How do you rate Mangini's work on the latest album?

[erwinrafael]

That is a fantastic explanation, and an excellent post.

Thanks. Listen to how MP drummed the keyboard solo section in ToT. It's basically him setting a beat that may be catchy, but does not really pay much attention to what Derek was doing. Now compare that to MM drumming to the keyboard solo in AFTR. Listen to how the drums complemented the solo. That shows the difference in their drumming style.

[jakepriest]

And still the ToT keyboard solo drum section is more interesting than anything that MM has done on the latest album.

[rumborak]

I don't know how one can give a 10 for drumming with a drum sound like that though.

A) Because the drums sound fine, to me, and
2) Because even if they didn't the sound isn't "Mangini's work", but that of the Engineer, Producer, etc.

Err, no. It is the musician's role to make sure his instrument sounds the way he wants it to. The engineer and the producer are usually quite thankful for guidance as to what the musician wants it to sound like, since there's so many different options.

[ZirconBlue]

I don't know how one can give a 10 for drumming with a drum sound like that though.

A) Because the drums sound fine, to me, and
2) Because even if they didn't the sound isn't "Mangini's work", but that of the Engineer, Producer, etc.

Err, no. It is the musician's role to make sure his instrument sounds the way he wants it to. The engineer and the producer are usually quite thankful for guidance as to what the musician wants it to sound like, since there's so many different options.

I feel pretty confident that a lot more attention was paid to JP's opinion on the drum sound than on MM's.  My vote was based purely on MM's composition and playing. 

[AngelBack]

I don't know how one can give a 10 for drumming with a drum sound like that though.

A) Because the drums sound fine, to me, and
2) Because even if they didn't the sound isn't "Mangini's work", but that of the Engineer, Producer, etc.

Err, no. It is the musician's role to make sure his instrument sounds the way he wants it to. The engineer and the producer are usually quite thankful for guidance as to what the musician wants it to sound like, since there's so many different options.

BINGO!  As much work as MM puts into his parts and playing I would expect his input on the mixing.  I am sure at some point the proposed finished product would be presented to all and I know he is the ultimate team player, but he should have spoken up, unless he was fine with it.

[ReaPsTA]

I voted 9.

- Knows how to elevate moments.  The two big fills in IT are just sick.  The fill he does in the TBP guitar solo is so nice.

- General creativity.  The glidey hat sounds in the beginning of IT for example.

- Really knows texture.  The dual hat work in the "I am not shattered" part of ATR is so good.  You could play that on one hat, but it wouldn't have the same depth.  Mangini does a lot of stuff like this.

- Delivers great fills.  The intro and outro fils of STR are just insanely good.

- Plays with the other instruments.  It's clear he's looking for how to bring out the groove in the music as a whole.

- Outlines emotional/musical progressions well.  In TLG, the first pre-chorus (you are caught up in your gravity...) uses very splashy cymbals, the second pre-chorus focuses on the ride, and the final pre-chorus uses a combination of splashes and toms.

- Compliments Myung so well.

- Ridiculous compositional creativity.  In the second verse of TBP, where Mangini's using the big pedal hat hits to emphasize the big guitar chugs.  Or, the second verse of Along for the Ride where he just goes crazy and flows with the guitar.

I wish there were more OMGWTFBBQHOWISHEDOINGTHAT!?!?!?!?!? moments but ah well.  The greatness of Mangini lies in the subtleties and the composition.  The depth of his drumming, and how he enhances the music, is incredible.

[Dark Castle]

This guy gets it.

Yeah he may not go ham as much as MP, but he plays to enhance the music and everything else around him, which I appreciate a lot more.

[erwinrafael]

And still the ToT keyboard solo drum section is more interesting than anything that MM has done on the latest album.

which tells me that your preferred drumming style is a soloing drumming style that celebrates air drum moments, not an orchestral style. it's a matter of preference and I personally prefer the latter. when you listen to an MM drumstem, you can actually imagine wha the other instruments are doing.

[jakepriest]

I completely adore MM's work on ADToE. Every single song has some amazing drumming.

But I don't find anything on DT12 apart from the EM "solo" and a few beats in IT interesting. The drums just seem way more simple and boring than ADToE in every respect.

[Daso]

I gave a 10. He's done everything I hoped he would and has been as fantastic as I thought he would. The drumming on DT12 is excellent. It fits the band like a glove and is a breath of fresh air. I love the drum parts in DT12.

Not only that but he brings an extra dimension to drums that was never in DT before. He's elevated the musicianship of the band to new heights. He's opened up new creative possibilities. The band is making some of their best music ever since he joined and the drum parts fit perfectly into the bigger picture (puns intended). The band not only retained their signature sound but their rhythm section is now a 2.0 version of what it was before. A sound that was growing old and tiring for years has been injected with steroids and new life.

He is by FAR better in literally every single aspect of playing the drums and the drumming on DT12 is a perfect complement to the songs that were written.

Nothing else to say. The band has not only made some of their best music ever, you can actually feel the chemistry and how everyone seems to be motivated and comfortable at what they're doing. MM has been not only great, but inspirational in every sense to the other members.

[erwinrafael]

I completely adore MM's work on ADToE. Every single song has some amazing drumming.

But I don't find anything on DT12 apart from the EM "solo" and a few beats in IT interesting. The drums just seem way more simple and boring than ADToE in every respect.

simple? LOL

listen to the drums in the context of the song. TLG alone is a very complex drum composition. STR is complex as well.  if you look for interesting solos, MM is not for you. his drumming is in the context of highlighting what everybody else is doing.

[ErHaO]

I really cannot understand people saying he has no creativity on DT12 and, even less understandable, that his drumming is simpler than previous DT efforts.

MP is one of my favourite drummers and I will always prefer his additions to music, as his style generally just resonates more with me. But really, Mangini is all I could have hoped for as the next drummer for this band. There are a lot of moments on both ADTOE and DT12 that I absolutely love and the guy really knows when to go insane or when to stay subtle to enhance the other instruments.

Not DT12 related, but an example is his drumming at the beginning of BAI on live at Luna park. You can almost hear the melody of the intro in his drumming and it aligns perfectly with the rest of the band. And in DT12 for example, I think the intro of TEI is just badass. I can listen to that part on repeat a lot (in fact, I do not really like the rest of the song all that much). I like it just as much as MP's HTF intro part, for example (which is also very good). In just two albums, MM already had a lot of distinct moments for me.

[erwinrafael]

one of my favorite interviews with MM on DT12 is the one by Drum Magazine titled Wired Science.

https://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/mike-mangini-wired-science/P1/

I loved this part (and you can actually hear the things he describe in the songs, if you understand what the writer and MM is saying):

"You can hear Mangini's sheer joy on the album's "Surrender To Reason," whose introduction explodes with odd-timed percussive bursts played in what must have been difficult side-vs.-side coordination moves. "Check out the first three drum fills that open 'Surrender,'" he says. "The first is a 15 tuplet on the snare drum, before I do a triplet for the second fill. Note that I did this not by being a scientist and calculating, 'Gee, I think I'll play a fifteenth-note tuplet just because I can.' I played an odd amount of notes because it gave me a certain feeling."

He did the same thing with the third fill, a devilish 29-against-5 polyrhythm that he swears came bubbling out of pure feeling and musicality. "In fact, the first fill I played instead of the 29-against-5 polyrhythm was a more even set of triplets. Now, to me, sometimes sixteenth-note triplets are too square and studied, and it's because most of us don't practice to go beyond that to experience this other world. But [Dream Theater singer] James LaBrie got out of his seat like a banshee, pointing at me, and said, 'No, Mike, the other one you played, that was gold!' I'm like, Really? So I looked at my drums and I calculated and said, 'Oh, wow, it was two notes on every drum on the kit, plus five on the kick drums. So it was 12 times 2, plus 5 = 29."

Despite Mangini's hardwired facility for executing the most hair-raisingly intricate rhythmic patterns, there were tracks on the album that raised his personal bar even higher. On the epic 'Illumination Theory' there are a couple of spots where Mangini uses limb pairs against one another, such as his left foot playing a china-stack sound that his hands would normally hit, and throughout one section the left side of his body is playing in 3/16 while the right side is playing multiple time signatures, following Jordan Rudess.

"In 'Enemy Inside,' I had to reach so far from one side of my kit to the other, hitting the effects cymbals as I'm following the guys melodically, that the entire trunk of my body had to turn from left to right in less than so many thousands of a second, and while I was doing that I had to whack the bass drums. I'm sorry, but I'm not a robot!"

Even the band's simpler, more overtly pop songs such as "The Bigger Picture" required Mangini to create as much air and space as possible while still strutting his technical stuff. You hear him play parts that closely resemble the melodies and riffs from the other musicians – and note that his bandmates asked Mangini to play more, in order to create a unique drum part for each song. Throughout the album, the production is a minefield of sonic surprises, such as the stereo nature of the kit actually changing with the sharps and flats in the charts.

"I'm following the key signatures of the music, I'm changing cymbals based on key signatures, my tom toms are following the unison runs exactly," he explains. "If Jordan Rudess goes up the keyboard then I go up the drums; if John Petrucci goes down his guitar in sets of triplets or threes, I go down my drums in triplets or threes."

He would also like to point out the substantial time he took playing simple parts for perhaps just two minutes without missing any hits off the grid. That's a tough job for any drummer, a difficulty aggravated by the microscopic exactitudes of modern recording technology.

"My challenge was keeping the velocities extremely high – if I hit one hit light in the middle of a run, it got lost. And to me it wasn't light, because I could hear it perfectly fine. But with the recording software we use today, if it's just a couple of dBs shy, it's no good.""

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

No doubt Mangini is an incredible drummer, but his playing does very little for me.

[rumborak]

Yeah, I gotta be honest, as intellectually satisfying the above article might be, I think it gets lost in technicalities. A 15-tuplet on the snare is usually known ... as a drum roll. It doesn't matter whether there's 14, 15 or 17 hits in a drum roll, because to the listener it's irrelevant.

[erwinrafael]

Yeah, I gotta be honest, as intellectually satisfying the above article might be, I think it gets lost in technicalities. A 15-tuplet on the snare is usually known ... as a drum roll. It doesn't matter whether there's 14, 15 or 17 hits in a drum roll, because to the listener it's irrelevant.

Actually, it does matter because an odd-numbered drum roll gives a different feeling. It has a feeling of "slowing down" and the entry and exit of the roll has a momentary jarring effect because most of us are used to hearing even-numbered rolls, and in quarters, eights and sixteents.

[Octavarious]

9!!!! It's beyond awesome but I know he will do even better than this!!

This, definitely.

[Kotowboy]

*snip*

That's my main problem. Despite being a big fan of MM's playing and ability and being a drummer myself -

- MM always seems to talk about his drumming with regard to numbers and technique.

I don't think i've read any interview or seen any interview where he just goes

" oh there was a long section in 6/8 so i just laid back and grooved along with it. "

he has to inject some huge reason as to why he played this massively technical thing instead of saying he just played from his gut.

I think that's why the drumming sounds so robotic to most people.

[King Postwhore]

I have, for interviews when he played with Extreme.  DT is more technical so I believe he plays more technical.  Now I do agree I'd like to here him play with more swing and less technical but lets see if he evolves from album to album.

[erwinrafael]

*snip*

That's my main problem. Despite being a big fan of MM's playing and ability and being a drummer myself -

- MM always seems to talk about his drumming with regard to numbers and technique.

I don't think i've read any interview or seen any interview where he just goes

" oh there was a long section in 6/8 so i just laid back and grooved along with it. "

he has to inject some huge reason as to why he played this massively technical thing instead of saying he just played from his gut.

I think that's why the drumming sounds so robotic to most people.

Well, it is because he approached the drumming in DT as orchestral drumming, like how he did in Fire Garden Suite. And classical orchestral playing is not really playing from the gut. It is carefully structured. That does not translate into having no feelings or groove or whatever mystical ambiguous mumbo jumbo that some listeners are trying to find. It just means that it is well thought of.

This style is actually bringing out new creative energies from the other members of the band. Rudess seems happy with it when he said in an interview, "he's incredible with mathematics, especially related to music. He was able to bring us some architectural structure that we've never had to this extent before, as far as meters and how different instruments will interact — that was a totally new element that we got to work with."  JR was more specific when he said "On a musical level, you know, Mike has one of the most incredible rhythmic minds, I think, of anybody. So he was kind of able to conceptualize these kind of concepts that we would just take and try to compose around. We got some really interesting results form doing that — it was fascinating for us because everyone in DREAM THEATER has a good sense of rhythm, but we never before in our history have had this kind of input where someone would say, "Petrucci, if you play a bar of seven ten times, and Jordan, if you repeat something in five and I play this, it'll all come together" — you know, we would all just smile, because it was some pretty cool wacky stuff that was just purely conceptualized by Mike. And, you know, I guess what helped the most with the writing process was just his drumming — you know, having him be there for the writing, so we could try something and have him do his thing on the drums which would lead us to compose differently."

So, the structured drumming would be around because the other DT members seem to like this new playground they are playing in. I believe that this has led to some exciting music in the record. For example, I really believe that one of MM's concepts is the "Mothers for their children..." part in IT, which a lot seems to love. The odd meters and polyrhythmic playing of the instruments in that part worked because of the underlying structure that held the arrangement together.

A bit off-topic, but here is a perfect example of a young MM doing orchestral drumming. MIdnight Express with Nuno Betterncourt. WHen I first heard this, I thought it was a drum machine because of the precision. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWhqGPKfqvA

[Tis BOOLsheet]

I have a feeling that a lot of people on this thread/forum don't really know what "swing" or "groove" because they keep lamenting that MM doesn't bring these elements to DT (presumably believing that they existed in DT previously). The drum auditions were the worst selection of guys ever if the band wanted to bring "swing" and/or "groove" to DT.

Neither of those two elements is something that was ever in DT-- let alone prog metal.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

one of my favorite interviews with MM on DT12 is the one by Drum Magazine titled Wired Science.

https://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/mike-mangini-wired-science/P1/

I loved this part (and you can actually hear the things he describe in the songs, if you understand what the writer and MM is saying):

"You can hear Mangini's sheer joy on the album's "Surrender To Reason," whose introduction explodes with odd-timed percussive bursts played in what must have been difficult side-vs.-side coordination moves. "Check out the first three drum fills that open 'Surrender,'" he says. "The first is a 15 tuplet on the snare drum, before I do a triplet for the second fill. Note that I did this not by being a scientist and calculating, 'Gee, I think I'll play a fifteenth-note tuplet just because I can.' I played an odd amount of notes because it gave me a certain feeling."

He did the same thing with the third fill, a devilish 29-against-5 polyrhythm that he swears came bubbling out of pure feeling and musicality. "In fact, the first fill I played instead of the 29-against-5 polyrhythm was a more even set of triplets. Now, to me, sometimes sixteenth-note triplets are too square and studied, and it's because most of us don't practice to go beyond that to experience this other world. But [Dream Theater singer] James LaBrie got out of his seat like a banshee, pointing at me, and said, 'No, Mike, the other one you played, that was gold!' I'm like, Really? So I looked at my drums and I calculated and said, 'Oh, wow, it was two notes on every drum on the kit, plus five on the kick drums. So it was 12 times 2, plus 5 = 29."

Despite Mangini's hardwired facility for executing the most hair-raisingly intricate rhythmic patterns, there were tracks on the album that raised his personal bar even higher. On the epic 'Illumination Theory' there are a couple of spots where Mangini uses limb pairs against one another, such as his left foot playing a china-stack sound that his hands would normally hit, and throughout one section the left side of his body is playing in 3/16 while the right side is playing multiple time signatures, following Jordan Rudess.

"In 'Enemy Inside,' I had to reach so far from one side of my kit to the other, hitting the effects cymbals as I'm following the guys melodically, that the entire trunk of my body had to turn from left to right in less than so many thousands of a second, and while I was doing that I had to whack the bass drums. I'm sorry, but I'm not a robot!"

Even the band's simpler, more overtly pop songs such as "The Bigger Picture" required Mangini to create as much air and space as possible while still strutting his technical stuff. You hear him play parts that closely resemble the melodies and riffs from the other musicians – and note that his bandmates asked Mangini to play more, in order to create a unique drum part for each song. Throughout the album, the production is a minefield of sonic surprises, such as the stereo nature of the kit actually changing with the sharps and flats in the charts.

"I'm following the key signatures of the music, I'm changing cymbals based on key signatures, my tom toms are following the unison runs exactly," he explains. "If Jordan Rudess goes up the keyboard then I go up the drums; if John Petrucci goes down his guitar in sets of triplets or threes, I go down my drums in triplets or threes."

He would also like to point out the substantial time he took playing simple parts for perhaps just two minutes without missing any hits off the grid. That's a tough job for any drummer, a difficulty aggravated by the microscopic exactitudes of modern recording technology.

"My challenge was keeping the velocities extremely high – if I hit one hit light in the middle of a run, it got lost. And to me it wasn't light, because I could hear it perfectly fine. But with the recording software we use today, if it's just a couple of dBs shy, it's no good.""

Great article. More of this type of stuff is going to help people (especially me) even more appreciate what he is doing/thinking.

I find it ironic that one guy previously commented he couldn't find anything "interesting" or compositionally creative in DT12. Now here is a great article that gets into the nitty gritty a little bit and shows stuff that most people are not going to pick up on-- and someone else says it's irrelevant to listeners.

You can't please everyone.

[AngelBack]

I have a feeling that a lot of people on this thread/forum don't really know what "swing" or "groove" because they keep lamenting that MM doesn't bring these elements to DT (presumably believing that they existed in DT previously). The drum auditions were the worst selection of guys ever if the band wanted to bring "swing" and/or "groove" to DT.

Neither of those two elements is something that was ever in DT-- let alone prog metal.

Great point.  DT is not math-core but due to the complexity and sheer volume of notes in their songs, they really don't need a drummer that plays "around" the beat, creating that groove or pocket.  I am sure that should they create a song that is more groovy, MM would be up to the task.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

It's not about groove. The Dillinger Escape Plan is one of the most insane mathcore bands around, and their drum parts are always interesting to listen to.

I think some you guys are just having a had time accepting that some people just don't care for Mangini. (just in the context of being DT's drummer; I think he's an awesome guy personally)

[erwinrafael]

It's not about groove. The Dillinger Escape Plan is one of the most insane mathcore bands around, and their drum parts are always interesting to listen to.

I think some you guys are just having a had time accepting that some people just don't care for Mangini. (just in the context of being DT's drummer; I think he's an awesome guy personally)

Actually, I am having a hard time accepting how people can say that MM's drumming in DT12 is SIMPLE and NOT CREATIVE.

Uninteresting? Not doing anything for the listener? I can accept those, it's a matter of taste. but SIMPLE and NOT CREATIVE? given the complexity of the drumming structure in DT 12, those are just ignorant comments.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Simple you could argue, creative is entirely a matter of opinion.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

It's not about groove. The Dillinger Escape Plan is one of the most insane mathcore bands around, and their drum parts are always interesting to listen to.

I think some you guys are just having a had time accepting that some people just don't care for Mangini. (just in the context of being DT's drummer; I think he's an awesome guy personally)

Not sure if this was referring to my comments, but I wasn't referring to your comments, since you didn't mention groove or swing; others did.

I have no problem with people not liking MM's work. I was only responding to comments that make no sense about swing and groove.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Ah, Ok. I may have been making a connection that didn't exist. It's too early for me to be awake.

[erwinrafael]

Simple you could argue, creative is entirely a matter of opinion.

NOt really. To call an artist as uncreative is a loaded term. If MM is called uncreative, it implies that he just did basic drumming and techniques that have been done to death before. So question, what other songs show drum structures and fills that similarly employed the structures and fills used by MM in DT12? What other songs used MM's approach to drum composition in DT12? Just so we can prove that he was not creative.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

So "creative" is just doing something other people haven't?

[ReaPsTA]

I find it funny that people are saying Mangini's drum parts should come more "from his gut", as if the way he writes drum parts isn't a genuine expression of what he wants to convey musically because he actually puts thought into them.

Yeah, I gotta be honest, as intellectually satisfying the above article might be, I think it gets lost in technicalities. A 15-tuplet on the snare is usually known ... as a drum roll. It doesn't matter whether there's 14, 15 or 17 hits in a drum roll, because to the listener it's irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant.  I always thought the STR drum fillls were cool just because reasons.  Knowing that they were actually crafted to be that way is so gratifying.  It shows how far you can take music if you really understand it.  It's so rewarding to listen to and understand.

[Tis BOOLsheet]

Ah, Ok. I may have been making a connection that didn't exist. It's too early for me to be awake.

Yeah, I mean it's a totally valid personal taste to have and many people do have it.

But it's like if I'm having a conversation about classical guitarists and one of my criticisms of a particular player is "he lacks swing" what would that say about my understanding of the style and of the word "swing"? How would that criticism sound about JP or JR? It would be totally asinine if that were my complaint about their playing in DT. And it's the exact thing I'm trying to clean up here. Swing is extraordinarily important in another style of music for guitarists and keyboardists and what have you. But in Prog metal it's a total non-issue because it's not even something that is a stylistic feature of the music or has ever been. It's a totally silly thing to even complain about in DT, because the previous band member was even further away from possessing that ability. And when someone says something like "I'm not crazy about his work on the last album. It just lacks groove or swing", it's impossible to have any intelligent conversation or to even share intelligent opinions. THAT is the kinda stuff I was responding to, and that has no validity.

[erwinrafael]

So "creative" is just doing something other people haven't?

It's producing something new and imaginative that is not derivative of an old "product" (for lack of a better term).

Being not creative is the highest insult to an artist who does original compositions. I used to be engaged in the performing arts before I shifted to academic work, and I really wince when people comment "he's not creative" lightly.

[theseoafs]

So "creative" is just doing something other people haven't?

It's producing something new and imaginative that is not derivative of an old "product" (for lack of a better term).

Basically everything that's ever been done is derivative of something else.  Humans are not good at being creative under your restrictive definition.

[LTE3]

He would be great is a math metal band. I loved his audition with the band, and appreciate his enthusiasm but not a fan of his drum sound at all or his cymbal sound for that matter.