Navid Rashid Solo EP
In the past couple weeks, I had the great pleasure of recording six songs by Navid Rashid for his upcoming EP. Navid sings (and I play drums) for the Iron Maiden tribute, Eyes of the Nile. He also plays guitar and sings with his own progressive-metal band, Iris Divine. They even let me play a whole lot of percussion on their latest album, Static and the Noise. Check it out, it’s an AMAZING album. Here is the video they made for the song Taking Back the Fall. Listen for the trash can at the beginning…
It’s always a great experience to be hyper critical of your playing even if it means being disappointed. Preparing for an orchestra audition and recording in the studio/stage are the best experiences for improving your playing. While these songs aren’t “technically challenging,” the studio environment (my basement in this case) means playing to the best of your ability knowing the final product is forever. It doesn’t matter how “simple” or “difficult” a song is when you have to balance so many aspects of getting what will be the final take. One bass drum note that’s out of place or a fill that’s not perfectly in the pocket can throw everything off. With modern technology, it’s too easy to edit things, shift notes, etc. but in this case, I’m way too stubborn to do that if I can help it! 90% of the performance is unedited with a couple punch-ins that were needed later in some songs. If you’ve played what feels like the best take for 3 minutes and the hardest part of the song comes up, then MAYBE that will be a punch-in if things don’t work out.
Here are some observations/considerations during the recording; mostly a journal so I don’t forget in 5 years…! Maybe they’ll help someone on their next recording:
What will the most effective part I can come up with?
How can I get out of the way yet still offer some personality/edge?
What snare drum should I use and how should it be tuned for the specific song?
Should the kit maintain its same tuning through all six songs (that would be a yes in this case)
If I felt I got the take, I would do one more just in case. Sometimes that extra take was the one.
The click was never one tempo throughout any song, so there were always playing adjustments, a lot of times during a bar of a fill; not usually at the beginning of a new section.
I experimented with a different charting system for fun. I went through the song once and outlined the form-no notes, then went through again writing out what I’d basically play in another form outline. The are a lot of ways of transcribing, but this was a fun and new way of doing it.
There were a couple spots I had to overdub a fill or in one case, an outro-ad lib-over-the-bar-line-play-what-you-want section. That wasn’t gonna happen in one take! That was a first and a blast to be creative and have carte blanche for a minute or two. There may have been a Portnoy lick or two!
I filmed each song. What will Navid do with the footage…?
Added some percussion-tambourine and…sleigh bells. Even with the tambourine, you have to think when playing 16th notes-accent 2 and 4? 1,2,3,4? Playing perfect 16th notes with the same amount of space between each note is harder than it seems. Luckily I’ve had a lot of practice in that area!
No one was in the room with me, so I wouldn’t REALLY know how things went till I listened back after the fact (critical ears engage). THEN, I’d sent to Navid to get feedback/yay/nay and go from there. Some songs took longer than others to get the right groove down, fills, etc
The demos had a drum part programmed, so it made it easier to use that as a template. Maybe half the parts stayed and half were changed a bit. Figuring out the bass drum parts might be the hardest thing for me. Luckily, Navid has crazy musical sensibilities and a lot of it was very effective to begin with.
My Presonus interface adopted a connectivity issue. With two songs to go, I couldn’t do a single thing for almost 2 weeks :(
Using the Tama Superstar kit that is locked, loaded, and record ready. Used different Soultone Cymbals for different songs and made use of different splashes and their great FXO series (the ones with the holes in them). The lines used were Extreme, Custom Brilliant, Gospel, Vintage (the 16” china killed!), and Explosion.
I used the Promark Todd Sucherman model sticks till the last two songs. The gig I had before finishing up found me breaking the most sticks I’ve ever broken-three!! That’s what happen when you use someone else’s kit and the drums are higher. Rimshots! So, I used the Joey Waronker model for the rest of the session and really enjoyed them!
I switched between a 5” Ludwig Supraphonic and a 6.5” PDP snare and they both sounded killer. Pictured is the Supra. The trusty tambourine has no name, but she sounds sweet! I use her all the time in the Beatles acoustic tribute, Nowhere Men. Bright, articulate, and blends right in.
Here’s a snippet of “One Million Reasons”
Hopefully the whole product will be done by the end of the year. Can’t wait for you to hear it, so stay tuned!