Few questions

[benwcc]

Hello, Dirk!

I'm so glad to talk to you here. I admire your drumming skills very much since I started listening to the albums you took part in recording drums in studio, especially your blastbeats and complex drum work which amaze my much. Here I'd like to ask some question about your drumwork. Sorry that my language might not be very good coz my mother language isn't English but Chinese.

Did you prefer heel-toe technique on Nerve? I heard the chorus of this song is very alike to the song Bleed, by Meshuggah, and see many people playing Bleed using heel-toe technique on bass drums.

I see you prefer finger technique a lot. Do you also prefer push-pull technique?
I can use finger tech, but find push-pull really hard and seemingly imposible to me :'-( Can I not to learn pushpull anymore once I can play finger technique?

One more, a little bit off-topic, why don't you put the larger floortom just near the smaller one, following the major style? I saw you used to put that on your left, quite far away from the set-up as well. Probably you find your own set-up is convenient to you, rite?

Many thanks for answering my questions. Wish to see more of your drum vids. They could be my learning materials! :-)

The owners of drumhall.com are not responsible for the content of this post on Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:29 pm by benwcc. If the post may offend anyone, please inform the owner through eMail

[Dirk Verbeuren]

Hello Ben,

Thanks for your kind compliments, very cool! Your English is great, by the way!

1) I don't actually use the "heel-toe" technique. Most of my footwork is horizontal, toes on the pedalboards and heels off. I also use the swivel technique (discussed in another topic on this forum) as well as double strokes, where my foot slides towards the front of the pedal. When it comes to Soilwork's "Nerve", it's all played with the right foot except the 32nd notes which I fill in with the left. I've detailed the pattern in another topic. Tomas Haake has a very different approach to double bass patterns. I believe he's constantly alternating between the right and left foot. Warming up to some Meshuggah is a lot of fun, but I haven't tried "Bleed" yet- that song is just insane!

2) I use a combination of finger and "push-pull" technique. I'm 100% sure you can learn this too! If you want to better your push-pull, my suggestion would be to practice 12/8 shuffle beats daily. Play them 10 minutes at each of these tempos: 80, 100 and 120 bpm. Place a lot of focus on your wrist movement; you can even exaggerate it at first, until it starts flowing naturally. As for my finger technique, it comes from many years of daily snare drum exercises: rudiments, accented reading, solos... And also a lot of relentless, maniacal blasting!

3) I found placing the 18" floor tom next to the 16" to be somewhat unpractical, so I switched it over to the opposite side, to the left of my snare. Instead of using it for typical rolls, I try to be creative with it: the Scarve track "HyperConscience" is a good example of an ambidextrous pattern using both floor toms. The stereo effect sounds kinda cool too!

Glad to hear you're finding some educational value in my videos! I will post more of those whenever I can... And more importantly, I'll be shooting my first DVD this Summer, which will contain tons of lessons, tips, tricks and "live in the studio" performances! So keep an eye out for that!

Good luck man! Cheers!
/Dirk

The owners of drumhall.com are not responsible for the content of this post on Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:42 pm by Dirk Verbeuren. If the post may offend anyone, please inform the owner through eMail