A month ago I posted the opening tune from the fall tour I did with Sara Bareilles, and the response was super encouraging! I’m pumped about everybody’s kind words. Thank you.
And so… here’s another one – the closing song of the show.
Notes:
– Her exclamation at 0:15 is because all the fans at the Electric Factory in Philly had brought printouts that said “Brave” on them, and they held them up as soon as the tune started. It was a pretty cool moment.
– The Ableton tracks on this tune are just string-based, so all the synthetic drum sounds are samples on the SPD. My main point of focus while playing this song is locking in with the backbeat sample throughout the song. The sample has a 16th note slapback on it, so if I hit the sample at all late or early then the slapback is correspondingly late/early. The whole groove of the song relies on me placing that sample at the proper spot in the pocket. This is most difficult at 2:21 when I bring in the left hand marching pattern. Sometimes I lean against the click a little during this section, but it’s because I’ve learned to key into the sample slapback instead of the click, so as to keep the left hand 16ths locked with the sample.
– I have the Brave sequence set up for an undetermined length on the intro. Every night Sara talks over the SPD hook groove and I try to gauge when she’s going to be done and play a rest in order to cue that the verse will start. At this particular show she gave me a nod for the cue (0:48) and it was a little sudden. I would’ve landed that rest a little differently had I not been surprised. Oh well.
– Brave, like Chasing the Sun, uses a trash can lid vibe instead of crash sounds in the album version. So I’ve got the ride stack happening (21″ Dark Energy over a 22″ Trad light), and the snare tone is my RD 5.5×14 nickel-over-brass with a donut dampening ring.
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December 17, 2013 at 8:07 pm
Matt Payne
Dude, that snare sounds amazinnngg. Any idea what the going rate is for that with RD?
December 17, 2013 at 11:27 pm
Fede
Love it! Thanks for sharing!
February 8, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Rich F.
Hey Steve – long time lurker/reader here. LOVE the drum cam videos, please keep them coming! Quick question: what sound are you using for the synth kick on the SPD hook groove? I don’t have an SPD, but I have an Alesis SamplePad, which accepts imported sounds via SD card, so I’m hoping to find a similar sample to what you’re using (my cover band is doing ‘Brave’ in an upcoming gig). Thanks in advance!
February 10, 2014 at 3:35 pm
Steve Goold
Hi Rich. Glad you’re digging the drumcams! I do have a couple more to upload whenever I get around to it. 🙂
The sample for Brave is the actual sample from Sara’s record. The track’s producer Mark Endert gave me all the stems from their recording sessions and I just use that exact sound. Unfortunately I don’t have permission to give it out, but I bet you could easily sample it yourself from the first couple bars of the song where the drum groove is isolated… you’ll just need a DAW of some kind. Cheers!
February 10, 2014 at 3:59 pm
Rich F.
Ok, thanks for taking the time to reply. I’ll see what I can come up with then. Keep up the great work man, your playing (and this blog) is inspiring.
February 11, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Rich F.
Steve – I just wanted to circle back and let you know that I was able to get (what appear to be) workable samples of both the kick and the clap sounds simply by importing Brave into Audacity and then just mucking around with it. Until you brought up the idea, I hadn’t even considered trying to get the samples myself. Thanks for the tip! Peace!
February 11, 2014 at 3:51 pm
Steve Goold
Awesome! I do so much of that these days. I’ve been making a lot of mashups and electronic music generally. Ableton Live gets almost as much of my time as my drums do lately.