Since I was 14 years old, I played the drums for fun. I love playing and listening to music. I took some lessons and developed a small home studio later. I was constantly jamming with friends, and we also recorded an EP years ago. Lately, I have been studying more complicated rhythmic patterns, and they pointed the way of amendments in drums positioning. This way, I could achieve different sounds and grooves. The idea of this video also originates from an old university assignment (2004 – introduction to 3d modelling). My love for detail while fine-tuning my drumset bred the need of designing one. This version here is modified (2019), and it comes from a real-world model. It has numerous modifications on it.

This drumset is designed according to the needs of symmetrical drumming. Toms and cymbals are placed ergonomically to be present at all times. The snare drum is placed at the centre to lead better, while cymbals and toms are available for any strike with binary distribution in mind. We are binary by nature, after all. What would be better than having available cymbals and toms in every possible millisecond? A millisecond less? Two? For a musician, latency is critical. A musician learns the importance of latency very early, and modern recording machinery provides all necessary components, communicating with low latency. The recording process brings a person closer to understanding computer systems’ specific details. Various clocks of independent cards must work properly. Entering the world of milliseconds and studying the mastery of precise assignment is essential.

Recording a polyphonic instrument -like the drums- beseeches the study of physical space. Sizes of the drums and cymbals and their recorded waveforms reflect the physical world. A small physical space with resonance requires studying materials, surfaces and angles. The whole process has numerous adversities. Things don’t sound like they appear to be. There are multiple variables to this equation. Tightness of drum membranes, tones, the position of drums and cymbals, alignment of every piece to the ground and microphone distances affect the result. With time you learn to do less but be more focused. Computers are similar. The more you study them, the more you find that less is more. You focus on the use of each component and maximizing its usability. Efficiency and results are the priorities in this process.

Playing the drums has some differences compared to other instruments. They have the property of increasing the speed of thinking. The person interacting with the drums and the cymbals -apart from being fascinated- is developing fine motorics. He starts to emancipate his human parts from left to right from up to down. More practice generates functions in the human brain to achieve this. Every human limb learns to operate independently. Scientists found that studying drums is suitable for people suffering from neurological illnesses. I find that drumming increases the necessity of precision of time and space according to the human body. Big cymbals, toms and double bass drums take up a lot of space. Re-ordering the pieces and iterating the process is highly necessary as even 5 mm could prevent the drummer from arriving where he wants when practising or performing. Physical space is being measured repeatedly on a drummers mind. Efficiency is necessary by all means.

I have designed this drumkit on a three-dimensional application. It required the necessary knowledge to develop the machine which will render the images. The machine had to be fast and efficient. Whatever concerns output, metal surfaces can be a massive problem on a 3D scene because of reflections. Light reflections are time-consuming to calculate, and choosing the correct settings can save valuable time. It’s a way of compression practically where you remove what is unnecessary. Even if someone builds a powerful machine that costs thousands of euros, rendering a high-dynamic-range light casting on a metal surface inside a 3D scene and not selecting the correct settings could result in long rendering times. Prioritizing the machine’s resources and selecting settings to deliver a result as realistic as possible was a prerequisite to creating this video.