Ah Marking, how I have missed you

The deluge has started, and am expecting an overwhelming flood on Friday but will try to keep on top of it all, though I seldom do :D

Quality levels are variable this year, we've got a very mixed bag of  1st year students, some nice clever things, but also some wtf are are you doing...
Still, we get this every year. The 1st batch of, this is not really for me,  have started to drift off and the, omg this is hard, lot will probably quit soon too.

Leaving lots of lovley nice new coders for us to mess with their minds.

I had the honour yesterday to chair my 1st Graduation presentation for a student who started when I did, It was wonderful to see how much he had progressed, though he was already one of the brighter ones his graduation project was amazing.
I know I can't take much credit, since I only really do the basic stuff and he was well above that when he started but still...I felt immense pride in seeing him pass his graduation presentation and knowing he'll be getting his diploma.


The Drums saga...hmm well I'm a little bummed, my extension pack of extra tom and crash arrived, but he wasn't able to supply a dual zone cymbal as hoped and put a single in the box and refunded the extra cost, so now I have a spare single..since I don't want to use it...

More strange was rather than another 14" tom, they sent an 8" tom..Apparently I'm supposed to move my 10" top tom over and all the others as well so I now have an 8,10,12,14 tom system.

Ermm... why? I was expecting another 14 to go on the end of my current 14 but it seems they only do the 8...on the plus side it is a dual trigger so more rim shots, but I'm not too happy with it...

I don't like that its smaller...

I just got used to hitting the 10 and 12, now I have to be more accurate on the top toms hitting an 8 and 10.

Also...I hate to admit..its not very good, it triggers rim shots randomly when doing any kind of rolls...I mailed them about it but got no reply over what to do about it, ideally I want a replacment 10" and send this thing back.

Turning it the other way on the rack has improved the false triggers but still it happens, I'm not pleased....we'll have to see if Nigel at Traps is willing to deal with my complaint or just ignore it.

The final insult, the pack was missing one bracket to actually mount the now shifted 14" Tom...he did respond to a request to send that out to me at least...I am hoping...probably in vain that he will also have sent a 10" tom...though I am probably hoping for too much.

I'll persevere with the 8" for now, but in future I need to be more careful about what I am asking for. But I do think if they are going to give you an extension kit at least another 10" or a 14" makes sense.

At least the new HiHat switch was in the box and works fine...lets hope it lasts..I bought a Roland hihat pedal as well as a back up but it does not seem to work on the Traps Brain..I'll need to get a friend with a Roland kit to try it for me to make sure its not faulty then sell it on.

Now if I can just get some time to play it..the freelance project is in its final stages and taking up a lot of my spare time, I find I'm now banging drums to relax rather than any concentrated learning but still its progressing, I bought a beginers dumrs course on DVD/Book and will start on it soon.


Ahthankyew