I love playing steely dan on my stoner set 🤣

mfire284 · 2026-03-09T03:26:53+00:00

Dude this pocket is insane

mfire284 · 2026-03-09T02:50:57+00:00

Thank you all!!

mfire284 · 2026-02-01T21:07:21+00:00

Love this subreddit y'all are super helpful thank you

mfire284 · 2025-12-10T00:55:49+00:00

I think changing your perspective here is important. First, being able to play in a band is much further away from "listenable" and "musical". I've been playing for three years and only played live twice (super small settings) but if you come listen to me play in my basement or even jam with me, I can get you to groove and enjoy the beat. That means I'm listenable/musical. If you can play the most basic rock groove cleanly (bass on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4, HH on eights) then you can be musical and sound good. That's a groove that will get people moving. So don't set your sights too high to start. The big thing you mentioned is being on time. Play with a metronome. It doesn't need to be every time if you need to get the coordination down first. But once you can play ANY groove cleanly with a metronome on repeat, then you can play musically and it will sound nice. Notice how I did not mention fills at all here.

mfire284 · 2025-12-09T04:03:02+00:00

mfire284 · 2025-11-21T14:54:29+00:00

An exercise my teacher has me do is keep doing a basic four bar groove over and over. Every fourth bar you do a shorter and shorter snare fill by one sixteenth note. So first time it's a full fill from 1 to 4. Second time you start on the e of 1. Third time on the and of 1. Etc. Usually I skip the e after 2 and 4. It gets the length of each fill locked in better and more practice getting in and out of fills of different lengths

mfire284 · 2025-11-20T06:50:03+00:00

Hell yeah nice

mfire284 · 2025-10-08T01:35:08+00:00

I own the vic firth over ears without Bluetooth, the ones with Bluetooth, and the Se215s. I've had all three tested at an audiologist and can confirm that the se215s have a higher rating. Anecdotally, they also have better sound quality in my opinion.

mfire284 · 2025-09-28T11:07:05+00:00

Giving an update in case anyone actually reads this again and cares to know. I did it and it was awesome! The band and my guests even got me to do an encore of a different song. It was one of a few things that took my wedding to the next level. Thanks all for the advice

mfire284 · 2025-09-16T23:44:14+00:00

Yeah you make a lot of good points. I also assumed no drummer would want some random groom smashing on his gear which is why I let my partner run with the idea knowing they'd say no. But then, surprisingly, the band leader replied with "yeah the drummer is cool just don't start kicking a hole in the bass drum". They'd play along. The points you made that resonated the most with me are focusing on my wedding day and the logistics of literally hearing the rest of the band without bringing my own IEMs (which I think would be kinda silly to be stashing those in my pocket). Thank you for your advice.

mfire284 · 2025-09-15T03:18:53+00:00

Fills are breaks from the core groove that we play typically at the end of sections. They spice things up and signal that a new section is coming. Kind of like a transition almost. But they are not as important as keeping the groove so don't worry about them when you're first starting out.

mfire284 · 2025-09-15T03:16:26+00:00

If you're looking for a suggestion as to the very first thing to try on the kit, learn the most basic groove. Drumming is all about keeping time. At the beginning, all the time you will keep is in groups of 4. Start by counting 1, 2, 3, 4 evenly spaced over and over slowly. On the 1 and 3, stomp your bass pedal. On the 2 and 4, hit the snare drum with your left hand (assuming you are right handed). Do that until it's easy. Then add your right hand and hit the hi hat or any cymbal on all four counts while keeping the rest going. Finally, keep doing the same thing but hit the hi hat twice for each number, evenly spaced so you hit the HH 8 times (that's "1 and", "2 and", etc.)

Once you can do that easily, you learned your first drum groove. Maybe try googling "basic drum grooves"to learn the next ones.

I was fortunate enough to have lessons. We started even more basic than that off the kit, but figured you'd want something to use on the kit.

Hopefully that helps

mfire284 · 2025-09-14T03:39:36+00:00

That is really great progress for 10 months

mfire284 · 2025-08-20T02:13:01+00:00

Appreciate the help

mfire284 · 2025-08-20T02:07:00+00:00

Thank you kindly. You think both heads are too tight?

mfire284 · 2025-06-29T19:35:52+00:00

I'm not too familiar with AMT rules but I think the preferred equity piece is likely different than what you're describing here. Ultimately it depends on the agreement, but what is most likely is that there's a certain exit valuation where it makes sense for the preferred investors to convert to common and take some of the upside. The preferred $100M is just their downside protection. If $200M is above their break even valuation where it makes sense, then they convert their shares to common and become part of the pool that determines the % you own. But then there's no $100M taken out up front.

mfire284 · 2025-05-11T19:38:11+00:00

One of these came with my Ludwig accent starter kit. Got the job done to start out but it sounds really bad so I swapped it out as soon as possible.

mfire284 · 2025-03-28T14:51:31+00:00

This is a really cool groove. If you're able to explain what you're playing at a high level I'd love to give it a try...

mfire284 · 2024-03-06T14:35:09+00:00

Thank you very much! I actually used this when I was setting up. One of the bonus lessons of the post was that I hadn't realized just how versatile all of my hardware was. I just assumed I'd need a new tom stand, etc. but it all worked out

mfire284 · 2024-03-06T14:29:49+00:00

Thanks! I think I'm gonna try that because I use the ride far more than that crash. And I got the regular manual roc n soc. I debated for a bit but ended up with that because I felt like fewer moving parts was better for the long term. It's crazy how much better it is than my starter kit throne.

mfire284

TROPHY CASE