I’ve been in demand, I’ve had my disciples – I’ve even been prayed to. I’ve accepted surrender and certainly done some some soul searching while alone in the bathroom. I am the engineroom of every classic rock band and the underlying performance requirement of every reggae gig and nightclub sound system...
Yes people, I am the beat, and it’s all about me.
Traditionally the drum kit is the province of a band’s most physical member – not to mention most ridiculed. The drum riser is a shrine to sweat and testosterone, as well as the highest monitor levels on the stage. It also provides the additional showcase periodically required by singers and guitarists feeling the urge to push their live performance ‘to 11’.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
When the ‘drum machine’ made its first rattling steps into popular music during the late 1970s, it was seen to present a genuine threat to the drummer’s livelihood. Along with the evil synthesiser, it stood accused of plotting to depose ‘real’ musicians from recording sessions and even gigs. Accordingly, it was vilified by the Musicians’ Union and was briefly banned from use among its circles.
‘Even though I was a member, my own union tried to ban me for putting people out of work,’ Gary Numan is quoted as saying, when touring his 1979 album, Replicas. ‘I had six people on stage rather than the usual four, and they were still trying to ban me.’
It’s especially hard to share the MU’s concern over drum machines when you consider the sounds offered by early analogue boxes – they were hardly a convincing alternative to the thunder of a rock drummer or the graceful touch of a jazz ‘stylist’. And unsurprisingly, the ban was ineffective and short lived, quite in keeping with the MU’s history of mismanagement of technology issues…
Long before declaring war on cassette tape recording, it had banned commercial recording for two years in the early 1940s in defence of royalties from record sales. It later regarded the Mellotron with suspicion in the late 1960s, but eventually decided ‘that the threat to the livelihood of musicians by the Mellotron is no greater than that by any electronic organ’ (Musicians’ Union Monthly Report, 1967), after sending a delegation to check it out.
It’s easy to look back now and see things differently. Drum machines opened many doors for aspiring musicians, composers, recording studios and even drummers themselves. Drum machines like Roland’s analogue TR808, meanwhile, have assumed very different roles from those intended for them. Once described by The Independent as ‘the sound of the eighties’, the TR808 was not a commercial success and sold fewer than 12,000 units in the three years before its discontinuation in 1983. Now – along with its sister TR606 and TB303 – it is a sought-after instrument, whose sounds have been endlessly sampled and imitated, and examples change hands for considerably more than their original retail price. Latterly, Apple's iPad and iPhone have found themselves hosting some truly impressive digital alternatives for pocket money.
And now there is a new twist or two…
Visiting Mike Pelanconi’s Ironworks facility, I was graphically reminded that drum recording is a fine art, both by the studio itself and a tribute paid by DJ Shadow/Unkle collaborator James Lavelle, who notes, ‘Mike P is the motherf***er of live drum recording’. Just a few weeks later, another Mike (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) issued the following invitation from his Whitenoize Audio studio in Ottawa: ‘Most composers use virtual instruments, and there are some decent ones for drums... but there's such a huge difference from the real thing. The problem is not everyone has drums set up and miked all the time, let alone having the right acoustics, equipment, etc, and the hassle and expense just isn't worth it every time.’
He continues: ‘I’ve found myself in that position many times even though drums are my main instrument and I have two studios! So I have a quick and affordable solution –you send me your tracks and I'll FTP you back mixed drums, a stereo mix of the drums, and drum tracks separated into eight tracks that you can mix back into your music production. Turnaround can be as fast as same day.’
So there we have it – where the MU feared that a box full of beats would sound the death rattle of traditional skinbashers, the drummer is now making a rudimentary assault on the machine. Is my TR808 and endangered species? Will the machines rage against man?
Steady Mike, you’re putting drum machines out of a job. Maybe another call to the MU is in order...
