WiltonDrummer

Contact Information

Biography

I am returning to music after a long absence. In the mid 1960s thru early 1970s I was a professional musician. I did lots of gigging and some time spent in Boston and NYC recording studios. Fortunately or unfortunately, I burned out on the lifestyle in about 1973, and walked away from the biz, even though a major label, MCA Records, was talking to our band (Clear Sky) about picking us up.

I developed my other career as a visual artist, and had great success with that, with work now in museum collections in many countries from here to Japan, Korea, and PRo China. I recently retired from lots of years teaching art at the college level. I still work in my own visual art studio.

Discovering "Playing For Change" is sort of responsible for kind of sucking me back into music. The idea of the world-wide collaboration and the technology that allows that to happen both intrigued me greatly. As did the incredible quality of the music I was hearing from their efforts.

My core interest now is in blues and blues-influenced rock, although a little modern country also tends to creep in. As a kid, I grew up learning the drums via listening to people like Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, and Sandy Nelson. Early band's music I practiced to as a teen included Bo Diddly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Ventures, The Surfaris, and The Beach Boys. Eventually Cream, and in particular, Ginger Baker was a real influence. Of course Mitch Mitchel and John Bonham were hard to miss as influences in the early 70's. And Ringo Star was everywhere. Being an official "old guy", I had the pleasure of hearing and seeing a lot of these and other 60's + 70's greats live.

Some of my current "likes" for music that would hit my current playlists would include stuff by Joe Bonamassa, Bonnie Raitt, Gary Moore, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, The Stones, Janis Joplin, ZZ Topp, George Thorogood, Mountain, Joe Cocker, The Allman Brothers, The Band, and Foghat. Also, I love a lot of stuff by The Eagles, Crosby-Stills-Nash-Young, Linda Rondstadt, The Byrds, The Beatles, and Santana. recently listening a lot to "Imagine Dragons"; love their arrangements and lyrics.

As a drummer, my philosophy was, and still is, that my job is to make the overall piece of music work well, not to show how skilled I might be every time I sit down at the kit. I've always valued broad dynamic range and the subtlety of the sounds an instrument can produce. I want the drums (and other percussion work) to weave through all the other instruments contributions in such a way as to compliment them, not dominate them. Drum elements can certainly rise to the fore at times, providing accents just as all instruments do, but then they float back and support other players as they help to weave the fabric of the song.

I also do not really think of trying to do a full literal "drum cover" when I might be working on an existing piece of music by another artist. Like with my visual art, existing works done by others, for me, are influences but I do not generally attempt to replicate them note for note. There is certainly great skill in doing that well, and as a learning exercise for personal development, it is a useful tool. This approach is similar to "copy the masters" exercises that are often used early on in a visual arts student's education at the post-secondary level. What I attempt to do when "covering" is to capture the feel of the piece of music in my own way. It will likely be influenced by the original piece, but will not be identical. That is someone else's art.

Instruments

I am mainly a drummer. I also sing a bit. I'm a "hack" guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist. I've been known to score synthed strings on occasion.

My working home studio drum kits at the moment include a Roland TD-27KV with an extra added floor tom tom, an added splash cymbal, and a BT-1 as a cowbell/woodblock/a whatever, a 2020's Gretsch Renown 5 piece (2 up, 1 down) with Zildjians, and a pair of LP congas. I also have a vintage late 1960's acoustic Gretsch 5 piece kit with an array of Zildjian cymbals that I am restoring at the moment.

A LONG time ago, I also "played" some analog mixing panels and patch panels and such in TAPE-based recording studios a bit. I miss spinning reels.

recording devices

My main DAW is Studio One Professional (V. 6.). I also have the free versions of Cakewalk by Bandlab, and Audacity. My audio interface is a MOTU M2 running into the computer via SS usb10 and using its own ASIO driver for Win 10 Pro. I have Presonus Faderport 8, Faderport 16, SSL UC1, TC Electronics DVR250, TC2290, TC1210, TC-8210, PEQ3000, and Brickwall HC controllers on the DAW. For mixing, the MOTU audio interface is driving a pair of KRK Classic 5 Rokit Gen 3 powered studio monitors, Optimus passive speakers powered by a Fosi power amp, and a consumer computer speaker with sub, all controlled via a PreSonus MonitorStation V2. I sometimes use some studio monitor type headphones for mixing work.

Computer is liquid cooled Intel i9-9900 Coffee Lake processor @ 3.6 Gig (clocked @4.3) with 64 Gb DDR4 RAM, two 1 Tb SSDs for OS, audio program, and data, one 4 Tb archive SATA hard drive for long term storage, and a NVIDEA RTX-2080 Ti 11 Gb video card. Thermaltake tower case with lots of fans.

The E-drum kit is run into the DAW via usb output and it has not only the full kit as a blended stereo channel, but also all individual parts of the kit on separate stereo channels. I also have the option of running the kit via the "front of house" output into a Yamaha MG-06X mixer and on to the MOTU M2, and mixing that with vocals or outputting MIDI drum tracks.

My main vocal mic is a Shure SM58, and I have pop filters and such as needed. I also have a small assortment of Audio-Technica, MXL, and other mics if needed.

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