The full drumset is not really a central instrument in Latin music (as opposed to a bunch of percussion instruments), nonetheless many Latin grooves are playable on a drumkit, especially if you add a couple cowbells and woodblocks. Since I play on electronic drums, I can just add whatever sample I want on any of my pads, cymbals or pedals. I'm just getting started with Latin rhythms so here are some useful pointers:

• Songo is an exception as it's actually been written with the drumset in mind (by Los Van Van).
• Son Clave
• Rumba Clave
• Patterns in chart form (if you can't read music)
• Clave, they key to afro-centric music
• Semantic hair splitting about clave - does enjoying this makes me weird?
• Tumbao beat, which on the drumset applies mostly to the bass drum.
• Reference books: Afro-Cuban Coordination for Drumset, Afro-Cuban Grooves for Bass and Drums
• Akira Jimbo made a Latin Independence video years ago, I think it's available only as a VHS or ripped. Not beginner stuff for sure, but if I can manage to play at least his first patterns, I should really gain in 4-way independence. Playing hi hat and clave with the same foot (toe and heel respectively) is daunting though.

Walls is one of those albums showing that two decades in, electronic music still has legs. There's really good stuff coming from Germany these days. I haven't been in Berlin since about 18 months after the fall of the wall (crap, I can't remember for sure whether I went there in the summer of '90 or '91). By then civilians drove through from West to East unimpeded, but since my father was in the military we had to check in through checkpoint Alpha at the start of the Autobahn. It was the weirdest thing to lose 20 minutes to what was obviously an obsolete remnant of the cold war, what with the thousands of cars driving by freely and Charlie gone. Already different from the experience related by another "military brat" in 1988. In the fall of 1989 I remember feeling elated for Eastern Europe but thinking it would take a generation for Germany to reunite. It was only mildly comforting for my self esteem to be proven so wrong in company of people such as Mitterrand, the French president at the time.

East Berlin at the time was still a ghost town in some places, with drab buildings showing ugly WWII scars, grey figures looking at us through heavy curtains, Trabant testaments to Communist ineptitude. Cranes were starting to rise though and I'm sure it's a very different city now. Berlin is a sprawling city ten times the size of Paris for just 50% more people, which makes it hard to wrap your head around, sort of Europe's LA, giving you the cold shoulder and not caring one bit about you.

Remembering this trip makes me think of my late uncle André. It's going to be two years on March 21st. I've had a blog post in the making about his death since it happened but never got around to it. I have to come to terms with his loss and write that post.

The key with digital music gear porn is to only wank to it and resist buying stuff you're likely to play with for 30 minutes then forget in a closet. Still, here's some fun stuff:

• Zendrum (grand father of them all)
• Mandala
• Pankat (I own an old DK10 from the same vendor)
• Handsonic
• Trigger Finger
• Monome (different animal)

My fingers drool (controllerism anyone?) but the head and wallet say no. I may buy a Behringer BCF2000 later this year though, it's a hell of a control surface for $200. We'll see how Tascam reponds to it. (Maybe they did ? I haven't followed the latest NAMM news yet.)

Only remotely related but I saw this while reading through a bunch of digital music blogs today: The eSession Experience: Online Recording for All.

Update: the devices I listed above betray my drummer bias, but there's a bunch of DJ controllers coming to market too. I bought an XP10 a couple years ago but found that you really need to know your tracks before you dare mix them (duh), from their BPM to their mood to their key. See also: