January 2022 – Volume 46 • Number 1

Mike Mangini

The Making of Dream Theater’s A View from the Top of the World It certainly does not suck to be Dream Theater. Founded 37 years ago, the band continues to cast a mammoth imprint across the progressive-metal field. Starting back…

January 2022 - Volume 46 • Number 1

Yoron Israel

Dreaming of Hope, Joy, and Aspiration Crystal balls always seem to be in short supply as we attempt to make sense of the world around us, but Yoron Israel must have had a cell-phone connection to the future when he…

The MD Guide to Home-Studio Gear

If only you were a singer/songwriter. Then, all you’d need in your studio is a simple two-channel audio interface, one or two microphones, and GarageBand. But you’re not. You’re a drummer. So, welcome to the world of multichannel interfaces and…

Thank You for Being There for Us in 2021!

What does a new year really mean? Should we fall in behind holiday tradition and write some adorable “New Year’s Resolutions” that promise bucketloads of personal evolution? It seems that everybody gets to believe their own marketing muse on the…

Keeping Time and Creating Fills Around the Kit

Time is what we are about as drummers. If it weren’t for time, there would be no drummers. We are communicators. We use time to create grooves and melodies. Everybody has different time. I could preach about time for a…

Sitting In with the Seattle Seahawks

Drums have led me on some pretty epic adventures to places and situations I had thought I could only dream of. One of the most epic is my ongoing adventure with the Seattle Seahawks Blue Thunder Drumline. David Garibaldi with…

Clarke Rigsby and Tempest Studios

A 40-year run in any business is certainly an achievement, but one might call a 40-year run in the recording-studio business “a miracle.” But that is precisely what producer Clarke Rigsby has done—keeping the doors open at Tempest Recording in…

David Lloyd Johnson Celebrates Frank Lloyd Wright

The backstory of David Lloyd Johnson’s one-of-a-kind Frank Lloyd Wright kit was initiated by three of his idols. After diving into drumming at 14 years old, Johnson became entranced by the playing of Idol #1—Ginger Baker—and he eventually acquired a…

8 Tips for Playing Live Drums with Loops

Producing commercial drum tracks—especially in the pop, urban, and dance fields—typically means combining live and digital drums. Drum loops harness a world of sound that’s impossible to create on an acoustic kit alone, and there are infinite ways to use…

Pegasus Warning

Inspiration and Versatility on The Late Late Show Normally a professor wouldn’t be on national TV every night of the week playing drums, but Guillermo E. Brown—known as Pegasus Warning—can be seen as the house drummer for the Emmy award-winning…

PASIC 2021

The Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) is one of the largest percussion events in the world. Concerts, clinics, panels, and presentations from world-class professionals attract more than 5,000 attendees annually. There are also more than 100 exhibitors showcasing the…

Danny Seraphine

“Introduction”Chicago Transit Authority, 1969 “This was a powerful musical statement written by Terry Kath that set the tone for our band’s first album,” says Seraphine. “The song was inspired by the Don Ellis Big Band recording called ‘Autumn,’ which we…

Latin Percussion

Stainless Steel Salsa Snares I pull the 5.5x13 Latin Percussion Steel Salsa Snare from its box and suddenly I am a child on Christmas morning. Wow! The stainless-steel shell is super beefy, solid, and heavy duty with a clean and…

Audix

FP7 Drum Mic Package I’m not really one of those cranky, old-school studio rats, but I almost can’t help sighing “Kids don’t know how good they have it these days” when I look at current microphone packages. Way back when…

Grateful Drumming

Can being grateful make you a better drummer? It just might. Research shows that gratefulness positively impacts everything from sleep to heart health, feelings of depression, less fatigue, to even reducing materialism and improving eating habits. So, if you want…

Carmine Appice’s Custom Slingerland Kit

“This is a custom one-of-a-kind job that Slingerland made for me in 2004,” says Carmine Appice. “It’s a hand-painted, lacquer leopard finish—not a wrap—on three-ply maple shells. It features 8x12 and 9x13 rack toms, 16x16 and 16x18 floor toms, and…

Motorheart, The Darkness

Rufus Taylor of the Darkness here. Motorheart is our hard-hitting new album, and we’re very proud of her. I used my old-faithful DW Collectors Series kit in maple-lacquer, specialty-pearlescent black with black chrome hardware. It has a 22x24 VLX kick—the…

Downstrokes For Young Marching Drummers

Adding Contrast to Your Accent Patterns With drum corps and winter-percussion audition season upon us, I wanted to bring light to a concept that comes up fairly often. In my 20 years of teaching high school and college marching ensembles,…