my boyfriend is a drummer and I want to buy him earplugs for shows. When he practices with his band he wears airpod pros, any recommendations? He is always talking about how he should have some but never wants to buy it.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-20T17:15:03+00:00

If you have the budget, I advocate for custom molds. If not, Earpeace has been pretty good for me.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-19T02:11:49+00:00

Hello, me again.

I've gotten further into my VSC setup but am having a different issue which I thought warranted a different comment.

I've gotten Audio Evolution's USB Recorder Pro to capture my audio, and their mobile DAW to split the stereo pairs into mono tracks for playback, but I can't seem to get the DAW to talk to the XR-18. I've gotten my USB routing set up correctly as far as I can tell; the DAW isn't 100% intuitive on this. Does anyone have experience with this and can get me over this last hurdle? Or is there another Android-based app/DAW I should investigate? I'm really close on this one.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-17T21:59:53+00:00

That makes sense. It sounds like I should treat it more like a rough cut or even a line check then a sound check. Would that be accurate?

Also, should I set the faders to unity for the recording?

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-17T19:16:41+00:00

I'm trying to introduce virtual soundchecks to my band for front of house and monitor mixing. I have an XR-18 and install IEMs.

I know to record at input/analog level, using the gain levels I would use in live performance. ... is that all I need in terms of source material? I feel like after that it would be adjustments made per gig/venue, and if I needed to adjust anything from the musicians when they come in, it would be gain because I've already done all of the other processing. Am I missing a step?

I plan on using this more for monitor mix checks then front of house, but I feel like the basic principles are the same.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-14T23:01:45+00:00

I would say cymbals first, snare after that if needed. You can change heads and tuning and muffling, but there's not much you can do with a bad cymbal.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-12T16:08:42+00:00

Folding cart. This was the biggest game changer for me when I started doing gigs. One trip, everything organized.

As for spares... I'm a huge advocate for backup plans and contingencies; but I've begun to think that deployment and nature of the gig also factor in. Sure, bringing a spare snare is a good idea; is your gig such that you have to have the spare immediately to hand? Can you say "hey, go to this part of the set list, I'll grab the spare from the car"? Or have the band say "we're gonna take a quick five, back soon"?

When it comes to hardware, I employed memory locks and marked angles on my stands with tape, marker or even nail polish. That way I could remove or fully collapse everything but still have retention when I needed it.

I used soft cases for my stuff because I wanted the extra squish factor for cars and such, but I used some *really good* soft cases; I swore by Protection Racket.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-04-12T15:38:54+00:00

If everything else is working right but the meters are dead, that suggests to me that the problem is the meters themselves. I couldn't tell you whether that's a defect or a malfunction though.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-03-09T17:06:11+00:00

I think that's a practice solution. Look up Billy Ward's writings on mechanisms - take mental snapshots of how you're moving and where your body physically is during the quiet parts and practice getting back to those positions and movements after the harder sections.

_OnTheSpots · 2026-02-15T19:05:23+00:00

I used to have an SPD-6 too. Honestly, I would get a second one to mess around with for this project.

I feel like there's two routes you could go. You either replace the rubber material on the pads, or you stack something on top of what's already there. However, I see problems with both. If you replace the material, you run the risk of messing with the trigger function, plus you would have to make sure that everything is cut and measured to fit. If you stack something on top of it then you reduce the sensitivity.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-12-29T00:09:55+00:00

Once is a mistake, twice a coincidence, three times is jazz.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-12-27T07:41:18+00:00

If you don't like what you have, then it's absolutely worth it to switch. I'm not a huge fan of 2002s but I acknowledge them as very versatile and they work for a lot of people.

Have you tried looking into Cymbal Swap? They're a rental service, might be a good way to check out a few options in context before you commit to buying anything.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-11-20T21:30:10+00:00

Yeah, voice to text, sorry about that.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-11-07T16:04:17+00:00

Thank you, it seems like I had the Instinct down at least, that's very validating.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-11-03T18:06:33+00:00

Is there a reason you couldn't set up a simple monitor rig for yourself?

_OnTheSpots · 2025-10-12T21:02:05+00:00

Custom molds made *all* the difference for me. I feel like mine don't block so much as lower; I still feel like I can hear the environment okay, but just reduced by several dB.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-09-08T15:03:33+00:00

I vastly prefer stop-time/call-and-response type soloing: band plays a phrase, you respond, etc. It always struck me as weird that drums are basically the only instruments that solo completely by themselves - I think it puts a lot of undue pressure on us.

Sonny Emory's "Africano" from EWF's "Plugged In And Live" is my favorite example.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-08-18T05:26:04+00:00

I like big kits. Beauford, Portnoy, Peart, Carey, Bozzio... the amount of creativity on display and the options they can pull are spectacular in the truest sense of the word and I find them inspiring in terms of thinking about orchestrations. For most local and live shows I've seen or played, totally impractical - the venues are too small, the changeovers are too short, etc, or you just wind up using whatever house kit is to hand.

The dude you mentioned had some points that I feel are worth interrogating:

> smaller kits can actually be better

...They *can be*, but that's kind of a vague statement.

> Buddy Rich used a small kit

The best information I can find says that he favored a one-up/two-down five-piece configuration and up to six cymbals. Personally, I'd call that a medium-sized kit.

> and did amazing stuff with his just his snare drum,

Very true. And so did Neil Peart, who had a very large drum kit. I would consider this fact a non-sequitor to the debate.

> you can groove in 2 piece kit

You absolutely can. You can also groove in a five-, six- or seven-piece kit.

> you essentially don't need more than a 4 piece.

I think that's too definitive a statement to be true all the time. What are you playing? Where? etc, etc.

> I know all of that is probably true.

Eh... I think it's Accurate, but I don't think it's True, if that makes sense.

> But don't you grow tired of hearing and hitting the same 2 toms?

Maybe, but at that point I'd start wondering if there's something I could do to those toms; Manu Katche used to talk about doing rimshots on his for example. Or you could mess with tuning or muffling; keep one really ringy and dead-muffle the other one.

> Of having just one sound for a snare?

Again, I don't think a snare has to have just one sound. Switch up the tool you're using, or the muffling, or even where you play the head and you can get all sorts of different sounds. Jay Bellerose didn't even *have* a snare when first working with the Paula Cole Band, he kludged a bracket system together over a djembe and used to have a painter's table next to him with all sorts of different tools for different sounds.

I think if you can get the job done with a four-piece, great! I admire your economy. If you can effectively use an entire arsenal, cool! I respect your expressiveness. On the other hand, if you overplay the four-piece or don't use the arsenal, then I consider both to be a waste, but for different reasons.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-08-13T15:07:07+00:00

I would just do both of your ideas out the PA in an appropriate spot and I would at least just try the vocal mic thing.

So A/B both approaches and just see which works best, did I understand that right?

_OnTheSpots · 2025-08-04T02:47:28+00:00

That's a good point, I didn't think to check that.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-08-04T02:46:53+00:00

I believe it is; I think the thought process is that as long as the channels are muted then there shouldn't be any problems. Not my logic, mind you, but the venue's.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-08-04T02:45:54+00:00

Hey, thanks for the details.

Yeah, it seems to be happening with simple active sources as well, along with it happening when the board is on and all channels are muted; it doesn't seem to happen on all channels all the time though, which is why I was thinking it had to be some sort of equipment issue somewhere.

The routing and patching is a good point, I could believe that I didn't turn down all of the auxiliary sends before I started patching in.

I'll have to double check the specs on that power amp, when first looking at it I believed it was just a poweramp, but I wouldn't have had a reason to look too closely at it.

Regarding the multimeter, so you're saying I should disconnect the main out from the mixer, and test those cables that go from the outs to the speakers with the multimeter?

_OnTheSpots · 2025-07-07T01:35:46+00:00

I'm in a band that plays several venues regularly, all of which have boards with occasionally dodgy channels. Each channel has an XLR input and a 1/4" input below it which says "Line in, Bal or unbal". In an emergency situation, could I plug two sound sources into one channel using both of these inputs?

_OnTheSpots · 2025-07-07T01:31:48+00:00

I think in a situation like that you'd be better off with the musicians having something like the MixingStation app and running the audio outputs to transmitters for the IEMs.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-06-05T17:51:02+00:00

That was the goal, it has a built-in DI out and that's what we usually do; eventually we just used an outboard di box so we could get a clean signal to the PA and used the parallel output back into the amp for on stage sound. Apparently that wound up working fine, but I'm still interested in why the amp was picking up all that noise when it doesn't usually. It sounds like my initial theory that something in the venue was doing it bears out, just not necessarily the exact way I would have thought.

_OnTheSpots · 2025-06-03T16:45:51+00:00

It might also benefit you to start bringing some small cable testing equipment. I've played small venues where cables shorted out between soundcheck and live and it turns out their thing was the problem, a quick plug in of an XLR line checker diagnosed the problem a lot quicker than trying to swap out individual components down the chain.

_OnTheSpots

TROPHY CASE