Rogers Drums, Boss Pedals And Circular Saws: The World Of Frank Rosaly

August 22, 2007
Frank Rosaly Modifies Rogers Drums with Boss pedals
Chicago Improv musician Frank Rosaly uses his Rogers drum set from the 60s as a base from which to start experimenting. After connecting a contact mic to each drum, he runs them through various pedals for different types of distortion. And then there's the circular saw...

Originally from Phoenix, Rosaly has been heavy into Chicago's improv scene since 2001. Gearwire's Gretchen Hasse recently met with him at Myopic Bookstore in Chicago's Wicker Park. (Myopic's Experimental Music Mondays marks them as Chicago's longest running experimental music venue.) Before his set, Frank took some time to walk us through his unique setup. This video is the first of several on Frank's approach and materials.

After you watch the video, read more about Rosaly's experiments in articles he wrote expressly for Gearwire.
For more on Rogers Drums. For more on Boss Pedals. For more on Frank Rosaly.

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I was really hoping he'd go

By: Darren Landrum (not verified)
I was really hoping he'd go into details about the contact mics he uses. Any chance anyone might know?
Wed, 2007-08-22 18:02

contact mics

By: ghasse
Hey Darren - the offsite link on Eric Leonardson's springboard videos (on Gearwire) take you to a site that tells you how to make contact mics. They're pretty easy to make, but they pack a lot of punch. Have fun!
Wed, 2007-08-22 18:33

contact mics

By: frank rosaly (not verified)
there is a great book by nicholas collins entitled handmade electronic music. chapter 7 is dedicated to the construction of the piezo microphone.
Thu, 2007-08-23 01:30

contact mics

By: Darren Landrum (not verified)
Thanks, guys! I've been trying to find information on this, and it's not really been that easy.
Thu, 2007-08-23 10:36

contact mics

By: Eric Leonardson (not verified)
Hi Darren, Here's an online howto for "furious contact mic assembly": http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html Nic's book is great, too!
Sun, 2007-09-02 21:33

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FRANK ROSALY: Hello. My name's Frank Rosaly, and I'm a percussionist in Chicago. I've lived here about six years, and playing quite a bit these days, fortunately, and about two years ago I started getting into electronic manipulation of my drums, and I'm going to be playing tonight at Myopic Bookstore, and I have my electronic setup right here, and we're going to talk a little bit about what I'm using and how I'm using it.

[FRANK ROSALY PLAYING WITH A SAW BLADE]

So, my setup for this particular case consists of a 15" marching snare drum from the '70s that I converted into a bass drum. It doesn't sound super great but for the most part it's going to be manipulated through a Boss Bass Synthesizer pedal. So, the fact that it sounds a little bit boxy is quite all right because I'm kind of focusing on the electronic sound that I get from manipulating it with a contact microphone.

I'm also using -- what I, part of what I normally play, which is a four-piece Rogers drum set from the '60s. It's pretty much in good condition. A couple of the drums are a little bit out of round so they have a little gain to them and I kind of like them that way. So, instead of a regular rack tom, I'm using my floor tom in the place of my rack tom, and I'm going to use it a lot often as like my table to put different instruments on because it is amplified through a contact microphone.

And instead of cymbals for the most part, I'm using some thicker metallic items that I've picked up here and there. I have a concrete saw blade and then I have a regular circular saw blade that I utilize just because they're so pitched and there's contact microphones sticking on each of those.

Typically, I use like a standard four-piece bebop drum set with an 18" bass drum, 12" tom, 14" floor tom, 14" snare drum, and regular hi-hats, but in this case I'm using some really short dry cymbals because of the electronic musicians that I'm playing with today, I think this will make a nice color palette that'll match and kind of blend with what I'm going to be playing with.

I'm using this setup in particular just because it's easy for me to (a) manipulate my electronics because I have a small box with all my electronics sort of set up in front of me, and I can deal with the knobs and turn it down when I start making awful sounds really quickly, and there's a lot of room for me to work because my entire drum set is not in the way and my large ride cymbals that I typically use are not hovering over everything. So, I have a lot of room to deal with my percussion instruments and my electronics with this smaller setup.

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