Just to keep things current…we are officially up and running and selling Shine’s full line of custom drums! Check them out at www.humdrumonline.com. We are especially grateful to Shine for being the first on board at Humdrum and we believe you will be as impressed with their product as we have been with their support and service. Not that we weren’t fans already, but we are even more so now!
Anyway, the store is launched and we are actively working on growing the product lines (XLSpec drum cases should be up there very soon). Stay tuned for more announcements as we continue to grow…and tell your friends to come join us on the Back Porch!
Humdrum Admin
So after a long week of technical difficulties, we are back online and better than ever. If you go the store and forum, you should notice that it runs a LOT quicker now. That is thanks to a much better hosting service that we migrated to. Thank you for your patience over the last week full of many “cannot connect” messages and snail paced posting. Hopefully, you find this a lot easier to use now!
Anyway, we are now litterally moments away from officially opening the store…stay tuned.
Humdrum Admin
So check it out…we have officially launched the site store/blog/forum…all of it. We sincerely hope you enjoy! (and spread the word) 
You may have noticed that the store does not yet have any products to purchase and that will be coming very soon. But the store is ready to go and that’s a big deal! We hope to have Shine’s full customized selection available online by the end of the week…then we will continually be adding additional manufacturers and their product. We will post an announcement here each time something is ready to go…
Thanks! Enjoy…
Humdrum
Humdrum Admin
Shout out to Mick for the amazing drawings he does! Now featured on our home page and at the top of our blog. Thanks Mick…we like to call this guy the Humdrummer.
Humdrum Admin
Hey everyone…we are so excited to announce that Shine Drums has now partnered with us!!!
Shine is an amazing company in the custom drum world…ever heard of Lady GaGa, Brandy, Sly & The Family Stone or Third Eye Blind??? These are just a few of the people that they support, and we are thrilled to be able to offer them to you as well! Check out their site Shine Custom drums, and join us on May 1 when we launch…
Humdrum Admin
So you probably noticed the home page of our site being under construction with the beginnings of our store. Don’t worry…that is not the template we will be using. ..that is just a default. You can experience the transformation along with us as we build. Our aim is to be launched on May 1 selling product! Stay tuned for announcements here and on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Once we launch the store, we promise to focus more on the forum and creating that community space…
Humdrum Admin
When purchasing a new kit or snare you have many options, everything from brand, color, sizes and even the material it’s made out of. I want to touch on the last option I listed, and give a little description of the sound qualities you can expect from some of the most popular materieals used for drums today.
- Maple: Warm, deeper in pitch, with more resonance, great for recording.
- Birch: More “attack”, brighter,cuts through, great for live drumming.
- Acrylic: LOUD, and bright. Not much warmth here.
- Hybrids: (wood shell that has been split w/acrylic in the middle or vise verse): If the bearing edge is made of wood, you will get those sound qualities, if the bearing edge is made of acrylic you will get those sound qualities. These kits are mostly for visual appeal.
- Solid Shell: (true solid shell, not stave or segment) Warmth and full bodied sound. The tricky part here is that “solid” shell drums also come in many types of woods, which will variety the sound qualities.
- Mahogany: (African mahogany, not the cheap stuff) The most warmth of ‘em all, great bottom end and still has attack.
Josh Brown
It’s interesting how a drummer’s choice in equipment and accessories evolves over the course of their playing career due to the experiences they have. I started practicing as an early teen in the confines of a small room in an apartment with an extremely used kit I bought from an acquaintance with my paper route money. Noise was obviously an issue so I started my drumming life using light jazz sticks (7a’s) with nylon tips. Extremely practical considering I was trying not to blow out the neighbors and most of the time I was playing along to tapes on a boom box. This experience obviously taught how to play quietly which of course is a very valuable skill. When it finally came time for me to play in actual rock clubs where the drums were mic’d I ran into an unusual problem. Because I was using very light sticks and I wasn’t hitting particularly hard the sound engineer had to turn my mics up to the point of feedback! As it turned out a bit later I ended up befriending a talented sound guy at the same club who gave me a few helpful suggestions. First was to move up to a heavier stick. I still kept the nylon tips just because I love the articulation they provide on toms and especially the ride. I guess because I spent my formative drumming years with nylons I could never get used to sound and feel of wood tips. I also kind of feel engineers whether in recording or live end up equalizing wood tips to get the same sound I can achieve in the first place with the nylons. The second suggestion my friend made was to switch from felt kick pedal beaters to either wood or plastic. This also provided me with a bit more power and more high end articulation for the sound guy to get that click on the attack. Once again this is something I think engineers do with judicious eq and gating with felt beaters. Might as well meet them as closely as possible and in that way take more control of your sound. As drummers we’re constantly striving to balance our individual and overall volumes around the kit. These were just a couple of things I picked up that ended up doing that for me.
Mike Flaherty
There is one thing that every drummer should own and I can guarantee it’s not what you’re thinking. It usually comes in a small package, has a few buttons, and can be adjusted to fit your needs. What is it? It’s a metronome, and it’s the one piece of gear that is most often forgotten. I usually get two different responses when I bring up the met: #1 is “Dude my timing is great, I don’t need to play to a met.” Or #2 which is “I will always have one by my side!” I can always tell who the seasoned vet is by the response I get ( and it’s not #1 in case you were wondering). Read more…
Josh Brown
There comes a time in every drummers career when he or she first encounters the phenomenon of the “ drummer joke”. This may come as quite a shock to young drummers when they first hear these jokes and may not know how to counter them or react. I mean, you just spent hours packing and unpacking and then setting up your gear to play in your friends garage or some crappy rehearsal studio and this is the thanks you get?
These jokes basically break down into three categories: a) the drummer is not a “real” musician, ie: who is the person who hangs around with the musicians…etc. b) the drummer has a brain barely capable of carrying out basic motor functions let alone higher cognitive abilities or c) can’t keep time or speeds up. There are other variations but those seem to be Read more…
Mike Flaherty