I would like to purchase a foot drum my concern is i play harmonica standind up . would this work or are foot drums disigned for the seated position, when i say foot drum i mean the type Adam Gussow uses but may be smaller.
build you some there a whole lot cheaper,fun to build and firgure out different combo's,If you have a bass drum pedal or two you can do all kinds of stuff,Im currently using a suitcase as a drum and using a bass pedal hitting it,I built a bracket and have a tamberine mounted on top of the suitcase that jingles,Im fixing to get me another bass foot pedal,and make either a tamberine beater like one of the other forum members built.sorry I cant remember his name but he has a very cool design on it,Or i might get me the footdrum and mount a hand cabasa to it,they have one for about a 170$ at musicians fried a foot cabasa but I think I can build it for about 75$ theres a couple a members here that have some cool foot drum designs and there a heck of alot cheaper ---------- Hobostubs
Just ran across the thunder stomp box. if you're playing through an amp, it's worth checking out. I bought one and it works great ( not affiliated with them). Their web site is www.thunderstompbox.com
A suitcase (what color?), good idea. I made a tambourine beater with a bass drum pedal, but it was too jangly. I saw the one the other member built. He put a knit cap over the tambourine to de-jangle (new word) it some. I will have to revisit that project and see what I can come up with....although I am leaning more towards a high-hat now.
the cocktail drum kit is played standing up. My first experiments with the 1 man band involved all kinds of homemade gizmos. They were fun to discover and build but the quality was never there due to my lack of engineering/building skills. I have found the low end drum hardware works fine because I play at speaking volume. If you are a basher you are best served with a pro quality gear line. My first real bass drum came out of a dumpster at a friends apt. He was throwing it out. Now I use good quality stuff because 1- I can afford it finally and 2- it works better, travels better, and lasts longer than most homemade stuff. I have pretty much dropped the bass drum and high hat from my setup. I find the bass drum to be way to dominant when recording and the high hat to 1 dimensional. I have rigged a ride cymbal that is hit with a stick and beater pedal and a snare which is hit the same way. To my ears it sounds more like a club kit that I heard for so many years. I used a real bassist and drummer for about 25 years. The 1 man band was how I started with wilbert harrision but I only dabbled in it over the years mostly at home. For the past 11 years I have been pretty much a 1 man band. Most 1 man bands IMO way overplay trying to fill in for the lack of real musicians backing them. This makes the sound very 1 dimensional and after a song or two monotonous. There are no subleties like with a real drummer. Most also distort everything(vocals, harp, guitar). Again, for my ears, it loses the finess and becomes generic sounding. I aim for getting my feet to work like a drummers hands. I also have a brush set up for the snare and ride cymbal when the mood hits. Here are some of the setups I used. Walter
current rig
past set ups
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
First thing you got to do is decide on what kind of drum kit you like to hear. this is the way I hear a drum kit-
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I'm just guessing, I've got limited drum experience and none standing up, but I think from a balance perspective you might want a rig that lets your heels do the beating instead of your toes. I suspect it will take a lot more energy than sitting though.
Some other ideas:
One weird possibility you might look into is kicking the drum. Put something on your shoe to soften the blow and use your foot as a drumstick. Don't know if it will work or not, but it might.
I have seen people using the stage as percussion, just stomping their feet. A hard heeled boot with good padding inside might work (anything from cowboy boots to tap heels). You'll have to rely on a hard stage or bring something hard to stand on. It could be as simple as a piece of plywood or possibly a small low box to stand on (either one foot or both feet). For the box version I don't think you'd want to go more than 3-4 inches high, with enough room to move without falling off if you make a two footed version.
You can attach some bells, like from a tambourine, to your let and get good percussion.
A stomp box might also be a good option. There are instructions on here somewhere for DIY stomp boxes. It's basically just a small wooden box with a microphone stuck into it. Since it's amplified you can put effects on it to tune it to sound like what you want.
If you are playing in a rack and have a guitar, I've seen some really good percussion done hitting the guitar in various places.
All those options might work in a blues/rock/country setting. There are of course stranger versions... the old one man band with a drum on the back and cymbals between their knees.
I don't know what they are called, but there are some electronic solutions too. There is a crazy video of a guy on YouTube who has put electric drum kit sensors all over his body and he plays drums by flailing around hitting himself. Probably not what you are looking for, but you could do a stripped down version, maybe sensors in the shoes? Did I see a video for that too? I don't remember. Electric drum kit sensors might be a good way to go, if they'd hold up to the abuse. You could do it anywhere from 'Dance Dance Revolution' to just tapping your toe on a sensor. (If the Dance Dance Revolution pads can stand up to dancing there should be something that would stand up to at least tapping, if not stomping, although those sensors aren't designed for pressure sensitivity like you'd want in a drum.)
All things considered, a stomp box would be my guess at what would be the most practical solution, but I only took 3 months of drums and never got very good.
It would be difficult for me to imagine playing standing upright to play with my rig--I use a folding barstool that I got for a few bucks at Wally Mart and it stands me up high enough to suit me--here is the foot drums I made a while back.
Here is a better idea of the whole one man band thing in action--
ok hobo something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4nE4h4JK_8 to beat your suitcase on the ends of the broomstick two coconuts like this http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3664/3385352710_9d7a742182_m.jpg
a rasp some beads some fishline two 27mm contact mics on each side a 35mm for the suitcase get what im drivin at?
Oldwailer Im glad you still around I hadnt seen you in awhile,but then again I pop in and out myself,Your desighs are always great ,I enjoy your music and I still remeber something you told my about capo's ,Me thinking they were a cheater device,and you enlighten me to the fact they are not and are great for different chord voicing's,Sence then I have learned that they are a key piece of equipment for any one playing open tunings,Which im exploring and Now and looking for a good capo;-) ---------- Hobostubs
Last Edited by on Mar 18, 2012 6:10 PM
i got seeds for giant african kettles the kind used for sitars, and some thick shell rare tobacco gourd seeds. but i cant grow. if you want them theyre yours. i just need a few when theyre grown for some indian folk instruments. acrata4ever@yahoo.com
cool Billy shines ,I was wondering if I was going to grow a garden or not,last year was a bad year for gardens around here,I was wanting to sell stuff at the farmers market,but I didnt hardly have anything.But I will probelly have another garden,my email is Hobostubs@valornet.com ---------- Hobostubs
i wish i had space to grow. but grown instruments are so cool and puts you in touch with the ancient past. this is what im making http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2220/2234329761_f994af8f75.jpg
I played the Helen Keller Festival near Huntsville back in the mid-eighties with John Hartford. He had a big piece of 3/4- inch plywood with a couple of pickups screwed to it that he stomped on or clogged on for percussion. I think it had a 2x4 frame that raised it off the stage an inch or so. Cheap!
Through a PA or a decent bass amp these things sound great. They're quite expensive, but all it is is a block of hardwood with a Schaller Oyster pickup inside it. A friend of mine made two that sound just as good as these ones. ---------- Pom
I have been doing this for well over three years and sitting down will be much easier. I build three different versions of acoustic stomp boxs and none of them sounded good enough to me. So I saw a couple vids on Utube about the suite case drum. I thought that was a cool idea so I built a bass kick drum a couple weeks ago and it is GREAT! Ebay special for $10 and $20 shipping. OK if you are not mechanically inclined and capable of fabricating then go a different route because this was a couple days of scratching my head and trial and error. The trick to making mine sound good was installing stiff piece of foam 4" thick inside down the middle where the stricker hits. I had to make the foam the same shape as the inside of the case but a little bit bigger. So when I closed the case it barely closed. This made it surdy and took away all the jingle jangles. It Really it is absolutly amzing how good this sounds! It's not real loud so it will have to be miced. Not a big deal though. I made a snare sounding wooden box 16"x12"x2" with three thin metal decarotive pieces that look like wicker cane (I don't know what it's called), but it gives it a snare sound with a little natural reverb when tapped with a hard leather soled shoe. I just finnished the snare box this past weekend. I'm hoping to play out with this stuff soon! I'll take some pics and post them later (if I figure out how).
Last Edited by on Mar 19, 2012 9:14 AM
easyreeder: You are welcome. It seems most here percieve a 1 man band differently than I do - more of a primative set up and predominately harp and some sort of homemade drum. I posted them in case there are some out there struggling with getting a real kit sounding right. The homemade stuff doesn't sound good enough for my taste. For me a real kit has the sound. That fire extinguisher keeps the pedal from slipping forward into the cymbal. If you look closely you should see a beater pedal with a small stick attached to it. The stick is about the diameter of tootsie pop stick. I play real quiet and a real stick makes way too much noise. I tried various woods and found this stick to give the best sound on the cymbal. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
;-) Walter said ( It seems most here percieve a 1 man band differently than I do )
well heck ya thats the magic of music itsself,I couldnt walk in your shoes if I wanted to,nor you with mine,all ideas are good though each persons path is different,You Walter have the second best 1man band percussion sound ive heard,Mr Satan has the best,And its 2 totally different setups I do believe.peace my friend ---------- Hobostubs
Last Edited by on Mar 19, 2012 4:07 PM
