Advanced drum help

[NattyLight]

What is a good way to practice fast rolls and how long did it take you guys to get them right?

[XeroTalent]

Start your rolls slowly, gradually speed up. Use a metronome or clock to keep time. Also play along to songs on the radio with pillows or the drum pads. This will help you with your meter. Another trick is to accent the one-note, meaning hit the "1" harder than the rest.

Example: 4/4 time 16th notes (right-handed):

HARD (RIGHT hand)
soft (left hand)
soft (r)
soft (l)
HARD (R)
soft (l)
soft (r)
soft (l)
....

Triplets (right-handed):
HARD (R)
soft (l)
soft (r)
HARD (L)
soft (r)
soft (l)
HARD (R)
soft (l)
soft (r)
....

That will help you keep your timing during fast passages.

I've been a real-life drummer for 14+ years, and my rolls still aren't truly perfect.

[AdamWill]

probably not much use, but I find I can't really practice fast rolls: if I sit down and try to roll fast without any music playing, I can't do it, but when I'm playing a fast song I can usually pick up the rolls because I'm instinctively following the rhythm or whatever.

Just a couple of things...make *sure* you lead with your right hand. 90% of drum rolls are set up to lead with the right and if you lead with the left you'll end up in awkward contortions. Because of the way I play I instinctively lead with my left and it's really annoying, so make sure not to get into that habit.

Straight rolls on one drum are far easier than rolls across different drums, so find a song with lots of long fast rolls on a single drum and practice that. Once you're confident with that you can go into more complex rolls. For those, try playing some commonly used rolls (e.g. 2x snare, high tom, low tom...4x snare, 2x high tom, 2x low tom...2x snare, 2x high tom, 2x low tom...stuff like that) slowly, until the actual pad progression is second nature, then try picking up the pace. It's very hard to play rolls like that fast if you're trying to figure out the progression on the fly, it has to be subconscious.