21st Century Drummer - Part 3 - Ralph Salmins' Home Studio

Technology is a wonderful thing - it allows us to do things that a few years ago seemed impossible. But as well as making life easier and more convenient, it also moves the goal posts as far as what each of us is able to acheive and, most importantly, what others can expect from us as musicians.

The days of the "session musician" who goes from studio to studio throughout the day, recording five or six tracks in neatly timed sessions, are long gone. Recording in a commercial studio is now the exception for most musicians. Recording in a comfortable space maybe metres from your living room is much more likely to be the case. These spaces are frequently better specified than many commercial studios of 20 years ago, and can turn out best selling tracks. Many bands are also turning to their own spaces to record without the time and financial pressures of major studios.

At the same time, the drum teaching world has also changed from the back rooms of music shops on the High Street to busy home teaching studios with cameras and enough computer processing to stream online teaching sessions 24 hours a day to eager students across the globe.

This feature is about where drummers work when they aren't on stage or tracking in one of the slowly diminishing commercial studios - their home space, whether they use it for recording, mixing, teaching or all three.

This month - Ralph Salmins