Help with drum rolls!

[Tenacious_B]

I can beat almost anything on expert drums but I have a huge problem of not being able to do drum rolls fast enough. I can't beat Train Kept A Rollin' on expert because of the one part where its just straight reds over and over reallllyyy fast. I just can seem to hit it quick enough, even with small taps. Anyone have any techniques on this?

[pmpboarder]

Bump. I'm stuck on that particular part, too.

[mastergamer1231]

either
A)You cant play fast enough
or
B)Ure drums broke

sorry

[Nix]

if you look at you pad, there is the bottom part and the top part (which you hit). If you notice, you can push the top head down into the bottom section a bit.
Try getting some masking tape/blue painters tape and place two strips of tape across the head perpendicular to each other and firmly tape the top head down. This places the head closer to the to the senser and should make the pads a little more accuarte.
It also seems to only be the outside two drums -green and red- that seem to need the tape.

[Tenacious_B]

hmm.. well my drums aren't broke... I'm just not fast enough but jesus, im going as fast as i can. The drums work perfectly fine for me, I just cant seem to get my left to go as fast as my right, I'm not a drummer of course :\

[Odwill]

Speed all comes from how you hold your sticks. If you are gripping them in your hand like you are holding a baseball bat, you wont be able to play fast. Another thing some people do it move their whole forearm while keeping their wrist stiff. You may get by like this for 1/4 and 1/8 notes but playing 16th notes like that will make you fatigue very quickly and forget about 32nd notes while playing like this.

Take a look at this site and try it out. It has a ton of good info on how to hold and play with drum sticks correctly.

http://www.drums-and-drum-sets.com/drumsticks-matched-grip.php

[mastergamer1231]

drumming fast is fun!

[Tenacious_B]

well i hold the sticks lightly and about 3/4 from the end, using my wrist and letting the sticks bounce a bit... i'ma check out that site though.. i'm right handed like most people and using my left hand to go as fast as my right is hard to do

[NitroHawkK3]

Has the web site helped anyone? I just beat the game on hard using the "basball" grip and i had no problems with pretty much every song except Run to the hills, which gave me a hell of a time. So anyone that has improved from using the acutal drummers grip please post, i dont want to change to somthing that doesnt help me.

[airbakin]

If you're struggling to hit the really fast parts on drums for songs like "run to the hills", "foreplay / long time", "train keep a rollin", etc., there are really only 2-3 things you can do to improve your speed:

1) work on loosening your grip (which will improve your sticks' bounce after hitting the pad)

2) practice practice practice

3) keep your sticks with you whenever you're at home. play on your thigh or on the arm of a padded lazyboy or couch when sitting around watching tv, or even better practice the songs on rock band! The bounce response on these peripheral pads really are poor relative to the real thing and it takes some time and adjustment to get used to it. But the #1 way to beat the fast parts is to practice- you'll see speed improvements by the day....

This all of course assumes your drum pads are working fine and are not defected (like mine :mad:). If the latter holds for you, here are some youtube video links that relate to similar issues (the 2nd link gives a solution- tape em!).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EAWd7nTAK0Y

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9XLiMfBRo&feature=related

good luck!

[j7wb07]

Not to nitpick, but they are called "Fills" not "Rolls." ;)

[gablemancer]

If you just want to improve your speed a doing a basic fill on the snare, just start off really slow, and keep speeding up until you get to a speed comfortable for you, then speed up when you think you can again. It's all about the practice. If you can't do rolls my advice is to get yourself 2 things. A Drum Kit, and a teacher.

[davidshek]

If you just want to improve your speed a doing a basic fill on the snare, just start off really slow, and keep speeding up until you get to a speed comfortable for you, then speed up when you think you can again. It's all about the practice. If you can't do rolls my advice is to get yourself 2 things. A Drum Kit, and a teacher.

Once again, good advice if he were actually talking about 'drum rolls'. People keep throwing that term around when they really mean 'fills'. Stop calling them rolls, people, unless you're talking about the kind of sound you'd hear when an announcer goes, "Drumroll, please!". You know what I mean, like the marching band drum sound you hear at the beginning of the 20th Century Fox intro music. THAT is a drum roll (ok, several drum rolls).