Ukulele band with a full drumkit

bazmaz

bazmaz

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Was wondering if anyone else knows a uke band with a full drummer behind them?

You might think it wont work, but I am just back from practice with our band (6 ukes, 3 vocals plugged in) and a new guy on a Remo Legero small kit.

We were amped, running through a mixer, and had a couple of wedges pointing back at vocalists.

Wow, that was a new and cool experience. Think we may be on to something here!

(for what its worth we mainly play rock and roll and blues so worked a treat)
 
Heh, heh, I don't know how you played rock and roll without a drummer! (just kidding)

Now you need to add a bass to the mix...

John
 
Yeah! At NAMM, Garrett Borns played with full drum kit. He's awesome, by the way. Next Big Thing written all over him.

 
Glad to hear you liked it, I'm hoping to start a band (not a uke band, just a band where I happen to play uke) and a light drum set is something I hoped to have in the mix (along with guitar and banjo).
 
Thanks all. Oh and re bass.... that is a surprise coming. Cant say more yet, but it aint a Kala - its a beast.

Oh go on then, I will say more. One of the band has built a fretless bass out of a cigarbox and a two by four neck - thundergut strings... Not perfected yet, but you know what - sounds pretty amazing.

He is calling it the Rasada bass. Stands for Rough As a Dogs A***


Pics soon!
 
Here you are. These guys are from Edinburgh:

3 Ukes a U-Bass and drum kit. Sultans of Swing as good as you've ever heard from Dire Straits.

 
Saw the Flea Bitten Dawgs, with a drummer/percussionist. They sounded great, as usual.

Has to be the right kind of drums. Here's a picture.

P1040640.jpg
 
Ideal scenario for an electronic kit player I'd say - ideal to keep the volume in check whilst adding the option for a diverse range of percussion sounds behind the ukes......

Might have to pop along one day and say hello, seeing as I'm only a 20 minute car journey away......
 
ChaosToo said:
Ideal scenario for an electronic kit player I'd say - ideal to keep the volume in check whilst adding the option for a diverse range of percussion sounds behind the ukes......

Might have to pop along one day and say hello, seeing as I'm only a 20 minute car journey away......
Click to expand...

That's what we're aiming to get. Great fun, won't have the neighbors coming after you with pitchforks, and will do the job. Anders spent some time auditioning a few sets, and its seems that...surprise surprise, the more pricier kits have much nicer synthetic drum heads. But yeah, you NEED drums, and you NEED bass. :)
 
Our drummer does have some very nice v drums, but his concern with them for gigging is they are a) extremely expensive and b) quite easily damaged.

This remo kit is easily muted, packs into a single bag. He dropped the toms as that would have killed us, but worked well - we had 60w floor monitor shooting at us (soon to be two monitors) and could hear ourselves without being drowned. Sadly these remo kits are no longer made. Arbiter flats are, I believe an alternative.
 
image.jpg

Poor quality pic but you get idea
 
bazmaz said:
Our drummer does have some very nice v drums, but his concern with them for gigging is they are a) extremely expensive and b) quite easily damaged.

This remo kit is easily muted, packs into a single bag. He dropped the toms as that would have killed us, but worked well - we had 60w floor monitor shooting at us (soon to be two monitors) and could hear ourselves without being drowned. Sadly these remo kits are no longer made. Arbiter flats are, I believe an alternative.
Click to expand...

As an alternative, he could pick up a couple of cheap e-pads to go with the module he already has - perfect little gigging kit.....
 
Hey Tootler - thanks for the plug!!

If anyone is in Edinburgh we will be playing in Belushi's on Market Street on Friday night at 9pm free entry!

If anyone is interested you can find more by searching FC Ukulele on youtube, and you can like us on facebook!

OP - sorry for hijacking, but I can't miss an opportunity foro free advertising!

Tootler said:
Here you are. These guys are from Edinburgh:

3 Ukes a U-Bass and drum kit. Sultans of Swing as good as you've ever heard from Dire Straits.

Click to expand...
 
Re OP - our drummer plays with hotrod drum sticks - lots of v. thin dowels strapped together - with a small acoustic kit they provide the right balance of volume and control. Occasionally with bigger venues he uses light sticks. We have tried electric kit but for some of the subtleties they aren't so good.
 
lennymac said:
Re OP - our drummer plays with hotrod drum sticks - lots of v. thin dowels strapped together - with a small acoustic kit they provide the right balance of volume and control. Occasionally with bigger venues he uses light sticks. We have tried electric kit but for some of the subtleties they aren't so good.
Click to expand...

The hotrods are great in some cases. The drummer we have now is sharp enough to know when to lay back even with harder sticks but we've had at least one drummer that we wouldn't let use anything else.

As for the electronic kits - you pretty much have to spend a ton of coin to get ones that allow anything like the expression you can get from even relatively inexpensive acoustic drums. Especially when it comes to the snare and cymbals. If you have to use an electronic kit and can't afford the best, at least put the dough-re-mi into a good mesh snare and good "cymbals."

(BTW, I am not a drummer but have seen enough of them come and go to say with confidence that your average "starter" electronic kit will make a monkey of even the best drummer.)

John
 
OldePhart said:
(BTW, I am not a drummer but have seen enough of them come and go to say with confidence that your average "starter" electronic kit will make a monkey of even the best drummer.)

John
Click to expand...

I guess being a drummer, I've always had to 'get used to' the high prices we pay for our drums, so apologies if my suggestion sounded like I was recommending a 'starter' kit.....

I have an Alesis DM10, which whilst being far from 'top end' is still very playable, sounds more than fine through the module (with a little tweaking) and even better through dedicated drum software. It now also plays far better through an inexpensive set of mesh head conversions....total cost just over £1000, but that was with a double pedal.

I think you need to be spending £500-700 minimum on an e-kit - which is still dirt cheap in drum terms.

And from personal experience, any acoustic kit much under that price bracket might sound OK, but the hardware won't last five minutes in a gigging situation.....and it'll have only a limited number of VERY nasty cymbals.

My last acoustic kit (only a 4 piece, but with additional half decent cymbals and decent hardware) came in at about £2500 (makes me wince when I think of those prices compared to ukes!)
 
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The set Anders wants is a Roland kit that's about 2k. And yeah, he was stickler for the snare and the cymbals. And even then, he was making a compromise. He's more of a bass player, but enjoys drumming and misses having a kit. Using GarageBand finger-drums for our tracks just sucks. But what can ya do? You don't have the sonic space for real drums.
 
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