Rob M
CONTACT

SEEKING

Band to Join, Vocalist, Piano, Lead Guitar, Keyboard, Bass Guitar.

ABOUT

I've been playing drums since I was 11. I was self-taught until 26, but then took several-hour lessons every week with an amazing teacher (who himself studied with Philly Joe Jones), for about 4 or 5 years.

I'm pretty into jam band / groove oriented stuff right now. Anything with a core theme / song but with plenty of room to improvise. I am not a note-for-note player. I get bored too quickly to last in those types of bands.

The song Pulsefriter above is a long, improv jam with 2 friends - Absinthesis's Jack Yang on guitar and Brothers Past's Thomas McKee on keys. It was after quite a few Hop Wallops too, so it could have been better ;) It was recorded and mixed by me. Since it's long, I had to compress to a crappy 128k MP3 so Bandmix would accept it.

Also, be sure to check out the video on this page. Jump to the 2:50 mark, and set it to HD. The guitarist wrote the music, and I literally showed up to the gig and heard most of it for the first time while I was playing (which is why I'm somewhat reserved). We could talk to each other via mic / in-ear monitors, which is how I knew when to change. Fun!

Oh, and I've been working with DAWs / pro digital audio recording for over 15 years now, so I'm pretty damn useful in the studio.

Screen name:
Rob M
Member since:
Feb 19 2007
Active over 1 month ago
Level of commitment:
Moderately Committed
Years playing music:
25
Gigs played:
10 to 50
Tend to practice:
2-3 times per week
Available to gig:
1 night a week
Most available:
Nights

Influences

Everyone from Aphex Twin to Zappa. Not into metal. Influenced by - but don't necessarily play:

* jamband stuff: Phish, the Dead, Umphreys McGee
* bebop era jazz: Miles, Coltrane
* 70s jazz fusion: Mahavishnu, Billy Cobham, Jeff Beck
* groove stuff: MMW, Greyboy Allstars, Soulive
* rock classics: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Ziggy Stardust era Bowie, Queen
* other rock: Faith No More (or any Patton, really), Nirvana, Foo Fighters, QoTSA, Tool

Plus a lot more.

EQUIPMENT

My primary acoustic kit is a 1965 Rogers Holiday kit. Buddy Rich / John Bonham setup, but smaller sized drums: 14x20 kick, 5x14 snare, 8x12 rack tom, 14x14 floor tom, 16x16 floor tom.

My digital rig consists primarily of:

* Custom electronic drums, built by yours truly out of a Gretsch Catalina jazz kit.
* MacBook Pro 17" unibody - quad 2.3 GHz proc, 16 GB RAM, SSD boot drive
* Focusrite Saffire PRO 40 (FireWire 20 in, 20 out AD interface with 8 amazing preamps)
* Roland TD-12, used only for triggering (no sound / samples)
* Ableton Live Suite 8
* Toontrack Superior Drummer version 1 and 2, plus several extension packs

MUSIC