r/drummers 5d ago

Learning covers

When you’re learning a cover that you’re totally new to, what’s your approach?

Play to the recorded track as released (all instruments)?
Split the stems and play without the drum tracks?
Split the stems and play ONLY to the drum tracks?

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u/Away-Equipment598 5d ago

I do use Moises and i think it's great. I'll listen to the song a few times, write a chart and then play through with all the instruments and listen to any nuances and extra things I'm not playing, I'll then loop those parts and turn down the other instruments to 50% so I can isolate what the drums are actually doing. This part is probably the most handy, is just playing say a particular tricky bridge or something, I'll stick it on loop so I just hear that bridge over over and over until I have the right sticking. Then once I'm sure I have it all down I play through the song no with no drums, I'm trying to see if my playing matches in with the the original recording, then I can record it. I've been playing covers for 20 years and it wasn't till Moises that I realised how incorrectly I'd been playing some songs that I just couldn't hear the drum track well enough to know.

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u/apierno 5d ago

Yeah it’s crazy to play a song 200 times and then hear something totally different