playing along with stuff

Lennythecat

Junior Member
Hi all, does anyone have any recommendations for the best way to play along with tracks. im a bit of an outdated technophobe and really dont know where to start.At present i have no facility at all in my drum room to listen and play along, any info would be gratefully received. thanks
 
Easiest? mp3 player and some isolating in-ear phones.

Trying to play over a speaker system is tougher.
 
Hi Lennythecat:

Welcome to DW!

I presume you mean acoustic drums. When I'm playing along using those, like Dr. Watso, I'll use my iPod but I'll jack it into my Simmons DA200S drum amp and use Hearos to cut the racket down a bit. Works great!
 
Reminds me of the days when I first started playing. Practicing with vinyl meant finding a place in the room for the turntable where playing drums wouldn't cause the record to skip. (regardless of how many nickels were taped to the tonearm.)

You kids don't know how easy you have it these days.

oh… and stay off my lawn!
 
Welcome to DrummerWorld and the 21st century. IPods work excellent and are pretty outdated so perfect for the guy who's behind the times. Seriously though if you have a computer you can store all of your CDs on it and transfer them to an mp3,iPod, or even a smart phone. You can purchase music online too, straight to your phone, or transfer it to your mp3 player,etc,etc later.
 
Reminds me of the days when I first started playing. Practicing with vinyl meant finding a place in the room for the turntable where playing drums wouldn't cause the record to skip. (regardless of how many nickels were taped to the tonearm.)

You kids don't know how easy you have it these days.

oh… and stay off my lawn!

I never had that problem, but I really struggled with slowing my tempo to keep in time with the music as the gramophone wound down.
 
Welcome to Drummerworld and what a great question.
I'd love to hear from some of our resident Pro's as well on how they go about doing this.
 
I also just use my iPod with headphones. Although I'm too cheap to buy isolating headphones, I use my earbuds underneath over-ear hearing protection. Works well enough.
 
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With acoustic drums, I've typically used a CD player and standard headphones that allow the drums to bleed through. I'd adjust the CD volume so that it was a listenable balance with the drums. Even where I had files on the computer, I would burn a CD-R with those somgs so I could use the CD player with easy access (right next to my kit.)

With my V-drums, I was able to take the audio out (again, the CD player) into the module ("mix in" as I recall) and balance the music with the module's drum sounds.

Bermuda
 
Better yet, make friends with a musician that is at your skill level and jam together. You'll have a lot more fun than jamming to records by yourself. Plus you might make so great friends along the way. I met my wife through a previous band and we're all still good friends to this day.
 
Better yet, make friends with a musician that is at your skill level and jam together. You'll have a lot more fun than jamming to records by yourself. Plus you might make so great friends along the way. I met my wife through a previous band and we're all still good friends to this day.

This is good advice. But if I may add what I heard bass session great Anthony Jackson say to a group of young people, he said sometimes playing along with records is the only way to get to play with great musicians. If you were a budding bass player, how else would you get to play along with awesome musicians like Steve Gadd or Tommy Tedesco? So I encourage playing along with everything you can get your hands on - as well as trying to play live with real musicians too.
 
Reminds me of the days when I first started playing. Practicing with vinyl meant finding a place in the room for the turntable where playing drums wouldn't cause the record to skip. (regardless of how many nickels were taped to the tonearm.)

You kids don't know how easy you have it these days.

oh… and stay off my lawn!

I have the same problem with my cd player rattling about and skipping haha. Maybe I should graduate to mp3s?

This is good advice. But if I may add what I heard bass session great Anthony Jackson say to a group of young people, he said sometimes playing along with records is the only way to get to play with great musicians. If you were a budding bass player, how else would you get to play along with awesome musicians like Steve Gadd or Tommy Tedesco? So I encourage playing along with everything you can get your hands on - as well as trying to play live with real musicians too.

Plus you get the added benefit of learning how to play drum parts note for note, parts that were considered classics/incredible performances.

Whilst jamming with others is important. Sometimes in that scenario, you can stick to old habits. Forcing yourself to play along to something you didn't write is a wonderful challenge of your control.
 
Some songs are available with and without click.
I usually start with the click and switch to the version without click when I am comfortable with the the song. Often I find that my groove is not happening without the click and fhen there is some more work to do -)
 
With my V-drums, I was able to take the audio out (again, the CD player) into the module ("mix in" as I recall) and balance the music with the module's drum sounds.

Bermuda

Playing or recording. the E kit makes it soooo easy. I split the all the instruments (drums, bass, guitar, mics) and run everything through the PA and the recording interface/program.

With a flat screen TV for a monitor, and a wireless mouse and keyboard, I can do whatever I want to do from my throne.

If we are rehearsing, we run through the PA. If we are recording, we work through The headphones.

I don't read music so, to learn difficult cover parts with odd meter or breaks (ie: VH's Panama), I load the mp3 into a recording program and simply adjust a loop to play it over and over again.
 
I really like AKG K240 headphones. They cut the exterior sound level but still let some natural sound through. I have some Grados that don't block anything so you'd have to wear ear protection under them although I've used them tracking guitar as they don't do anything to the sound and I don't have to have the amp that loud. Things like my Sony MD7506s muffle too much. And bleeding mic'd up drums back into them means I have to deal with the monitoring latency on my PT9 set up.

The AKGs are like Goldilocks said, just right. I use them for tracking and practicing along with songs.
 
I use my iPod/sound source and Jerry Harvey Audio JH-16 CIEMs. I had tried ear muffs with an amp blasting at me but that didn't really work, same with ear buds inside the ear muffs. So I spent the money on custom in ear monitors just like what the pros use and I've never been happier. They have 8 drivers per ear of the same type that are in hearing aids, 4 low, 2 mid and 2 high drivers. They're custom molded to my ears and provide 26 db of protection so I can play with the practice track at quite a low volume. Then there's the sound quality which is off the charts so you can hear every detail of the track. I can't recommend CIEMs highly enough for drummers, they'll change the way you practice.

You don't have to get JH-16's either, they were the best in the CIEM industry when I bought them 2 years ago and cost $1300. You can pick up entry level CIEMs with 3-4 drivers per ear for $400 and still have a very very good sounding set that will let you practice with out hearing damage.
 
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