drummer Archives - Romey's Ramblings

Look ma, I’m a TikTok star, or at least trying to be. Not really.

“Guess this song by its Drum Track.”

During the pandemic, when I couldn’t practice with my band, I played around with playing drum parts to some famous songs and posting them on Instagram and Facebook. It was a fun game and a good excuse to spend some time behind the drum kit, but I shelved the idea after a month.

This winter I decided to pick it back up to experiment with short-form video sharing on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok. Now, over fifty videos later, I’ve learned a lot about reproducing drum tracks and these video-sharing platforms.

Choosing and Recording the Track

Not just any song can work for “Guess this”. The song needs to be relatively popular and have a distinctive beat or groove that can be recognized by non-drummers. That’s proven to be easier said than done, especially with songs within the last decade. As rock has been dying out, current pop songs are produced beats that simply repeat the same two measures. Using the iOS reminders app, I’ve put together a running list using my iOS reminders app of primarily rock songs over the last 50 years, and add to it as I encounter them.

I’ve recorded my share of drum tracks, where I pay homage and offer my interpretation of the song. Approaching these songs, however, requires me to be faithful as possible to the original recordings, trying to emulate them to the best ability. Also, unlike a drum cover, I don’t need to nail the whole song, just aim for a solid 40-60 second segment for the video.

I do have to admit to cheating a bit: I load the original song into the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and record my take alongside the regular drum track. It helps keep me in check and enables me to compare the two parts. While I’m doing that, I load the track into the Moises App which enables me to break down the different instruments and create a drumless track. I then export the track back into the DAW, align it with the original then export the rendered track with my drums, followed by exporting a “drums only” track with the drums muted. All the while, I have my phone on the tripod, taking a video of the performance.

Once I have my footage, I import them into Adobe Premiere, line up the audio, and look for that distinctive 45-60 second clip I can use. I then find a point about 30-40 seconds into the song where I can transition from the “drums only” clip to reveal the song. After applying an audio fade between the tracks, I export the video and get it back onto my phone using OneDrive.

Posting the video

At this point, I have a rendered video with the final audio, but I now need to insert the clues. I’ve made it a point to use each video platform’s editing tools to apply the text, as I’ve read that videos are exported at a lower quality having the watermark can make the video perform worse.

Starting with Instagram, I import the video and get to work on the text.

The title: “Guess this song by its drum track.”
The year it was released
The genre – I usually get this from the Wikipedia entry
A hint, usually retrieved from SongFacts

After setting up the text, I set the duration, starting with the hint so that it appears for 8-10 seconds before the full song kicks in. I then work my way backward, setting the genre and release year around 5 seconds each. I leave the title up but have it disappear once the song is revealed. Before I move to the next screen, I copy the hint into Clipboard++ so that I can use it in the other apps. I go to the posting screen and set my title to “Guess this song by its drum track: “, increment the number, add some tags, then publish the video out into the world.

I then go to TikTok and Youtube and repeat the above steps.

Lessons I’ve Learned

These video platform algorithms are complete crapshoots, but I’ve noticed some trends in each platform:

Instagram has shown the most variance in my performance. My floor has around 250 views, my average is between 800-1000 views, and I’ve had a handful of videos go over 10k views (my highest being 14.4k). I also share the Reel on Facebook and those views tend to be in the 100-500 range.
TikTok has the lowest number of views, but the highest number of likes and comments. As far as views, I have videos that haven’t reached 100 views, but most tend to top out between 250-300. My highest-viewed video was at 2,200.
YouTube Shorts is the quickest to accumulate views but always tops out below 1,500. I’ve had a few videos that are duds out of the gate, at less than 40 views. The comments on YouTube are the meanest by far.

As far as video posting mobile apps, YouTube has the best editor for what I’m doing (which is quickly setting durations of text layers). Instagram’s Reels interface had the steepest learning curve, especially when it comes to setting durations.

My videos seem warmly received, for the most part. As I mentioned, YouTube commenters are especially critical, which increases with the popularity of the song. I’ve learned to simply remove the mean comments and not even warrant a response, but I swear that as soon as I remove a comment, YouTube slows down the view exposure.

I was worried that I would run out of songs, but after doing this for over 4 months, the number of songs on my “ToDo” list outnumbers the ones I’ve done. At this point, I’ve found this to be a really fun way to improve my drumming and play in this video space. It’s been a great outlet and I’m looking forward to the next 50!

Whether you use TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube shorts, I’d love for you to check out my videos and see how many you can get! I’m also taking song suggestions as well!

Last week I played a gig with a three-band bill on a small stage, so the conditions were ripe for the “backline sharing” suggestion. You may know my stance on backline sharing, but just to refresh: I absolutely hate it and avoid it at all costs. At the same time drummer get put into situations where you’ll look like a pretty big jerk if you don’t backline share. This typically comes when you don’t have a good staging area for gear, a tight stage, and finally a tight schedule that doesn’t allot much time for transition. Even with this all being the case, I wasn’t planning on backline sharing when a last-minute mix-up forced the issue.

What makes backline sharing awful are all of the unknowns associated with it. You don’t know what kind of setup each drummer has, what gear they’re planning on supplying on their own, the differences in quality and tone between kits, as well as how they set up and position all of the equipment. After setting up and tearing down my kit countless times, I’ve come to master the position of every element in my drum set. This is in large part enabled by having memory locks and various heights/lengths pre-set from your usage. All of that goes out the window when you backline share. Rather than focus on moving your kit on and off the stage, you’re stuck having to re-adjust everything that was there before, which is not often corrected until a few songs into your performance.

This leads me into how to suck at backline sharing:

Don’t over-adjust someone else’s kit just because you have some crazy posture. Look, I know we’re all not the same height and build. I know we all approach things differently, but do you seriously need to raise my throne 8 inches (as well as all of the subsequent drums and cymbals) to enable your technique? You’re not eight inches taller than me. If you know your approach is that different and will need to adjust every piece of equipment: don’t backline share.

I liken playing someone else’s drum set to driving someone else’s car: while you’re not familiar with all of the intricacies of the car, every car roughly drives the same and thus you should be able to get from point A to B without much resistance. You’re not going to win any races driving someone else’s car for the first time, but at that point, you need to adjust your expectations. This is the same with drum sets: you might not be able to do any crazy-ass solo on someone else’s kit, but for the most part you should be able to hold the pocket and drive a short set on without heavy drum adjustment.

Don’t treat the drumset owner like your drum tech. Granted, there are parts in drum setup and teardown where you want to be personally responsible (basically any point that something could break, or you’ve got a mental checklist that ensures you’re not forgetting anything), but if the drummer has cases then the least you should do is help load in and load out. I didn’t let you play my drum set just so that you can have a night off from schlepping gear.

But most importantly…

Treat their gear with respect!

I mean come on.

Look, I know drum heads are meant to wear out and be changed. I know that they’re relatively not expensive (although $12-15 per head still isn’t chump change). I know there are drummers go through heads in 1-2 weeks – but that’s not me, AND IT’S MY DRUM SET. Others may disagree with me, but over 25 years of drumming has taught me that you can get a great, loud sound out of your drums without pounding the shit out of it. If you are that drummer, then how the hell do you not notice this after playing on someone else’s kit?? If there was an apology and an offer to help replace the head, I probably would have even let this slide, but now you’ve left me in an uncomfortable position of being a collection agent.

Moral of the story: don’t backline share, but if you do, don’t be a jerk about it.