The Tune-bot electronic drum tuner- Review by the Drum Tuning Guru Danny Thompson

The Tune-bot

Electronic Drum Tuner

Reviewed by The Drum Tuning Guru Danny Thompson

Interview with Greg Crane Yamaha artist relations manager

The Drum Tuning Guru Podcast episode #5

Interview with Yamaha Artist Relations manager Greg Crane

Danny:  Let’s do it. Alright guys, thanks for checking in to another episode of the Drum Tuning Guru. I’m super stoked. I’ve got a great guest today. Long term great buddy of mine Mr. Greg Crane. How are you doing buddy?

Greg: I’m good.

Danny: Thanks for checking in with us and being on the show.

Greg: Yea, it’s a good time.

Danny: So what have you been up to man?

Greg: Oh nothing. We have just got back from Nashville a couple of days ago. We were all in Nashville. We have a summit with our drum artists in the Nashville area and got everybody together and we are kind of doing that this summer. And we are doing one in New York next month and then an L.A. summit in September. So it is pretty cool. Just getting everybody together.

Danny: What are the summits all about?

Greg: What’s that?

Danny: What are the summits all about?

Greg: What we do is just to get everybody together. We have so many artists and so many different parts of the country that we can kind of gather everybody in the main parts of the country, like Nashville, and we get together at S.I.R. and just round table things and talk about what is going on new with us, what is going on new with them, what we can do better, what the, you know just a big meeting…

Danny: A love fest?

Greg: A love fest! 

Danny: And your official title now at Yamaha is Artist Relations Manager. Is that correct?

Greg: Yes.

Danny: Right on. So, for everybody out there, why don’t you give us a little background, you know how did you get involved in the industry and what was your progression through the ranks to get to such a cool gig?

Greg: What I did is I started in 1992. I started working for a very large music company. Do we say…?

Danny: Sure we both worked at Guitar Center.

Greg: I started working at Guitar Center.

Danny: Here is the thing; like you meet somebody and you are like I play drums. Right? Or I play guitar or I like guitars. What do you think? It is about a 90 – 92% rate that they work at Guitar Center at some point?

Greg: (Laughing) Yes totally.

Danny: I no matter, not that I am a famous drummer at all but I could get a gig, like I could replace Larry Mullen in U2 which is sort of like my dream gig because that would make a ton of money. When you think about great drumming gigs being in U2 pretty awesome, right?

Greg: That is a big one.

Danny: Check it out right? They are huge, so you would make a ton of money but you know what Larry Mullen he could walk down the street, go to the 7-11, and you know occasionally I’m sure a person comes up and is like oh my God it’s Larry Mullen but for the most part he can just live his life, not like Bono or something.

Greg: Totally. Bono is like Lenny Kravitz. He has got the awe on all the time. Like Lenny Kravitz can’t go down to 7-11 without putting on chaps and you know.

Danny: I am wearing chaps right now actually.

Greg: Oh really? This is for our listeners; don’t talk about Lenny Kravitz, okay cool. Yea man so I started working for Guitar Center and I mean I immediately when I started working there, the only thing in my head was I knew that I was going to be picked up. I was going to be blanking on the drums in the drum department and somebody would see me come and play. And it would be like oh my God you need to join our band. Or you need to come on tour with us. That was absolutely my only thought. I’m going to be here a couple months and that is going to be it man. I’m going to get picked up. I’m going to be the next Steven Perkins. I was in a huge Steven Perkins vibe back then, you know? And after like a month I was like man dude I really love helping people. I really liked it. I really dug the hang, I dug talking about drums and I just really dug that whole scene. And I just decided to stick it out. I’m like yea maybe this is my thing. I can you know be who I want to be. You could be over the top or you could be…if you are shy when you work in that environment if you are a shy person you can be extraverted and it’s cool. It’s like…not play a character but you can be whoever you want. You could just have fun and have fun with the customers and I just really started digging that. And worked there for 12 years and I worked with another good friend of mine who helped me out so much along the way named Danny Thompson. 

Danny: We had a lot of good times. 

Greg: We had a lot of good times man. 

Danny: What was the name of that Dog Drummer’s Night Out?

Greg: Oh yea, those were just so great putting those together and (not to embarrass you) I owe so much to you. Sorry I didn’t mean to embarrass you there.

Danny: Well thanks man. I appreciate that very much. I’m super proud that you are in the position that you are in and that things have worked out so good for you and that all these years later, I was at the Guitar Center for 18 years and it is great that we are still buddies and get to work together and it is awesome. It is a small community, there is no doubt about it. The drummer community or music community is pretty small. Everybody you run into…

Greg: G.C. was, yes the Guitar Center gig was when we were there that was more high profile than like a weatherman. You could be walking around Knott’s Berry Farm and somebody would be like “Yea dude, Guitar Center. Way bad.” And you are like “Yea, yea we will talk on Monday bro”.

Danny: What I was starting to say was no matter what...like I moved on from Guitar Center and I have been playing drums and touring and was even in Drum Magazine and all these things that we always on my list of life accomplishments and everywhere I go it’s like, “Hey dude, I worked for you at Guitar Center.” Like I’ll be in Canada playing a Face to Face show and a guy will be back stage and be like “Hey dude do you remember I worked at Fountain Valley for you for like a week?” (Laughing) So how did you end up at Yamaha and ultimately how did you get the Artist Relations gig?

Greg: Well I started working at Yamaha in 2004 and it was cool because I wanted to, I was traveling around a lot and the opportunity came to work with Yamaha and work in National Accounts which actually I still kind of help out the Guitar Center guys. It was a nice transition. And so I started doing that. Then I became the Product Specialist for Drums and I was doing a lot of helping out of the artists and introduced to those guys through help out with warranty things and like that. So that kind of opened the door in getting a lot of relationships with those guys. It just kind of naturally progressed. I have been in this position since April as the manager and it is going great. It has been really, really good. It’s 24 hours man. It’s 24 hours, but I love it man. And it is one of those…you know not to do the old cliché if you love what you are doing you are not going to work. Whatever that line is, but it is true. I really absolutely love doing it. And to me it’s kind of a…like you see your finished product on stage later you know like with Shannon Larkin with this last tour that they did. We put together, me and him, got together and put together his drum kit for this tour that they are on now - Godsmack is on now. So we got together and we had a lot of conversations about what the colors are going to be, what the size are going to be and it’s rack and things like that. We spent a lot of time and we got the drums and they came in time and they shipped them out and they got them set up. And then I went and saw them in Vegas a couple of months ago and I was like “Wow that was for me”. Like look hey we put that together. I worked on that and now it is all done and people are enjoying it. And just seeing our artist happy and making sure that they have everything they need to do what they are doing. We never forget that this is what you (well you as a Yamaha artist) this is what you do for a job. Everyone sees you, oh the rock stars, they are total rock stars and they are this and they are on that and they are getting music awards and they are on every show on the grandola, that is all cool. That is also what they do for a job. It is our job, it is my job, to help you and them to get the job done. To do it for the kids!

Danny: Well I think it is a really valid point. As fun as it is to play for people and all those things if you go to play and your kit doesn’t sound good or you are not happy with your set up I mean it doesn’t matter if there is a ton of people out there. They don’t notice any of that stuff. They don’t know that you don’t think you had your best night ever or whatever. But to every artist that I know, every drummer and musician, that stuff still, I think no matter how far along you go, that stuff still matters more than anything. You want to have a great night. You want to know you played great, you sounded great and you did your best regardless of whether there is 10 people there or 10,000 people. Unfortunately for me I seem to play the best when there is 10 people versus the 10,000 but…

Greg: Which is most of the time. (Laughter)

Danny: But I talk to other guys and they say the same thing. They can play the hugest, biggest show ever and I played like crap. But anyway let’s…people aren’t going to want to hear us reminisce about Guitar Center for a 40 minute show.

Greg: Yammering on.

Danny: Let’s get into a little bit here about drum tone and see what you know is your perspective on some of these things. I’m sure you have some great information from working with guys. I do this; I have this little list. The five elements of good drum tone. You know trying to kind of put something together that gives people like a list to follow almost. The order that I came up with was tuning, player, the drum head, the drums and then the environment that the drums are in. And I’d just be interested to get your perspective on that. Whether your order might be a little different?

Greg: Are you putting those in more important to less important?

Danny: Yes.

Greg: Yes I would say, gosh, probably…

Danny: I put them out like on Facebook and asked other people to kind of put their list together and it was all over the place. 

Greg: Yes. I would say probably number one to is player because it is all their mindset like how they want the drums to sound. Some people really like – you know they tune their bottom heads the same as the top. Some people tune the top heads, or the bottom heads just a little bit higher than the top. So the player I think probably in their mindset is number one on what is going to get a good tone. There is a lot of drummers out there that like drums not to sound all that great. Seriously there are drummers out there that kind of like a low fi vibe. 

Danny: Which could be fine if that is the style of the music.

Greg: Uh-huh.

Danny: But if you think, all things considered, you take that really good drummer and let’s say it’s Larry Mullen. Yamaha artist. If you went to see him at the big show and the kit had really old horrible drum heads on it and he was playing the same way he always does wouldn’t he sound inferior to how he would sound if the kit was dialed in?

Greg: That is right. The heads would be just all jacked up and pitted.

Danny: Or what is he wasn’t playing on a beautiful Yamaha kit that night. He was playing on a (we won’t even say anything).

Greg: It wouldn’t sound the same.

Danny: You know a cheap kit. Or not even cheap just a kit that just couldn’t be tuned or any of those things, he’d still sound good because he is Larry Mullen, he knows how to play. Or whatever drummer we are using. But wouldn’t those things also all things considered the better quality the drums and the better tuning and all those things make them sound even better?

Greg: I think so. What about drum heads? I mean I would say drum heads on a less expensive, I mean you can take really good heads on a drum kit that is not $20,000.00 or even $5,000.00 and still get a great tone out of a kit just from drum head choices. 

Danny: Yes I mean it is certainly – that is going to be a huge factor. I would say more so new heads, fresh heads versus old stuff because there is not like really cheap drum heads. They are pretty much all, in the major companies anyway, they are all pretty much pro quality and things like that. So when you are out there working with some of these pros that you have been touring with what is it that you think makes these guys sound so much better than the average drummer? 

Greg: Oh geez. I mean obviously the drums that they choose goes with the music that they play. I’m going to use obviously Yamaha as an example but drummers like Dave McClain who plays with Machine Head. He chooses Oak Custom drums because with the music that he plays (which is super fast) and his toms and his kick drums have to be super articulate. That kit meshes with him really, really well but if he maybe had a kit that maybe had maple shell of rounded bearing edges it would be a lot darker, it wouldn’t have as much punch to it, and that was my projection. I think what kind of makes them, what sets our drums apart is just their choices that they use for their kits that makes them sound so good. 

Danny: So choosing the right style of drum kit as far as the wood choices and design of the kit to suite the styles of the music that you are playing.

Greg: Absolutely! Look at like Mike Borden for example. I mean he uses 14 inch, 15 inch and 18 inch, 14 and 15 is rack toms. If he had to play another kit that was say 10-12-16 it just wouldn’t work. One it would look really funny because everybody has seen Mike Borden with big giant toms but he knows that the music that Nathan Ward is playing, or Ozzie, or any one of those guys, he needs big sounding – Oak Custom is what he uses too. You know big sounding shells so he is able to get a perfect sound that works with his music. Does that make any sense? Maybe?

Danny: No absolutely, I think that is a really good point that is probably overlooked by a lot of guys when they go in to look for a new drum kit. They are looking at the color or what other artists are playing the kit versus does this kit really going to feature and fit the style of music I am in. And also the style of player that you are. You know the way you strike the drums and your attack is going to have a huge impact on those things. 

Greg: I mean there are a lot of awesome 20 inch kick drums, you know drums out there with 20 inch space drums and everyone is yea I love 20s but with me as a music drummer if I played a 20 inch bass drum I don’t think I would play as well just because it is not my kind of drum. You just wouldn’t be able to perform as well and you have to choose, even though it looks well, it might look really sparkly or whatever with stars all over it but it has got to be the right choice for the music they play.

Danny: And you know one of the things that I have always thought with Yamaha, and even before I worked with you officially at Yamaha, I always rented Yamaha kits when I had to fly out overseas and stuff and wasn’t using one of the kits that I built. And you know my choice in that was purely based around one thing which is Yamaha drums are always going to sound great. You know it’s not, I think Yamaha really puts the sound of the drums that is the number one thing. The quality of the drum kit whereas maybe some of those other manufacturers out there it is really about the paint job and the look and all those kind of things more so than it is about the sound.

Greg: We were just talking about that when we were all kind of getting together and that is what it is. It has got to be the sound of the drums. You’ve got to love the sound of the drums and when we get approached by endorsers or drummers that want to be Yamaha artists that is the first thing. It’s got to be – it doesn’t have to be but you know what I am saying? They have played the drums and they know what they sound like and they know what they are going to get. They have got to be in love with the sound of the drums. I mean obviously we had awesome colors. And we had cool sizers and do all that but it has got to be the sound of the drum that works best for you.

Danny: Right, right, right. Maybe give the listeners a little run down you know in the Yamaha line of drums (you don’t have to do them all) but just kind of maybe the majors. You know recording customs, the maple custom kits, oak custom and birch kits. What are some of the differences in those kits in the shells and how does that impact the sound of the drums?

Greg: Well where our drums begin at is a kit called The GigMaker. The GigMaker comes in a five piece configuration. It is wrapped finishes and sparkle finishes, same Yamaha hardware that we put on all of our other drums. And they sound really cool. I mean we put pin stripes on them and fab them up. We actually did that with a couple Man shows and they sounded really, really great. So GigMaker, then there is Stage Custom Birch. And Stage Custom Birch is a total flag ship line for Yamaha. We have had Stage Custom since the late 90s. I mean Stage Custom is almost like saying Xerox. I mean it has a name. They already know what you are talking about. So about six years ago we changed into an all birch shell. So it is the same sizes that we always offered. You can get 18s so you can make your own kits for Stage Custom Birch. Change up the finishes a little bit, we offered some new finishes in this last Man show, Matte Black and Honey Amber and they sound great. In fact we were talking with a couple guys this last week, one drummer named Eddie Bears and Eddie was talking about getting a Stage Custom kit for one of his friends. A Stage Custom Birch kit who absolutely loved it and uses it for his national studio recordings all the time. So now that people hear it they are like “Wow it’s a Stage Custom Kit”. So Stage Custom and then from Stage Custom goes into our high end drums which would be Oak Custom, Club Custom, Oak Custom, OakShell (which has been around forever). 

Club Custom which is fairly new is made of Kapur and it is kind of a vintage vibe. You played Club Custom didn’t you?

Danny: Yes I checked one out for sure.

Greg: Oh yea that’s right. So definitely a vintage vibe. We have a lot of artists that are playing Club Custom now like Matt Cameron, Aaron Comess, and Steve Jordan of course was huge in the making of Club Custom. So that is just blown up. It just became a huge drum kit that everybody now is getting turned on to more and more. So Club Custom and of course we are still doing Recording Custom. Then our Absolute line: Absolute Birch, Absolute Maple. Absolute Birch and Recording Custom use the same shell. So if you ever played a Recording Custom and you liked the way that shell is Absolute Birch has the same shell. It’s still got that really bright you know come back at you kind of tone you know, like the Recording Custom. It is just specked out differently. The dye cast hoops on it and – I want to talk about hoops too with you by the way.

Danny: Oh yes.

Greg: And then we get into our PHX lines. And that is our ultra crazy boutique. 11 ply shells. Amazing sounding kits.

Danny: Cool. Let me ask you just in general between like oak kit, birch kit, maple kit in a kind of general sense (tone or quality wise) what are some of the differences somebody could expect from those kits?

Greg: Oak is if you took like Birch and Maple and combined the two. So you have all the projection and punch, like in your face of a Birch kit but yet has a lot more low end resonance like a Maple kit. A lot of volume and really, really sensitive. So that is who have Oak Custom. So a lot of drummers on the metal side love it. A lot of drummers like Dave Weckl love Oak Custom because you can play at a really lower volumes and it still has a big huge sound. So Maple Absolute is going to have – you had one here and we were playing it today – I mean the sound of those drums are super warm, a lot of low end, kind of has a…kind of hard to describe. Almost vintagy tone, I don’t want to use the word vintagy, it is lame but…

Danny: Is vintagy a word?

Greg: Vintagy? Here we are playing Scrabble. You know it has a vintage kind of vibe to it, our Maple shells do. They send out warm but they have a little bit more bite than normal. On the Birch side really, really bright, you know same specs so you can mix and match them if you want to. You know with the same lugs, same hoops, same colors, same everything. But really bright short to sustain, a lot of attack and I really love just that the sound hits you a lot more as a player. 

Danny: Right on. I played that recent kit I had, I rented a few different kits recently. I played a Birch Absolute kit.

Greg: Yes. At the Irvine show right?

Danny: No that was a Maple Custom I think. 

Greg: Oh.

Danny: I played a short run of like Northern California shows. The kit I got from the rental place (I can’t think of the name) that you hooked me up with up in Burbank.

Greg: Oh yea, yea, yea. Center Staging.

Danny: Center Staging. And Birch Absolute, that kit was unbelievable. It was just like amazing. It was probably the best sounding drums that I have ever played on in my life. Just awesome! 

Greg: Have you ever done, I mean this is with any company whatever, but have you ever done the Maple bass drum, Birch tom combination?

Danny: Huh uh. 

Greg: Oh it is awesome.

Danny: I’ll have to check that out. That is a good idea. Yea, I’m going to check that out.

Greg: A lot of people are doing that like Kelly Clarkson’s drummer Miles McPherson just got his new kit and it’s 24 – 13 – 16 – 18 Birch toms, Maple bass drum. It is craziness. 

Danny: That is a good idea. I’m going to definitely check that out. Alright let’s talk about hoops.

Greg: Yea, man I love, I frickin’ love switching out hoops. I don’t know why. I love switching out my kit. And I was curious if you have ever done that?

Danny: You know I never thought about it that way. I would say that for years now I’ve been a big fan of die cast hoops over the triple flange. I think that from a tuning standpoint there is an accuracy to the, you know the stiffness of those hoops. I feel like it takes the tone of the drum and kind of centers the attack more when you have the die cast too. So I can’t say that I have switched different hoops to different drums before. I’ve pretty much kind of landed on die cast being what I want on any kit.

Greg: Yea, yea I like messing around with it man. I put wood hoops on my kit one time and I dug it, I liked it, but the tuning range – like I had to tune higher? And it was cool; it would be cool for more like a jazz thing. Like if you would normally tune it higher, like I had to tweak and tune it higher because if you did it too low they would just get flat. Like a blah. You know?

Danny: Gotcha.

Greg: So I then I tried die cast, our aluminum die cast hoops, which I just frickin’ love them. 

Danny: Aluminum die cast?

Greg: Aluminum die cast, yea. Like there are other companies that do zinc type, that is the heavier ones. And I mean you know ours are aluminum. They kind of flex a little bit more but they are still die cast.

Danny: Cool. I will definitely have to check that out.

Greg: I dig it. I’m not as big of a fan of them on snare drums but love die cast hoops on tommers.

Danny: Excellent.

Greg: This is Hooper Talk.

Danny: (Laughter) A whole episode on hoops. So when you go see the local band play, you know you are out in the bar whatever and you see…why do so many of the drummers, why do their drums just sound like total crap all the time?

Greg: (Laughter) You know what? I think it’s the room that they are in because a lot of times playing in a bar, you know playing in whatever bar wherever, just for four sets a night or doing a quick…if I’m taking my drums in there (I mean not me or you) but if you just like I’ll take my drums up there and play a couple sets maybe you are not thinking about what does this room sound like? Should I bring a (inaudible 28:55) snare or a wood shell snare? I brought wood shells drums to gigs and that just sounded horrible. It is like it just doesn’t work. Like it is flat. And then you use like a steel and like oh okay there it is. So maybe just not taking the time to think about what kind of room they are in. And the sad state of drummers not maintaining their drums.

Danny: Yea that is what I was thinking. Doesn’t that bum you out just insanely? Like I’m sharing a rehearsal space or something, and this is the most recent thing I am thinking about, you know the other drummer has got his kit in there and no lie those drum heads had to be 10 years old. 

Greg: (Laughter)

Danny: And I am just thinking you know a guitar player would never do that. Why is it, why are drummers when it comes to that so lazy? I mean I understand it’s changing out your drum heads you are not going to do if before every gig if you are not getting free drum heads or something you know? Even a guitar player can change his strings before every show if he wants and it is five bucks or whatever. So there is some cost factors, it is a little more cost prohibitive to maintain your drums that way but it is unbelievable, it’s like there is such a lack of – it is just like this laziness thing. Like ah it’s drums, it doesn’t matter, you know? They are just going to bang on them. It doesn’t matter. It is like it so matters of the quality of your band and how you sound within the band and you know there are a lot of drummers out there that are a big part of what made them get to a spot where they could get a great gig in a bigger band, it’s not necessarily that they are playing the most intricate drum part ever it is that they are playing AC/DC to and fro but they know how to do it right. And part of right is making those drums sound insanely good when you hit the two and the four only. And it is just amazing like how many guys don’t think if I just make my overall sound better how that is going to impact me in the eyes of other drummers, in the eyes of the listeners, and the manufacturers that I want to get endorsements with or when I go in to record and all those things. And it’s crazy how much neglect there is.

Greg: Or at least take the mountains of blankets and packing material out of the kick drum. My god, it’s like a camp ground in there. You could make tents out of all of the stuff that has been picked up. And there is no sound. It’s like dunk, dunk, dunk, my God take it out.

Danny: Yes there is a big – you know one of the main things I want to get across with doing these calls and ultimately with the DrumTuningGuru.com website and doing the Online University is just really getting – a lot of drummers they just don’t know where to start. What to listen for. You know what it should sound like before the gig, you know? And that is where all the blankets, and if I put this tape on here, whatever. All the things that you see, no one has really just showed them the difference and why they shouldn’t do it. It is one of the things that I am really hoping to get across is just a new approach, a fresh approach to getting good drum tone. 

Greg: You are doing work out there.

Danny: I am doing the people’s work totally. I’m on a crusade. I’m on a crusade. Well here is the reality. I’m way better at making drums sound good than I am at playing them. So I’m just going to capitalize on that the most that I can. We are starting to run a little long on time here so the question that I’m sure everybody wants me to ask you is: So how do they get an endorsement deal and should I just give them your cell phone number?

Greg: (Laughing) Absolutely! Absolutely! No, I mean the thing with us is we are looking – we are always looking for the best. Our drummers on the roster in my opinion are the best drummers in the world. And we – that’s – you have to love our drums coming into it. It’s a thing of like you have to be passionate about our drums in the first place. So that is a major thing. And you can go to the Yamaha drums website for all your endorsement inquiries.

Danny: Oh is there like a Frequently Asked Questions about endorsements?

Greg: Sure, yea, yea, yea. There is a whole section on the website you know if they want to send in their stuff.

Danny: I’ll make sure I put the Yamaha link in the show notes here. So we can go to that. So should they not come up to you at Nam when you are busy with 12 people and hand you a demo tape?

Greg: (Laughing) No I get that anyway.

Danny: Or I mean a CD, or now it is a download card.

Greg: Or a demo tape.

Danny: A demo tape. Hello Danny is old. Wow.

Greg: A demo tape (Laughing). I think they still do demo tapes.

Danny: No guys hand out demo cards now. They don’t even do CDs. 

Greg: Oh that is right. Here is my TPK.

Danny: Yes that is a download card.

Greg: Anyway I’ll still get that and that is cool. That is great. I’m always looking for amazing drummers.

Danny: Alright guys, I want to thank Greg for being on the show. One of my best buddies. I am so proud of you and you are doing a great job over there and I’m sure I want to have you back on the show. Actually I think you should just do the show every time with me.

Greg: Let’s do it.

Danny: As a co-host. I think that would be amazing. And yea, check the show notes guys. I’ll put links to the Yamaha website in there. Also the Drum Guru Facebook page is up and happening. I’ll put that stuff in there as well. Drum Tuning Guru website will be up soon. And as always if you can go over to iTunes and leave a nice review because we are the number one rated drum tune podcast on iTunes. Granted the only drum tuning podcast on iTunes. And actually one of the few drum podcasts period that I can find on iTunes that has anything to do with drumming. There is a few that has some video lessons or whatever but as far as information about drum equipment and how to make yourself sound insanely amazing this is pretty much the only one. The only place. So shoot over to iTunes, give me a good review there. Greg thanks again so much for being on the show.

Greg: Thanks Danster.

Danny: Alright, we’ll see you guys. Thanks.

How to Tune drums and other great stories by Roy Burns.

How to tune drums and other great stories from Roy Burns

Transcription from the drum tuning guru podcast

interviewed by Danny Thompson

Danny: Hey everybody, Danny here and here is my interview with Roy Burns. Thanks everybody for tuning in. This is episode Number 4 of the Drum Tuning Guru. I am real happy. I’ve got a legend here with me, not only as a great drummer but also a clinician, manufacturer, author. I am very happy to have Roy Burns here. Thanks for joining us.

Roy: Nice to be here. Nice to see you. 

Danny: So Roy just for some of the younger listeners that might not be as familiar with your long history why don’t you give us a little run down on who you are and what you do.

Roy: Well I grew up in Emporia, Kansas. And it was very difficult to get information about drumming or about the music business. No long playing records, no TV sets, no information that was readily available. And so I was taking lessons by going to Kansas City, Missouri - a four and a half hour train ride in each direction. I met Louie Bellson there. He said, ‘Kid you are as good as you are going to get if you stay in Kansas. Go to New York or L.A. and study.’ So I went to New York and did the usual bit of trying to survive there and eventually ended up being in Benny Goodman’s band. I auditioned for the band and by going up to Carnegie Hall Studios there were just three of us - drums, piano and clarinet. Benny said, ‘Let’s play Lady be Good.’ We played one two and a half, and the another for two hours. Nobody said anything. I wondered what the heck is going on. And then he turns to me and he says, ‘Be at the Waldorf tonight, wear a dark suit.’ 

Well I didn’t know where the Waldorf was and I only had one suit, fortunately it was a dark suit. So I get up there and I’m staying up in the corner and they play a dance set, a concert set and a dance set. The manager comes up and says ‘Benny wants you to play the next concert set.’ Well I didn’t bring any drum sticks or anything. Mousey Alexander was the drummer. So I go down and meet him and I said, ‘Well, Benny wants me to play the next concert set.’ And he said ‘Well I’m leaving the band anyway. I’ve already given my notice. I’ll help you go through the music.’ He said ‘This is a heck of a way to audition in front of a live audience on somebody else’s drums and sight reading.’ I said ‘Well I’ll give it a shot.’ So I did pretty well. Benny hired me. 

And I met a lot of great musicians through that band. And eventually wound up doing a lot of studio work like the Merv Griffin Show and the Tonight Show and quiz shows, whatever was available. I was play anything I could to make a living.

Danny: On my way over here earlier today I listened to a recording of a drum solo called Time Table.

Roy: Oh yes.

Danny: Do you remember that? Do you remember where that recording was made?

Roy: That was in Chicago at the Mid West Band Conference with the VanderCook College Band. 

Danny:  What year was that?

Roy: I think it was around 1963/64 somewhere. Yes, that was a good night. And I was wiped out after. And Lenny DiMuzio who was also in that time, and I was saving carob and helped me get down to the coffee shop where I could recover because I kind of overdid it. One of the things that always kept me going was I had a good basis as a young student. I studied piano a little bit. I had taken lessons and I could read. Like when I was asked to play that set with Benny Goodman nobody asked me can you read music? They just assumed I could. And I looked like I was about 15. I weighed 119 pounds soaking wet. 

But from that band of musicians I met through…that is how I got into studio work and did television shows and stuff. At one point in the early 60s I wrote an elementary drum book. And that sort of took off. So I started to get clinic requests so I go and made my span conference across Chicago and the same place where the VanderCook college band that I had recorded with, this was earlier. And I walk into this little theater and there was a security guard there and the drums were there. He says ‘Can I help you.’ And I said ‘I’m here for the drum clinic.’ He said ‘Well you have to wait until this guy Burns gets here. You can’t touch anything.’ I said ‘Well I’m his valet, I’m his drum tech. I set up the drums for him and tune it.’ He says ‘Okay but I’m a drummer so I’m going to watch you and if you do anything wrong I’ll know it.’ And I said ‘Okay.’ So I get the drums tuned up and everything positioned and I play something around the drum set as fast as I could. The guy said ‘That was amazing. How long have you been playing?’ And I said ‘About six weeks.’ (Laughing) I said ‘If you think that was good, wait until this guy Burns gets here.’ (Laughing) So I came back down after two hours, I’d changed clothes and he was standing in the wings saying I want to talk to you. But he was a good sport about it. I said ‘Well you weren’t going to set up the drums, I had to do something.’ 

Danny: I specifically remember starting off being in the school band. You know I practiced with my sticks. It was your book. And I’m sure that is the case for so many people. One of the things that I read is that you are really kind of credited as being one of the first clinicians.

Roy: I was the first full time artist clinician in the music industry.

Danny: That is amazing.

Roy: Yes. 

Danny: And over the years you have been a teacher and stuff and you again for some of the people that might not be so familiar with you, you span everything from classic jazz all the way through modern stuff. So wasn’t Josh Freese a student of yours? 

Roy: Yes. Nick D’Virgilio was one of my students. Josh is the most well known. A terrific talent.

Danny: I have seen in multiple interviews and conversation with him that he always credits Roy Burns. That is quite an honor I’m sure. So how did you go from, as your career moved on, how did you get into manufacturing and into Aquarian.

Roy: Well when I working at Roger’s Drums people knew that I was doing the clinics for them. What they didn’t know was that I was working with the research and development department with engineers, with the advertising agency. I worked with the salesmen doing product presentations and all that stuff. So I was really involved in the total business which few people knew about. So one day I came home and I told my wife, I said, ‘I think I’m going to start my own company.’ She said, ‘You must be crazy.’ I said, ‘Well I can’t be any dumber than the guys who are ruining Roger’s Drums as they are ruining it into the ground.’ And I have a partner Ron Marquez that agreed to do the manufacturing and we started the Aquarian Accessories. And it was pretty rough in the beginning and it was harder than I thought it would be. But I thought I can’t be any dumber than these other guys that were messing everything up before. Roger’s Drum was the most innovative drum company of all time. Today everything you see on a drum kit probably was a originally out of Roger’s drum kits. It’s not the hardware in particular. So that is how I got involved in it. 

Danny: And when you guys first started was it drum heads or was it more peripheral accessories?

Roy: It was accessories. Our first product was a Cymbals Spring.

Danny: Oh okay.

Roy: And we had some other things like the graphite drum sticks. And cymbal bags, and stick bags, stuff like that. And then one day Ron and I were talking and he said, ‘You know how would you like to make drum heads?’ I said, ‘Well what made you think of that?’ He said, ‘Well every time we go to a show I notice that guys always come over to you and say Roy why don’t you make drum heads. We need something else on the market. What could you do with it?’ So what got us started was I brought in some calf drum heads and I told Ron, ‘These heads are real easy to tune. We never had a tuning problem with calf drum heads.’ Because the heads were so pliable that they would stretch. And they would correct themselves. So you really couldn’t get a bad sound. It is just so a question of how tight or how loose or what (inaudible  08:11.8) you wanted. So the tuning was never a big deal. Even if you tune it incorrectly the head would stretch and it will level itself out. They are so pliable. The problem was if it rained you didn’t want to go to work. The heads would be so loose and soak up all the moisture. 

I used to work at the Metro Poll in New York City and they had the big glass doors open to the street in the summer. So the first two sets the drums were too tight to play on. The third and fourth set they were just right. And the last two sets they were too loose. If you kept re-tuning them you could go crazy. So we noticed that one of the problems with tuning – the difficulty started with plastic jug heads because there was no problem prior to that. And one of the key things that we discovered was the pre-formed corner in the collar. And it doesn’t always line up the bearing edge on the drum because not every drum company makes the bearing edge the same way as you well know. So we thought how are we going to get around that because we realized that was one of the problems. Well we came up with the sound curve collar design which is round. So when you tighten it down against the bearding edge your bearing edge forms the collar in the Aquarian head. So it is a custom fit. You never get that wrinkle on the one side that you can’t get out and stuff like that. 

Then the other problem is the stemming inside the hoop is what causes the de-tuning. It is not so much the Mylar stretching. Mylar is pretty tough stuff and it is really polyester film but DuPont named it Mylar so they can trademark. So we noticed that the slippage inside the hoop was the problem so we came up with the T-Channel, it’s in the bottom of the hoop that prevents the resin and  head from slipping. So our heads don’t beat too. So we solved two or three of the major problems for most drummers which is why we were successful even as a small company starting out on a shoe string.

Danny: That is one of the big things that I noticed using and Aquarian drum heads is the real consistent so when I put those heads on I don’t really have to do a whole lot. I can put it on. Give it a little push to seed it a little bit and start my tuning process and I’m there quickly. Whereas with some of the other heads you know there is a lot more stretching and retuning and kind of a whole seeding process and it takes time. So is that the collar the process that you were talking about that is making that so…

Roy:  The seeding idea is somewhat of a myth. See the problem is the collar, the corner in the head, the sharp corner doesn’t line up with the bearing edge. So when you are pushing on it and you are over tightening it you are trying to stretch the head to get it to conform to the bearing heads. We illuminate that problem by not putting a corner there. So you just tighten it down and the bearing edge forms a collar. Just like a calf drummer, that is how we got the idea. And then the fact that it doesn’t slip inside the hoop was the other major achievement. We have the only patented hoop in the industry. 

Danny: You were starting to talk about the misinformation and some of the simplest techniques that you discovered and used over the years for drum tuning so with the regard to the snare drum…?

Roy: You want the bottom head tight enough that when you press on it with your thumb about an inch in from the edge it gives a little. If it is table top hard it will be choked and if it is spongy it will be too loose. Now the bottom head has to work with the snares. So if the bottom end is too loose and you tighten the snares you choke the drum. So the bottom end has to be moderate tight. But the top head can be tuned loose, medium or tight depending on the sound you want. If you tune the top head first and then try to adjust the bottom head you will go slightly crazy because you can’t do it that way. It just won’t work. So if you get the bottom head set and get it even then your top head is just a question of personal taste and the style that you want as long as you have about the same tension in each tension screw. Then on the tom-toms the bottom end is a medium. And again the top head can be wherever you want as long as you tune the bottom end first. That gives that individual player a lot of leeway but generally speaking the resonant head should be tighter than the top. Most players agree on that. Now if you tune both heads the same, which I think is probably impossible, but if you could tune the top and the bottom head of the tom-tom the same then you would get a unison which would be a very thin sound. Like concert symbols are a minor third apart. Your high hat is the bottom one than the top one so they are in different pitch so you get a blend or a mixture of frequencies. So we have the bottom head tighter and the top medium to medium tight as long as it is a little looser than the bottom head you get a rich mixture of frequencies. The drum will sound full. Now if you could, and I say if you could, I never heard of anybody actually tune both heads exactly the same, but if you had both the same thicknesses and the same style head top and bottom, theoretically you could do it but it wouldn’t be a good to do so. 

Now if you do those basic things in practice, see the problem is when the guitar player goes and takes a guitar lesson first thing he does is take the guitar out and tune the guitar. Every time he practices he tunes the guitar. So he is practicing tuning on a daily, hourly basis. The drummer puts the head on the drum, goes to the lesson, plays on the pan at the studio, goes home and leaves that head tension the same way and plays on it until he breaks it. And it is a crisis. My God what am I going to go? Who is going to help me tune my drums? So just getting some practice in doing it I think, as you found out, just doing it a lot will help a great deal.

Danny: Well you know it is interesting that you mention the guitar tuning thing because I use that example a lot. And what I think, and we can kind of talk about this, that drummers have to understand is people…it’s great that guitar players have the luxury of an electronic tuner. The string is either in the right pitch or it is not. There is really no in-between.

Roy: Right.

Danny: Drums is a little more subjective in that tone. But what I think drummers focus on so much is, you know because like you said there is so much information out there and basically if they are looking at You Tube or reading books, everything is basically centered around one thing: Tensioning the head and getting the lugs to sound the same. That is really the only thing for the most part that you see people talk about. And to me that is like putting the guitar through the guitar tuner. You can do that and it will be in tune but then when you plug it into the amp if you don’t understand tone you can still have a horrible tone out of that guitar. You have scooped all the mid range out or whatever that amateur guitar player is doing, you can do the exact same thing with the drum. You can spend an hour tensioning the tension rods and getting them equal but you can have those two heads pitched so dramatically different that the tone of the drum is bad. Or too tight, or too loose. And I feel like drummers need to think about the tone almost more than the tensioning of the tension rod.

Roy: Well the shell cannot be perfect. They do vary.

Danny: Sure.

Roy: And sometimes you have to adjust the head to make up for the deficiency in the bearing edge. Bearing edges are not perfect. Some are better than others. So that is a factor. And while you are playing let’s suppose one tension screw loosens up on the bottom of the tom-tom, you start getting boing, boing, and say what happened? 

Danny: Right.

Roy: And you have to know what to looking for. 

Danny: Sure. Absolutely!

Roy: But I had a guy call me up one time and said ‘I got one of your snare drumheads. I put on it on my drum set and it sounds horrible on my snare drum.’ I said ‘What did you do?’ He said, ‘Well I used so and so’s tuning method.’ I said, ‘Tell me what the method was.’ He said, ‘You tune the bottom head a third lower than the top head.’ I said, ‘That is exactly the opposite of the way you should tune it. Tighten the bottom head and you get the top head medium and you call me back.’ And he says, ‘Wow you were right.’ Well 20 years of experience you know. 

Danny: Yes. And again I think unfortunately for the drummers, especially, young drummers you know, it is easier to buy a $20.00 guitar tuner and at least you are going to be in the ball park and so much of drum tuning is experience and developing an ear and things like that you know. Even if you take some of those basics and apply it that will get you to a certain level at least. But it is just not taught and it is a great point that you brought up that when you go to your drum lesson that is not what they teach you the first day whereas in a guitar lesson that is absolutely the first thing that they are ever going to teach you. Now what do you think about the concept, you know when I talk to a lot of drummers about drum tone it comes…to me it seems like most of them are just listening for the wrong things. And have the wrong perspective on what their drums should sound like when they sit at them to have it sound the way that…you know like they go to see some drummer play or a band and they go man those drums sound great. And they don’t put two and two together and understand the perspective of what it sounds like to be in the audience listening to a drummer in a band or solo versus sitting behind that kit.

Roy: Okay I can outdo that or I can help something with that. One of the problems is if you look at a guitar and again is a good example the most resonant string is the bottom string. Not the top string. So high sounds don’t travel very far. Low sounds travel a great distance. That is why they use a fog horn at sea because that low pitch will travel over the water for miles. Whereas a fire engine has a high pitched siren because it is coming around the corner so it will be right on top of you before you know it. So the idea is that out in front everything sounds deeper and fuller than it does where you sit. Also you hear more ring from the drums where you sit than you do out in the audience. Now if you go home and tune your drums in your bedroom, your garage, wherever you practice and tune them like they sounded 30 rows back from the stage you are going to muffle the heck out of them and when you take on a person they are not going to get any sound. So you have to for one of the good experience is get a friend of yours to play the drums and you back off at a distance and hear it. That will give you a better perspective because sitting behind them you are going to hear more high end, more ring, than you do out in front. 

Now the other problem with that is let’s say you are at the sound check, you hit the snare drum and the sound man comes over and says, ‘That drum is ringing too much.’ You say, ‘No it isn’t.’ And he says, ‘Yes it is.’ Well what the sound engineer is hearing is the distortion and frequencies of that drum, the way it is tuned or however the drum is manufactured. So if there is a distortion in the over tone series he is going to hear it magnified with electronic equipment. Whereas the guy with his ear may not hear it as much. However if the head is even and the bearing edge is good then you are going to get a more even series of frequencies. And so a lot of times they want to get in an argument with the sound engineer because he is hearing a distortion more than the drummer is. The problem out in the audience is you don’t hear that at all because the guy is going to adjust the sound system or let’s say it is acoustical the drummer is going to play the drum and out in front you don’t hear that high end frequency. So that gets you very confused when you go to tune your drums and they say my drums don’t sound like the guy did at the concert or the nightclub last night. So it is good to hear your stuff from out front.

Danny: One of the things, a very simple thing that I will demonstrate in a clinic is tune up with 12 interact time and you know have somebody strike it one time and say okay listen to the resonance of that drum. And some of you, and probably most of you listening, think that that drum is ringing too much.

Roy: Right.

Danny: And then I’ll have a guitar player there with his guitar and say hit an E chord for me and while that E chord is ringing I’ll hit that tom. And say boy did you hear all the ringing from the drums. You are not hearing it. Now that it is mixed in with music you know some of those things you know…and I think that drummers tend to like you were saying they listen to what does it sound like on the record and then they sit down and try to do that and end up with drums that just have tape and padding and so much muffling now on trying to recreate that sound and not understanding well those drums you like on the record you need to understand what they sound like when they went into the studio.

Roy: Because they play a lot of games in the studio. The quality of the sound are enhanced. Well I’ve got some interesting news for drummers. We have a new process of vacuuming the air out between the two plies of a two ply head. No one else can do it. One of the problem is like a twelve string guitar, the two strings that play the same note have to be really in tune. The biggest problem with two ply heads is to avoid wrinkles and air pockets. Well we have developed this method which is a trade secret of vacuuming the air out. We have a new tom-tom band that answers the problem we were just talking about called Force Ten. It is two ten mil instead of two seven mil. And then the two plies are absolutely even so what you get is a good attack, nice warmth and a quick decay. So you get dah and it is over with but it is not choked. You are not getting daang which drives the soundman crazy. And that is a new thing that we have done and the same thing with the new snare drum head called Triple Threat which is three seven mil. So three ply head. Yet it is sensitive and again because the plies are so even with our molding techniques we can do this. And that solves a lot of problems like if you have a lively snare drum you are always putting tape on it to get rid of the high pitched ring. The trouble when you do that is now the drum has no tone quality. This head solves that problem.

Danny: Do you feel…has technology hurt or helped drum sound and you know or has it hurt or helped the young drummers that are coming up trying to put their drum sounds together?

Roy: Okay let’s talk about when I first started recording in the late 50s and early 60s, in my previous lifetime I call it. We got in the studio. An 18 piece band. And big band and the trumpets were coming in like tadada. And I’ve got to hit tadada right with them except in the studio I hear ta pop. The trumpets are that late because they are on the other side of the room. But when I hear the playback, it’s tant, my rim shot and trumpet note are exactly together. So we had to play hearing them late holding your position so it would come out right on the recording. 

Danny: Wow.

Roy: It could drive you crazy. 

Danny: I don’t know if very many drummers could do that nowadays.

Roy: Well it was either that or you didn’t get to record. So, but what happened was everybody had to play at the same time. Now that means you had to get one good take for 18 people all play their part right. If one guy goofed you had to redo it. We got up to take 28 one time and you could cut the air with a knife. The guy finally said, the conductor, ‘Let’s come back to this later.’ And you hear shh, a big sigh of relief. But it made you more aware  like when you would record something, you would play a drum break, you hear the drum break back and say, ‘Oh that didn’t sound too good.’ Yet some other little thing you played which was pretty simple sounded good. So you edited yourself when you tried the next take and you altered the drum break to what sounded good rather than what you thought was going to be impressive. So there was the commonality of the experience.

The other thing was the guy conducting the thing, or the conductor of the band says, ‘Hey Roy what do you think we could play on this tune, I’d like this feel, what  do you got?’ You know? And you would contribute. Well I could try this beat, I could do that. And they would say, ‘That’s good.’ Now they do a track in the guy’s home studio and he emails it to another city. So you have lost the inner play of the musicians. I think that has been the greatest bad thing that has happened to music is the technicians and the new equipment has taken the inner play between the musicians out of the picture. 

Danny: Uh-huh.

Roy: To a large degree. And that is why we have such goofy sounding records now.

Danny: On the most recent, well the second most recent record that I just did we went back to (inaudible 25:06.4) and this band has always done it that way where we do drums, bass, rhythm guitar track, straight ahead, one time through, three and a half minutes on somebody makes a mistake we do it over. Find that one track and go with it from there. You know it is interesting when I talk to other contemporary drummers in my age group and whatever, that is such an odd way to do it now. You know like you were saying but we didn’t Frankenstein the drum fills together and you know do it that way. The other way that I think it has impacted the thing is in a lot of ways a lot the younger drummers when they go in the studio now haven’t really been forced to learn how to make their drums sound good because most likely the engineer is going to put samples on everything.

Roy: Right.

Danny: Whereas it used to be, well in the studio you have to have a high end drum set, it has to be tuned well, the room has to be tuned well, and we are going to spend an x amount of time getting that sound. Whereas now guys they can go in with whatever almost sounding drums and the sound replaced later so they are not even so worried about it, you know at the time of the recording. And that is another issue that has impacted those drummers. That they are not really forced to learn how to make those drums sound good.

Roy: Well the problem for the young drummer is how do I get a sound that I heard on a particular record? And they will call up here and asked like Chris Handler or somebody, which hands does he use? Well we will tell him what hand he uses but we listen to the recording, if it is not a live recording, but in the studio, we don’t know what they did in there. What they did to alter the sound. It may be a great effect. It may be exactly what the artist wanted but the poor kid at home he has no idea how to get that sound. And he doesn’t have the equipment to get it. So it makes us appear sometimes like we don’t know as much as we should because we can’t tell the guy well they did this and they did that and they added this and they took this out and they corrected that and they over dubbed this. Meaning what comes out the other end is very different than what was actually being played in the studio. And that is a problem.

Danny: Have you used like a drum dial or any of those tools before?

Roy: I never used any of them. I never have.

Danny: Do you think there is  some credibility to those things or…?

Roy: Well if it helps you get in the ball park quickly that would help but with the Aquarian Drum Head, I hate to be commercial, they take the head out of the box and tap it with the drum stick and you get doom. It is already in tune. You just have to get to the pitch you want and make sure it is tensioned evenly. So we have eliminated most of those problems. But I guess that isn’t the answer you are after?

Danny: No, not at all. I just more curious to see how you feel about those things. I go back and forth with those things. I have a drum dial in my arsenal. I use it for a certain thing but I don’t use it in the way that most people do. I use it to get the head back to the relative tension that I had it before I changed the drum head. So when I have my drums dialed and it is sounding great, you know I’ve made that mistake of I changed both snare heads 30 minutes before a show and I just didn’t get them, you know I did my normal procedure but I just didn’t get them to the same pitches that I normally have them.

Roy: It wasn’t exactly where you had them before.

Danny: And I could tell in the show. I was like the snare is not sounding very good. And it was a traveling festival where you were playing show after show after show. And after I said to the sound guy that night, ‘Do the snare drums sound a little messed up? You can tell me.’ He said, ‘Uh yea.’ And turned and walked away. So I knew I’d done it wrong and that’s what made me thing well if I get my drums dialed then I can check the overall tension. And then I know that from that point forward…I realized that is not how most people try to use that tool. And just doing what I like to do, kind of being obsessed with drum tone a little bit, I will try any of those things to see if I think there is a credible element to it. I had done a post on Facebook that I was coming here too talk to you and someone posted a link on a new product called a Tune Bot. Which looks to be almost like an electronic guitar tuner for drums. So that is going to be debuted at Nam and I’ll become interested to check it out. I don’t know enough about it to really comment. My initial feeling is that that is not going to work. Just reading about the way they are explaining it I don’t think it is really…

Roy: One of the problems is if you get a drum head that has got an uneven carve design, where it is higher on one side than another, or there is a wrinkle in it because the film is not evenly within the hoop, how does that effect the tuner? Now my attitude is if you can help yourself get a better sound faster and it works for you why not use it? I am very open minded about that. The other thing is you shouldn’t be dependent on something like that. You want to use it as a tool to help you develop your ear because music comes down to what we hear. And the technicians and all the equipment that helps you get there is good as long as you don’t get to be one of those guys like I don’t have my tuner with me I can’t play. I mean I broke a head and I have to tune the drum head all on my own, you want to be able to it by ear as well as use whatever is going to help you, I would think.

Danny: Right, so you mentioned a couple of new products. We are maybe three or four weeks out from them, right?

Roy: About four weeks.

Danny: January 22^nd this year. Anything else you are going to debut at Nam that you could clue us in on now?

Roy: We have a new product called The On Head which is an electronic head which you can play silently and with the headphones hear any kind of drum sound you want. So you could practice at home in the middle of the night and reasonably without offending your neighbors or calling the police, you know? Or if you are just in an apartment and you can practice control of volume. And we have what is called the In Head which is a two ply head with the electronics in-between the two plies. So the head can be played acoustically at a drum sound or electronically. Now what is good about this is it can convert your acoustical kit into an electronic kit for much less money than buying an electronic drum set.

Danny: Right.

Roy: And even if the heads do wear out, when you replace a head you are still not investing that much money. Let’s say you are playing a Broadway show and they do a little trio thing with the singer you can play the drums acoustically. And the next thing is a heavy metal rock tune, you throw a switch and you have electronic drums. That has never available before.

Danny: Right.

Roy: So those two things are very important.

Danny: Yes I did I think you showed kind of an early version of it last year, correct?

Roy: Yes Electrolic Time.

Danny: And the thought and the discussion that was going around a little bit was also just from a triggering standpoint instead of having to apply some type of acoustic trigger to your kit being able to use that to trigger kick drum samples live or even in the studio triggering a kick and snare, you know as opposed to the engineer having to go back and put the samples on later. So it think that would also be a real big benefit to that head. So I’m looking forward to trying that out.

Roy: Well there are so many possibilities we haven’t really discovered all of them but we are very enthusiastic and excited that they are finally going to show this in a completed form. 

Danny: Yes that is going to be great. Well great, so for any of these products that people want to get more information about Aquarian, about yourself, AquarianDrumHeads.com, correct? And for anybody if they are going to be a Nam definitely come by the booth there and check it out. I really appreciate you spending time with us. It was great to talk to you and get your perspective on this. This was very interesting and great information for those drummers out there. Thank you very much.

Roy: Thanks for coming by. I enjoyed it.