Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Here is something very different - a cover of a Neil Diamond track called 'Soolaiman'. It has required the use of two drum modules, an extra 6" tom, a drum-tec trigger bar and lots of percussion sounds.....
I am due to play a full Neil Diamond Tribute show later this year, and this track was set for me as a challenge. I don't think they actually thought I would be able to do it :) There are multiple drum and percussion parts and it has been a lot of fun finding a way to perform most of them, all by myself, in a manner that I could achieve live on stage. I think this is reasonably close - although you will occasionally hear the original drum parts in the background.
I have used Xtrax Stems II software to try and create a drumless backing track. It has not been easy and you will hear odd effects at times, as it tries to separate the percussion from the melody lines.
At the show, I will be doing a drum solo at the end of this track. In this video, I have stopped short of providing the entire solo, partly because it would be a very long video and partly because I wholly failed to get a single take where I was happy with both the track and the following solo! So, you will get a separate version of the intended solo, in a later video.
The astute will be wondering why I have an Alesis multipad AND a Roland TD30. The simple fact is that I found it far easier to create and edit the percussion sounds in the TD30. I find the multipad difficult to navigate around and find and edit the sounds. Obviously I have tried to match the various African and Indian instruments being used as closely as possible. I am using the multipad as just that - a series of pads. These are sending midi notes to the TD30, where the actual sounds are generated.
The TD30 is then connected to the Aux In of the Pearl Mimic Pro. The Mimic is handling the actual drum kit sounds.
Finding a suitable recording approach was a challenge. In the end, I opted to use the Mimic internal recorder to record the TD30/Alesis percussion parts (only - no drum sounds), whilst simultaneously recording the drum parts as a midi performance in Logic on my laptop. This gave me a very good quality percussion recording as a WAV file, which I then exported into my Logic file, synched to the midi performance. I then played back the midi performance via midi out, to the Mimic internal recorder again, with the percussion WAV track also included (and suitably mixed). So the audio you hear here is the final blend of the kit and the percussion, AND of course the drumless backing track. Quite the head scratcher, frankly!
I hope you enjoy this. And I hope you will enjoy the subsequent solo video too :)
Here is something very different - a cover of a Neil Diamond track called 'Soolaiman'. It has required the use of two drum modules, an extra 6" tom, a drum-tec trigger bar and lots of percussion sounds.....
I am due to play a full Neil Diamond Tribute show later this year, and this track was set for me as a challenge. I don't think they actually thought I would be able to do it :) There are multiple drum and percussion parts and it has been a lot of fun finding a way to perform most of them, all by myself, in a manner that I could achieve live on stage. I think this is reasonably close - although you will occasionally hear the original drum parts in the background.
I have used Xtrax Stems II software to try and create a drumless backing track. It has not been easy and you will hear odd effects at times, as it tries to separate the percussion from the melody lines.
At the show, I will be doing a drum solo at the end of this track. In this video, I have stopped short of providing the entire solo, partly because it would be a very long video and partly because I wholly failed to get a single take where I was happy with both the track and the following solo! So, you will get a separate version of the intended solo, in a later video.
The astute will be wondering why I have an Alesis multipad AND a Roland TD30. The simple fact is that I found it far easier to create and edit the percussion sounds in the TD30. I find the multipad difficult to navigate around and find and edit the sounds. Obviously I have tried to match the various African and Indian instruments being used as closely as possible. I am using the multipad as just that - a series of pads. These are sending midi notes to the TD30, where the actual sounds are generated.
The TD30 is then connected to the Aux In of the Pearl Mimic Pro. The Mimic is handling the actual drum kit sounds.
Finding a suitable recording approach was a challenge. In the end, I opted to use the Mimic internal recorder to record the TD30/Alesis percussion parts (only - no drum sounds), whilst simultaneously recording the drum parts as a midi performance in Logic on my laptop. This gave me a very good quality percussion recording as a WAV file, which I then exported into my Logic file, synched to the midi performance. I then played back the midi performance via midi out, to the Mimic internal recorder again, with the percussion WAV track also included (and suitably mixed). So the audio you hear here is the final blend of the kit and the percussion, AND of course the drumless backing track. Quite the head scratcher, frankly!
I hope you enjoy this. And I hope you will enjoy the subsequent solo video too :)
