Vater recently sent us some sticks to try out. These are all from the 'Classics' range which are apparently all more 'old school' designs, based on the original designs that Vater made before they became Vater (when them made sticks for another very well known stick company), meaning they are slightly different from the current

Beats Exotiques - Gary Leach If you’ve ever sat down and tried to play some latin rhythms, or have worked through books of Afro-Cuban or Brazilian ideas and thought to yourself “this is cool and everything, but when am I really going to use it?”, then perhaps Gary Leach has written the perfect book for

I’ll come clean straight away; I’m a fan of the UV1 line. I have been since I tried them. When I tried the UV1 heads back in mid 2018 - http://mikedolbear.com/reviews/uv1-drum-heads/ - I pretty much instantly liked them and I’ve been buying them ever since to put on my toms and snares. The funny thing

Exploring Jazz Drums - Clark Tracey If you’ve ever studied jazz you’ll know just how many little avenues the genre will take you down. This book from British jazz drummer Clark Tracey aims to open some of these avenues and does so by introducing a certain concept, talking a little bit about where it came

By now, you must have heard of the British Drum Company. If you haven’t, where have you been??? Keith Keogh is the main man behind the BDC. With that company pretty much just making drums, Keith [fairly] recently launched a new company - Keo - to produce other drum-related products. We were given a whole

We live in interesting times as musicians and in particular, as drummers. Recently I found myself at a my singers house, mapping drums for a new song using a Digital Audio Workstation, a MIDI enabled keyboard and drum kit VST plugins. Given the cost and time involved in studio recording and the often just-better-than-average results

Ok, so technically this is a head designed for marching snare drums and not drum kit. However, I thought it would be interesting to try out this new head from Remo in a kit context and see if it provided a viable alternative for more conventional snare batters. The head itself is not made from

Ok, so the reason I did the finger tap thing at the start of the video was so you’d get some idea of just how vibrant and pure the tone of the shell was from even the weakest tap. Over the last two years or so I have developed a real fondness for thicker, cast

Like many of us, I use in ear monitoring when I gig. Nothing that unusual there. However, a few years ago having used generic fit bud-type models for a while I decided I wanted to try a moulded design. But, not being a pro player and being on a budget, I didn’t want to go

Duco finish The Gretsch Catalina line has been around for some time now, but Gretsch has now released a limited Special Edition version so it therefore now has an increased level of cool to it.  These kits are available in two configurations - 20x14”, 10x7”, 12x8”, 14x14” floor and a 14x5.5” snare, or