or be done with it.
   BTW I guess I didn't embed the tune names or whatever so I wanted to let everyone know the tunes: The first one is called 'Something I had to play without you' (two parts, first half,Something I had to play, second half Without you) and the other one is 'Fridge Crystals' (a little phrygian excersize)
   Again sorry no videos......not that modern....never owned a video camera......I had to pay someone to capture the footage I used for the contest. That one hour show from ten years ago, is the only decent video of me playing KAT that exsists. Except for vids that surface in the future that people took at one of my few and far between gigs! I do have hundreds of hours of audio, some of which hasn't been touched since the day it was recorded. I'm going to put some time this week into finding some good audio stuff with me singing and playing the new tunes. Just a note: Put much info on disks so years later you might find what you look for. When I started it was simple, over the yeARS I add more and more, but never seems to be enough.
    Orb......in the construction biz, a DuctKAT is something totaly different!!
Vince
www.vindrums.com

[Orb Vroomer]

REF- I just clicked on your profile-I didn't know REF was Ray Frigon! I already watched your vids,but I didn't put it together.Good technique! Your playing is very articulate! Hey, since we all know your age ( MR. 54) you might as well publish it in your profile.You blew your cover on that one,you DinoChopper! I liked your #4 & #8 'jungle drumming'. I have some similar grooves/sounds to those 2. I used a Roland R8 for like 10 years.Your percussion sounds sound like Roland.Do my 'golden sound man ears' deceive me? Where did you say the finger drum was? orb.

[REF]

The finger drum is here  http://alternatemode.com/forum/index.php?topic=1572.0

Thank you for the kind words. I'm afraid your ears deceive you! #4 Watering Hole and #8 African Sunrise are done on my Alesis DMPro. I like the percussion sounds much better than on the TDW20. That is the beauty of electronics for me. Going back and forth from set to percussion keeps it all different. I don't get bored. I wish I had more time to devote to setting up new kits and all.

Do I have a profile here? I don't even remember what's in it. There ya go. Showing my age. 

The board gets slow at times. At some point others will join this discussion. I think most of the people here are DIYs on some things or other.

I'm making some small PVC/piezo/neoprene triggers now. I may get an Alesis iO for them, so I can use them with both modules. Cables are a complete nuisance.

You have alot of complexity to your kits. Sounds that way. The only thing I would suggest is in the composition area. I keep waiting for something different to happen after 16 bars. And I keep waiting for you to use all those poles to see what sounds they function as within each piece. The poles are the bomb. I hope Mario can find a new manufacturer for them.

I'm assuming you set up two cameras and edited things down? You may have mentioned that and I missed it.

[REF]

Orb's Orchestra moves along really nice. Great pace. I still cannot figure out where the basic elements of snare and kick are coming from. Maybe it's just a tiny lag in the transfer on my computer. In each of the pieces I hear alot of sound but cannot quite place it all on the DK. Which, for the sake of visual quality is a good thing, audience-wise. "How do those guys do all that?"

[Orb Vroomer]

Wow!! 2 messages before 8 am? (St L time) You MUST be on the east coast.I've been a musician since age 8 & I can't remember any other time when another 'rock musician' contacted me before noon!!!! Do you have a sleeping disorder or something?OK. Down to business.On Orb's Orch the main kicks are on pads 1 & 2.Also on any measure's downbeat,like where a chord or crash might be expected.This configuration is used quite often-Orbit & Bulgarian have the same basic starting point.The sync of audio & video is bad here.(Bulgarian is so far off the kick & snare appear reversed!!) On the Sat. before the deadline I called a vid guy for advice.(Tried to beg him to come out on Sun.) I told him about my camera purchase (Fri.),how I thought I would need a mic input fed from the mix.He asked if I had a higher quality way to record audio,like a DAT to use instead.I said I would just record straight into DP,as I've done many times.He told me we could sync it after the fact.So here's what I did (by myself).Start camera 1,start camera 2, hit record on DP,start playing.I let all that roll until tapes ran out.Camera 1 ran out before 2,so Bulgarian was last & camera 2 ran out before 1.I didn't have the long view on that one.Also,being alone & unable to monitor input & clipping I kept the saturation very conservative.I did have an 'ace in the hole plan' if I did clip.Digital Performer has a multi-record setting.I set up a file I use as a starting point for this.Engage record on EVERY MIDI CHANNEL.Engage record on 2 audio tracks.A midi send on the last thru goes to DP & it sorts all the data onto matched channels.So if I clipped I could 'play back' the midi data & make a new audio recording.I would have re-mastered the audio in this manner to have proper levels,but I ran out of time.10 am on Wed. was edit day with my vid guy.But I can still re-master it if I want.I'll probably just make new vids instead.RE-my composing.There is some lacking in that department! Sometimes I just can't get to 'pay dirt'.That's an art that good composers have mastered.Soon I will be posting songs with a voc mic I use in VERY UNORTHODOX MANNER@ times.For instance,on Bulgarian I do dialog.There are four verses & two choruses.It sounds a lot more like a song in this arrangement.It's title is "Beware of Bulgarians" with dialog.The intro 'melody' is repeated in between verses.Those parts without the dialog sound empty or missing something-which they are in these examples.When I unleash my mic versions my music becomes much 'darker'.It's almost a little frightening! Since this was a drum deal & I didn't want to scare people I left that out.Maybe I shouldn't have.Keep in mind the main venue I could play on a regular basis was a punk/metal style club.Not wanting to put up chicken wire in front of my rig (a-la Blues Brothers) I had to keep up the pace & edge.If you want to, just google the Creepy Crawl in St. L & have a look.They are now gone,but I guess it's up,although I haven't checked lately.Simply viewing that site will give you an idea of the environment I was performing in.My music was/is by no means punk or metal,but I still had to fit in somehow.Poles-we love them I have 14 of those.The upper left was just added & I don't think I ever hit it in these vids

[REF]

I'm in Texas actually, and lately sleep isn't something I get much of. I'm up pretty early every day. I think this morning it was 3:30.

I had a terrible hum on my vids. Not sure what it came from. Probably a cable not appropriate for the task. I ran from my board to the camera and just kept the camera LED really low so I didn't clip out. I lost some low end, but it was just a first time thing, so I learned some things I would do different next time. Once I started playing the hum got drowned out.  I also noticed on AlternateMode.tv that some of my vids are strange. Lines in them, maybe typical generation loss? And on some of them the sound and picture go out of sync, but then come back. The masters are fine. Just what can happen with file transfer, I imagine.

According to Mario, DrumTech has turned into a ghost town. He's unable to get in touch with them. I hope your poles get back to you okay.

Yeah, I knew I mentioned my age on the vid (my little TK XL promo, a la Bowflex (tongue in cheek). Just through that in, and then wondered if anyone at A.M has seen that Bowflex commercial. If not, I suppose that little gig came across kind of strange. The whole thing for me was to play and have fun, which I did, despite any tests of endurance 30 takes later. If my age is on my profile page, must be they asked for a birth date? I don't remember. I would say most of the videos look as though players are over 40. I find that pretty interesting.

I noticed quite a few entries used multiple cameras. Always more interesting. But ... always more money, too. Ohhhh well. What kind of editing software di you use? I didn't even want to get close to going there. I don't get along with computer software at all. Took me forever just to find a program to burn the DVD I sent in. The files are in MOD, and that is apparently the new curse everybody is crying on newer cameras from Canon, and other companies. I originally wanted to download to youtube, like you, but they do not take MOD files. Not sure what to do. Have to get some special software, I suppose.

[Orb Vroomer]

Ditto on the camera/software/format issue.I know midi inside out-right down to the code,but I'm semi-computer- illiterate.I could not get my Mac to recognize the camera (Canon) plugged in-like the manual-Best Buy told me it would work.Matter of fact, I don't even have that camera because I told BB if their geeks couldn't show me how in the store,it was useless to me & my Mac.I returned it on the last day of that option.My vid guy had all that format/upload skill & that's the ONLY thing I didn't have to deal with.He used Final Cut Pro to edit.I did figure out how to import & sync it in DP,but that was a dead end.I couldn't find any way to export or burn it so I'm not sure what the point of IMPORTING it was in the first place.If anybody has advice for us or lead us to better instructions feel free to clue us in..Drum Tech situation sounds bad.If I knew that was going to happen I would have bought even more when I recently picked up 6 more. lucked out on my vid guys work as he traded me his effort for doing 9 acoustic drum tracks for a project of his.That still isn't done,but I've been gearing up to knock that out for him soon.I live in a condo & have to record at my friends house for noisy drums.My vids were done in my basement home studio I built.

[REF]

Not to offend anyone, but I hate Texas. Too flat, too hot, and too crowded. At least, DFW is. People here drive crazy, too. I mean crazy. We are leaving this year. Just temporary.

The reason I want more triggers is because I played a big acoustic set up and love cymbals, and triggers go fast. I would love a TrapKAT that wraps around the player. Like sitting into a some kind of space age control center. Put another 20 pads on it. There's never enough if you want sound variations. I played alot of cymbals 'tings' and with electronics it's one pad for one sound - edge, bow, bell. Unless you are playing ecymbals with three zones, but then one is back to lots of objects to set up, which defeats the layout and design of the TK. Soooo .... make a bigger TK. 

When I am a millionaire I will have Alternate Mode make me one. 

Yeah, I signed up on youtube and have nothing to put on there. I have been to lots of discussion boards regarding this MOD file situation. Most say download this or that, or buy something. LOL. I went to best Buy looking for software to do the job. The floor salesmen sends me over to the geek desk. The geek desk sends me back to the salesmen. The salesmen gives me a program after I questioned whether it would work. Because I didn't have my glasses on me I asked another young guy to read the sidebar of the box. Said right on there it would not do what I needed. As I was on my way out the salesmen, after talking with the geek, sent me home with downloading instructions from Canon's website. Made no sense to me, so I'm stuck with files I somehow manage to burn on a disk once every 5 tries. Don't ask me how Windows DVD burner does it 1 in 5 times. But, I got a few for A.M and a couple friends. Don't ask me why youtube doesn't take MOD files, either.

[dave_b]

The files are in MOD, and that is apparently the new curse everybody is crying on newer cameras from Canon, and other companies.

You might try Googling for "mod to mp4 converter".  There are apparently some free ones.  Also, http://www.videohelp.com/ is a great place for that kind of info.  Some of the best stuff out there is free or super cheap. 

Are you using an HD camcorder?  I may be dealing with the mod situation soon enough if that's the case.

[REF]

Hey Dave. No, I got a Canon FS100. Nice little camera, but if I knew of the format problem beforehand I would not have gotten it and got a Panasonic or Sony, which apparently do not have the format problems upon transfer.

I would rather just purchase some software because my internet connection is often weak and things get messed up in downloads.

I'll check out that link, thanks.