The RMD Project

We’ll be pulling out all the DJ equipment for this event. The following is copied from their website:

Make plans now to attend the City of Buffalo Republican Committee Summer Picnic!
Cost per person: $10 for inspectors; $25 per person; $50 for a family of six
Dress: Casual
Checks payable to City of Buffalo Republican Committee, PO Box 1651, Buffalo, NY 14205
Event Contact: Tracey McNerney, (716) 481-2681
Entertainment by RMD Project & DJ Febreze www.rmdproject.com

 Should be fun… we’re even going to bring the Karaoke stuff if people want to use it!

Take a look at our Karaoke Song List to see if we have any songs you want to do!

The RMD Project is taking a few new directions. Previously, I was mostly concerned with playing live music, singing and playing drums. I have done a few DJ and Karaoke gigs lately and I gotta admit… they are a blast too. So, I’m opening up to doing that sort of thing too.

I’m no newbie to DJing and I participate in many Karaoke nights. I recently did a few decent sized gigs with great crowds and I realized they can be just as fun and I don’t need to haul my drums around. I also got some help from DJ Febreze and he’s great at picking up when I need a break. The younger crowd seems to LOVE him.

Whatever the mood you want for your bar or event, we have the music. If you want Karaoke, we got that too and will sing along with your crowd.

You can see our Karaoke song list at our new Karaoke Play List application. It will allow your customers to look through our book prior to attending your function and select songs. As far as we know this is a one of a kind application.

Check our ABOUT page for contact information.

Rick

Since I am mainly a drummer I decided to start here with my toy reviews. I purchased the DTXpress several months ago when I decided to do more recording. My basement is a little crowded and the acoustics aren’t the best for using multiple microphones and a standard drum kit. The DTXpress seemed to be the perfect answer.

I didn’t get the joy of opening the box and putting all the pieces together because the guys at the Buffalo Drum Outlet did that for me. They even carried it across the road and installed it in my basement/dungeon. I will say, if it came in a box as small as my last drum kit, I’m glad I didn’t have to put it together.

The rack is sturdy, but I modified the cymbal placement and the right side worried me having the floor tom pad and a cymbal on it, so I purchased and added an extra brace. I’ve hauled this around to a couple gigs and it’s pretty easy to move. Loosen a few screws and it folds up to nothing. We’ve tossed it into the trunk of a Ford Taurus easy enough.

The DTXpress drum module is really nice. It sounds incredible for the price. Many of the stock preset kits sound amazing, but you can create your own from a huge bank of percussive instruments. What I liked the most about the DTXpress was the multi-zone pads on what is a pretty inexpensive kit. The snare and hi-hat are both 2 zone pads. This means you can assign different sounds to the rim and center pad.  The included cymbals are 3 zone pads. You can actually hit the bell and it sounds like it should. What sold this kit to me was I hit a crash and instinctively caught it… and the damn thing muffled right away.

It does take some getting used to. The pads play fast. The cymbals can be a bit sensitive at times. But over all I love it and after a little adjustment period it can do what a full up acoustic kit can… minus like 5 microphones.

For recording you have three options. Mono and Stereo outs are available, just plug those into your DAW and go. You can adjust the volume and pan for each pad on the drum module. The last option is MIDI out. Instead of recording analog drum out you can record MIDI messages then run it through another MIDI device to make the drum sounds. This is a good option if you want to be able to edit the drumming in your DAW. The one drawback to this is the DTXpress doesn’t have a MIDI in, so you will need another MIDI source for drum sounds. I use my Alesis NanoSynth or a drum plug in when I use this method.

As far as the pads go and drumming feel… It’s different than an acoustic kit for sure. I can’t say it’s a bad different… I can play the snare way faster on this than an acoustic. It’s just one of those things you have to get used to. I’ve also noticed some pad crosstalk if you are really pounding on them. that goes away once you get used to hitting pads rather than drums.

My overall rating on the DTXpress IV would be 4 out of 5 with discounts for lack of MIDI in and a higher than usual learning curve for an instrument you basically beat the hell out of with a pair of sticks.

If you want to hear what it sounds like recorded, this is a tune a buddy (Bret Tucker) and I did spur of the moment. I literally just hit RECORD and said “Play something, I’ll keep up”. Bret says it’s called “Papa’s New Shoes”.

http://www.rmdproject.com/music/papas_new_shoes9.MP3

I forgot to mention that Bret was here on his way through Buffalo and he had to play my son’s $99 OLP Ernie Ball rip off.

It was really amazing and a totally good time. Big Beat 2008 was an attempt on November 2nd to get the most drummers out of their basements… I mean playing one song at the same time for a World Record. I’m pretty sure we did it, but I won’t know for a week or two.

I got some great videos and pictures that I’ll post here. This is the first. It’s just a montage of a bunch of images. I’ll get more posted as I get the videos converted to a suitable format for YouTube.

Buffalo Big Beat 2008 was run by the Buffalo Drum Outlet and benefited Mr. Holland’s Opus and the Response to Love Center on Buffalo’s East Side. Both charities are worthy causes. I, unfortunately, live right across the road from the BDO and spend way too much time and money there, but Paul and the crew there are great!

The BDO handed out sheet music… which I’m not sure about the other guys but I barely had a clue what it was for. Then we warmed up for a while. This is what that sounded like.

WGRZ TV was there and recorded a nice piece they put on the 11PM News. I may get yelled at for posting this one, but my kid is the spiked hair sunglass kid. So, since he was in about a 1/3 of the story I claim copyright on his likeness and reproduction thereof.

Then we finally played Louie, Louie after like 4 hours. It was all good and I had a great time playing with these guys. I don’t know why lead singers hate us drummers so much. We’re a great bunch of people!!! OK, so we don’t take instructions well, we like our space on the stage and if we don’t like how you want it played we are just going to play it our way anyway… but other than that we are easy to get along with.

So, here’s Louie, Louie with 150 drummers all trying to play nice together…

We’ll be playing with up to 300 drummers at the Millenium Hotel on Walden Avenue in an attempt to break the world record for most drummers totally destroying a classic song. “Louie Louie” will never sound the same.

Well, this won’t make CNN or anything but I’m opening my new music blog. I hope to make it a place for my original crap, some covers that I’m sure I’ll get take-down notices for and whatever. Mostly, I’ve been spending a lot of time and money on music lately and eventually the wife is gonna want to see something come out of it.

The RMD Project concept is simple. It’s just a place for me to post stuff I work on randomly with others or do solo. I still have a great band and will continue with them, but I have some interests outside that circle I want to work on myself.

I hope you enjoy whatever ends up here!

RMD