blast beats and such

[trumma]

i would say im an advanced novice at the drums. ive got alot of basic beats down and im getting pretty intricate in my double bass technique. one thing that is puzzling me is blast beats. im not necessarily big on death metal drumming but knowing how to do the occasional blast beat would help me immensely in my technique. any help at all would be most appreciated

 

[sceloporus]

A typical blast beat (if I'm not mistaken) would be like:
s S s
H h h
B b b b b b

It's a snare/tom+cymbal+bass played at the same time.
Sometimes (in the example above) with bass beats in between hits.

 

[Therma lobsterdore]

Yeah sceloporus is right, the two basic blastbeat patterns in 8th note's are:

hh = hi-hat or ride
sn = snare
bd = bass drum

hh: x-x-x-x-x-x-x
sn: x-x-x-x-x-x-x
db: x-x-x-x-x-x-x

and

hh: x-x-x-x-x-x-x
sn: -x-x-x-x-x-x-
db: x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The second is often called a grindbeat. There are many variations, such as incorporting 16th note double bass, quarter note hi-hats and/or bass drum, and many more. The main thing is that there are constant 8th note's on the snare.

Look here for some variations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_beat

 

[-Demonium-]

This should help: Blast Beats

 

[Skepticism]

I dont know much about drums (because I play guitar not drums), but would gravity blasting be considered a blast beat, when combines wiht double bass that is.

 

[tagradh]

I dont know much about drums (because I play guitar not drums), but would gravity blasting be considered a blast beat, when combines wiht double bass that is.

I don't play drums either but I thought gravity blasts are done resting the stick on the rim and bouncing it up/down really rapidly.

 

[Therma lobsterdore]

Yeah it's a one handed roll on the snare combined with double bass, this video show's two one handed roll techniques...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM8H55vu2nM

 

[trumma]

thanks alot guys that helps alot. that video was awsome therma tyvm. i just have trouble doing doubles at the same speed im doing 1 hand rolls. i have a tendancy to make my doubles twice as fast as what im doin with my hat hand. so would it be better just to use one pedal? or is that a bad technique to develop?

 

[Patrick Bateman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4vMV3EnRw

This video is very good at explaining the Gravity Blast or freehand roll. The people at my work curse the day I first discovered the gravity blast. As I do it constantly with pens at work on the side of the desks.

BLAST FOR SATAN.

 

[Walls1441]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JLotebr1H68

now those are blastbeats. (for a while at least)

 

[Therma lobsterdore]

thanks alot guys that helps alot. that video was awsome therma tyvm. i just have trouble doing doubles at the same speed im doing 1 hand rolls. i have a tendancy to make my doubles twice as fast as what im doin with my hat hand. so would it be better just to use one pedal? or is that a bad technique to develop?

Sorry I'm slightly confused by the question , sorry if this answer is irrelevant dude.

Do you mean that when you do a one handed roll, you have trouble keeping up with your hat/ride hand?

Don't worry about it in that case, the hat hand should be doing 8th's and the snare hand 16th's, so the roll on the snare should be twice the pace.

Or do you mean that you have trouble with your double kick going at the same speed as your one handed roll? It's up to you whether you use single or double kick with the gravity blast man, but if your having trouble keeping the double bass and the one handed roll in time then just slow down and work your way up gradually.

Are you using moeller and the freestroke technique out of curiosity?

 

[trumma]

freestroke atm im still a noob at moeller methodology. i can get it kinda fast in my right hand and slightly slower in my left but i cant do them at the same time like a roll. what i ment about the blast beats is when i try to do them i try to make my hat hand and snare hand go the same speed. but when i double kick my double kicks end up going twice the speed.

 

[TheCatharsisEffect]

Flo Mounier's Extreme Metal Drummingg 101 DVD is pretty good at explaining how to do different blast beats and such... he also has some interesting technique concepts... Def. check that DVD out. (Although I warn you... try not to be distracted by his pinkies... cause they're all over the place... but, he's killer--so... no worries)

 

[Therma lobsterdore]

freestroke atm im still a noob at moeller methodology. i can get it kinda fast in my right hand and slightly slower in my left but i cant do them at the same time like a roll. what i ment about the blast beats is when i try to do them i try to make my hat hand and snare hand go the same speed. but when i double kick my double kicks end up going twice the speed.

Cool cool, keep practicing the freestroke and whatnot, it'll really help with your blasting

For the moeller technique and other hand techniques, I highly recommend Jojo mayer's recent 'secrets weapons of the modern drummer' dvd, there are some torrent's of it floating around. He basically show's every hand technique imaginable, such as the free stroke, moeller and all it's applications, push/pull etcetera. in extreme detail, complete with slow motion close up's and whatnot, it really helped me out!

For the double pedal blasts, you should learn to keep your pedals both in time with your hands and at twice the speed, use a metronome, start slow and build up to higher tempo's.

There isn't anything wrong with using one pedal for blasts, Derrick roddy does it this way, most metal drummers use two to conserve energy though. Although my feet are fast, there a good 20bpm behind my hands so I use two pedal's when I want to blast at top speed.

There are some advantage's to using one pedal however, you can open and close the hi-hat which can really add to a blastbeat. For instance I like doing a jazz ride/hi-hat open/close pattern when I blast, it sounds pretty funky.

 

[trumma]

from the clips ive seen that dvd looks awsome. all the torrents floating around for it are all on pay sites if anyone has a demonoid acct and could send me an invitation that would be awsome but otherwise i cant get it