Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

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Atebyzombies
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Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

Postby Atebyzombies » Wed May 02, 2018 12:19 am

So I've been playing along with these charts on youtube for years. I can take a song I've never played sightread the chart on my acoustic kit and first try it sounds great.
I cant do all of sodamlazy songs but the less insane double bass yes absolutely.

I want to move off youtube and wanted to ask the community for advice. Start to finish any ideas on how I could take these charts with me on stage or out in public?
Could i put this program on a tablet or a screen somehow in front of my drums? My current setup with youtube and my big screen keeps me tethered to the basement I have to have constant internet but I wanna go out and offline!

Even a quick guide on what I would need to do to take this on the road would be immensely helpful it's impossible to find good info on this and I've been playing with the idea for some time now. I'm so beginner so I use phase shift for drums on PC? Is there a fof program I download instead? Where are all these good pro drum / real drum tracks to download? Is my idea even a good one?

I'm kinda stuck on youtube and I would love some guidance so I can take these charts other places and play with other musicians instead of being stuck in my basement. BTW I sound pretty awesome when I have a chart to play with. Rush, dreamtheatre, mettalica just missing the hi hat notation I improvise and play by ear.
Sorry for the long post I just have a huge desire to up my game and these charts help me play really hard songs without having to learn and memorize all the notation.
Last edited by Atebyzombies on Wed May 02, 2018 12:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

Postby Atebyzombies » Wed May 02, 2018 12:20 am

I'll buy whatever equipment or programs I need this is a big priority for me thanks.
Even if it has to run on windows I'm sure a Microsoft surface on a stand would work I'm worried about display lag running from a laptop to an external screen on a stand.
Ideally I could get a screen video and some wireless headphone audio to sync up but I'm not exactly sure what the best way to set this up would be for playing in public.
Last edited by Atebyzombies on Wed May 02, 2018 12:26 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

Postby nobby76 » Sat May 05, 2018 7:43 am

ok i might be able to offer some help here. You sound like you are doing almost exactly the same thing as i have been doing for a few years.

I have many video recordings of RB/GHWT songs which i captured directly from my xbox360 (where i didnt play the drums at the time, so they are muted in the recording) then i play the videos back on my pc in media player and drum along to them on my real kit (which is an alesis strike pro)

REALLY all you need is any device capable of playing a video ( and if you own a real elec kit rather than a real acoustic kit) some speakers..
As im playing in my room at home im running it directly from my pc, which has its set of speaker and my alesis kit also has a set of speakers. i watch the video for the notes, i listen to the video for the music and my sound is output through the kits speakers at a matched volume.

That kind of setup can have any part of it switched out for a different device... I.e pc speakers can be swapped for headphones (so only you can hear the main song) you could subsidise the pc for a laptop or a tablet quite easily (as long as its a decent tablet that wont stutter on playback) ive actually ran the videos directly from my phone before and it was still do-able (although it was hard to see the notes as it was so small)
I have taken my kit out into my garden, so i also had to take my pc + a monitor+ speakers outside (i dont have a laptop or tablet) that was great fun, playing in the summer sun in my garden for an hour (the neighbours next door didnt think so lol)

For you case, i think you said you was using an acoustic kit, so this should be a bit easier for you. you have 2 different scenarios which can both use one fairly basic setup.
Scenario 1, you want to play solo to other people. Scenario 2, you want to play in a band to other people..

You will need.. Pen ,paper,glue..... no wait thats for craft stuff.. OK

You will need..
Speakers.. A set of 20w monitor speakers work VERY well, thats what i use for both the pc and for the drumkit. I have a set of Alesis Mk5 on the drum kit and a set of Behringer Ms20's on the pc. Of course if you need to go louder get more powerful speakers. (you will only need one set of speakers.. to output the video sound )
Head phones.. Any headphones will do, they dont need to be wireless or anything fancy like that, they CAN be if you want to spend the money, but they dont have to be.

Something to play back the video.. Either a tablet, a laptop or a pc+monitor. Bigger the screen the better.. doesnt matter if its a 4k 1080, or 720 display, you just want as big as you can within reason.. What you then do is mount the playback device on/near your drumkit, above the hi/mid toms so its basically right in front of you (easy to look at then) a good size display would be about 15"-17"
Thats quite big for a laptop or tablet BUT its REALLY really old school for a pc monitor. you can pick up a second hand 15" or 17" NON widescreen monitor for about £15-25 (approx $20-30) in some of those trade in stores. To be honest buying a second hand cheap as hell crappy PC + a 15" old monitor would probably work out cheaper than either a 15-17" laptop or tablet and that pc would be way faster than the tablet would be.. So that would be my choice to go with..

Scenario 1 if you are playing solo to other people, they need to be able to hear the music so you plug in the speakers and you play along to that music.
Scenario 2 if you are playing in a band, they will be playing the rest of the music so you dont need it heard by anyone but you, so you plug in the headphones instead.. You just have to remember to count everybody in so you all start at the same time.
Regarding the playback device, as i said my choice would be a pc + monitor. If you have an old pc from like 10 years ago or something use that.. Wipe everything from it apart from windows (or wipe it completely and put windows on again) then only add your video player, a clean machine will run very fast (Oh yeah, download the youtube videos and play them from your machine, rather than playing directly from youtube) You will get way better playback performance from a crappy pc and local stored files than a big tablet and playing songs directly from youtube. If you dont have an old pc, see if you can buy one second hand (you could look for that old 15" pc monitor as well) then wipe it as before (if needed) and add your video player (i prefere media player classic, it handles almost and video format i can throw at it and has easy to use A/V delay settings in case your video and audio are out of sync)

That is really all you need to do. its just a playback device and a way to either output the sound to everyone, or just to you.. Hope that is helpful. If you have any more questions by all means ask away..
Good luck..


P.s. there is something else i wanted to talk to you about, regarding using youtube videos, but it would be best done via PM, so i will PM you in a little while (gotta take the dog for a walk right now lol )
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Atebyzombies
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Re: Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

Postby Atebyzombies » Thu May 10, 2018 7:32 am

Wow i never thought about video capture. That was really helpful thank you. I also have an alesis electric kit. This might work dude! I have rb4 and alot of dlc play with the ekit capture it and play it back on a device that i can take with me. Genius!
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nobby76
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Re: Drumming and sightreading taking charts on the road.

Postby nobby76 » Thu May 10, 2018 11:57 am

which Alesis kit do you have. i used to have a DM5 pro (with the upgraded heads) but i got rid of that last year so i could buy the Strike pro
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LONG LIVE THE NOOBS, THEY WILL OVER THROW US WITH THERE VASTLY SUPERIOR STUPIDITY.
Check out the Tutorial Making songs without having to fret a single note And come check out the IRC Chatroom

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