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e - d r u mme rs u n i t e Eighteen e-drummers, four bass tracks and nine and a half minutes of youtube video. It might not sound like much, but for the people involved in the Second International V-Drummers Collaboration, the final video was the result of many hours of practice, playing and editing. digitalDrummer editor Allan Leibowitz was among the players and spoke to some of his co-stars about the project.
FOR THE RECORD, I’m the sheepish player with mallets in the track which begins with Jim Fiori’s haunting MalletKat solo. I had technical issues, ran out of time and ended up having to do it in one take. And that’s the case for the defence. I, like many of the 18 people involved in the project, was inspired by the first collaboration, a video which has been dedicated to its initiator, Herluf Hermansen, who passed away before its completion. Where the original video combined the talents of 10 drummers, the second collaboration drew in twice as many participants and spanned Europe, North America and Australia. The project was co-ordinated by Eric Brinkerink (pictured above) in The Netherlands, the last player in the line-up last time around, following a year of discussions with Greek drummer Hampis who edited the first video in his friend’s memory. 50
“After video 1 was finished, I had some ideas to make an even better collab video,” Brinkerink says. “Like using a bass track to ‘glue’ the different parts together.” The bass track was the work of American Scott Haskitt from New Haven, CT. “I’ve never really just sat down to write self-contained bass lines like this,” he recalls. “I was very picky about them and feel like this experience improved my bass playing more than most bass playing experiences I’ve had.” Haskitt’s contribution wasn’t limited to the bass. He also participated in the drumming: “Besides the anticipation of seeing everyone’s contribution, it was also a fun challenge on the drums trying to come up with something that was creative, interesting, but where the intention was more to have fun than be competitive or showy.” Tim Jackson from Manchester in the UK was one of the few repeat performers who also featured in the original video. www.digitaldrummermag.com