MFDRUMMER.COM

Matt Fields Denver Drummer

Matt Fields Arvada Christian Drummer

Arvada Christian Reason Music Production

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Welcome to MFDRUMMER.com

MFDRUMMER.COM is the online home of Denver Drummer, Matt Fields. With over twenty year of performing experience, I have embraced the world of drumming and all its facets. I enjoy incorporating electronics into my performance. I use Reason and Ableton Live for my production software. My drumming background allows me to program the most complex drumming patterns or the simplest percussion loops. Some of these loops can be found in my Beat Library.

Live Drumming

I really enjoy performing live for various events. I love meeting new people and playing music that isn’t my norm. When I play live, I try to get a copy of the music beforehand. I would say that half my live events are performed without rehearsal. As a drummer, I believe in doing my due diligence – completing my “homework” and showing up fully prepared. This makes the event enjoyable for all parties involved and I often hope for future opportunities. Regardless of preparation, I believe in playing for the music – not overplaying or adding my own touch to the music. I also keep a solid eye on the leader which helps for any breaks, tempo changes, or change in energy momentum.

Beats / Sequences

Beats and track sequences are becoming widely used in the music industry for both live and studio tracks. It’s a great avenue to pursue to enhance your music to that next step. But it can also clutter your music so it’s key to make sure the programmer for the beats or sequences has experience or can program with the musical details you have in mind. I use Reason 4 and Ableton Live for my programming. These two programs together have an unlimited source of music production that can add to any track. The beats or sequences can be exported mono or stereo in .WAV or .MP3 format.

Drum Instructions

I have over 10 years experience with private drum instruction. I teach my students the principles it takes to build a solid drumming foundation. The foundation consists of posture, music theory, and rudiments. With this foundation, the student excels in performance and musicianship. Drumming can be very active and it’s important to teach your body the correct responses to prevent possible injury. Many drummers struggle with tendinitis and hand/arm injuries, which is due to poor body posture and incorrect technique. As the instructions become more intermediate, I incorporate interdependence exercises to increase speed and advanced pattern proficiencies. I work with the student to complete their specific goal assessments.

Reason 4 – Velocity

Written on July 23rd, 2010 by
3A

Pic 1A

During my latest Reason project, I came across a cool feature of Reason 4. I was working on multiple piano patterns that continued as strings came in. I was using my Axiom 49 midi keyboard and recording the parts when I noticed my stroke velocities varied a little on each hit. Reason was prepared for this and the fix can be found in the tool box under tools (See Pic 1A shown on the left).

In edit view, you can either highlight the velocity hits you want changed (See Pic 2A)

Pic 2A

or you can view the pattern in the edit view and select the pattern (See Pic 3A)

Pic 3A

After you have the pattern or velocity hits selected, go back to the tool box and you’ll notice a setting called Note Velocity. Enter the number you wish for your group or selection and hit apply. Once applied, your highlighted notes or chosen pattern now has the same velocity as the other notes. This is a great feature of Reason 4. It’s not always desired to have each note to have the same velocity, but in my situation, it was exactly what I needed.

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Using the Headway theme in WordPress

Written on April 16th, 2010 by

Complete Theme Control For Beginners To Experts With No Need For Code — Headway For WordPress
I would like to take a break from my weekly blogs to tell you about my web publishing theme. For those who didn’t know, I use WordPress as my Content Management System for both my website and my blog. But the real power behind my website lies with the Visual Editor!!

Headway is a fully, customizable theme that easily installs with WordPress. In my opinion, Headway’s best feature is it’s visual editor. The visual editor opens your website in your browser window. Once the window opens, there is a sidebar which has all the editing functions nicely displayed. The visual editor allows you to select different elements in real time and then gives you a list of option to change. Anyone could use design their site with this theme. It’s so simple to use and it provides quick results!

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Equipment Check List for Live Drummers

Written on April 2nd, 2010 by

Equipment Check List for Drummer

Yes, if you’re a live drummer – you should have a check list for every performance. This check list should contain items that you might need or need to replace at a show. Or instead of having a check list, I use a performance bag that contains all the items that would be included on the check list.

My performance bag is somewhat large and holds a little bit of everything. I’ve compiled a list and organized it into three different sections. Here’s a list of what’s inside my performance bag:

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Music Production Software – Reason VS Ableton

Written on March 26th, 2010 by

In my experience, I’ve used a handful of music production software. Most of the software that I’ve tried has been deleted from my computer within a couple weeks. That is, until I used Propellerhead’s Reason software. This software is relatively easy to learn and doesn’t have many limitations. Another choice for amazing software is Ableton Live. Ableton Live has a little more complex interface and takes some time to grasp. Both programs offer a lot of the same features including time-warp recording. Let’s take a closer look at these programs and see what they can do.

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Interview with Drummer – Jon Powers

Written on March 12th, 2010 by

This blog post is going to include an interview with a good friend of mine, Jon Powers. Jon is an amazing drummer and he has a groove to his playing that will entice you. Jon is part of several local Colorado bands but one artist specifically has been getting a lot of press, including performances on David Letterman and George Lopez. Jon is the drummer for upcoming artist, Matt Morris, who is signed with Tenman Records. Let’s find out more with Jon::

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Entertain

Written on March 5th, 2010 by

DISCLOSURE: This post is a little more opinionated than the some of my past posts… Some of the best performances I’ve seen have had a lot going on and were very entertaining. Now, I have no idea what you do, but know this…in order to give a GREAT performance, you need to grab people’s attention!…

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Becoming A Better Live Performer

Written on February 26th, 2010 by

Live Performance is an art. There, I said it. There are a LOT of people who either think otherwise or they just perform with no thought behind it. Performing live is extremely important. It can really make or break the performance. And this applies to any style of performing. There’s a popular saying out that…

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Recording Back Tracks

Written on February 19th, 2010 by

This post should be relatively short as this isn’t exactly rocket science. Backing tracks seem simple but it’s surprising how difficult it can be. Backing tracks are essentially prerecorded audio that are played live during a performance. Many bands/artists use backing tracks to enhance their live show. And it works! But let’s look at the…

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Using iTunes To Play Your Backing Tracks (the trick)

Written on February 12th, 2010 by

iTunes-Sound Enhancer
A few years back, I played with a band that used backing tracks for the majority of their set. Before I get into the nitty gritty, let me explain the track process. Each track had a click track, which was panned hard right and then the tracks were panned hard left. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. The backing tracks were in Mono. But that wasn’t a big deal to the band. So with that said, let’s get into how we did this live.

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Beats VS Melodic Loops

Written on February 5th, 2010 by

Using tracks for a live performance adds a whole new element for the audience and the performer. It allows the performer to express more detail and gives the performer the ability to really exaggerate different movements and characteristics. But there’s something else to think about when creating the track – will the track consist only…

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