Name: Antonin Violot
Occupation: Drummer, beatmaker, composer, producer
Nationality: French
Current release: Antonin Violot teams up with Warren Walker for their collaborative EP First Name Basis, out now via Jazz-o-Tech.
Pure Drumming Recommendations: Jojo Mayer was for me the first big fascination when it came to drum recording and drum solos when I started playing the drums. Vinnie Colaiuta was also very impressive on drum solos, and Steve Gadd gave us the most musical and groovy drum solos of all
times.
Mark Guiliana completely overturned the drumsolo language, and Yussef Dayes has recently succeeded to make drums solos more accessible and mainstream for everybody.

[Read our Warren Walker interview]
[Read our Warren Walker interview about the magic of sound]
[Read our Mark Guiliana interview]
[Read our Yussef Dayes interview]

If you enjoyed this Antonin Violot interview and would like to know more about his work, visit him on Instagram.



What was your first drum set like and what are you using today?

My first drumset was a typical 18’ 12’ 14’ jazz drumkit, with 2 rides and 1 crash cymbal.

I’m now using a completely different drumset: 22’ 12’ 16’, with a 13’ piccolo snare and a 6’ mini snare. In term of cymbals I’m using a 22’ ride, 17’ crash, one clap stack, a huge 18’ hi hat and a 6’ mini hi hat.

What, to you personally, are factors in terms of build and design that you appreciate in drums and percussion instruments?

As a drummer / beatmaker, I’m mostly influenced by music I’m listening to. I’m alway searching for new drum fx sounds, trying to transform my acoustic drums sounds into something resembling an electronic drum set without electronic devices or pads.

Tuning choices are of course very important, but also your choice of the right cymbals is a big factor. Finally, adding percussions to the drumset like bongos, bells and shakers.

Late Rush-drummer Neil Peart said: “The equipment is not an influence. It doesn't affect the way I play. It's an expression of the way I play.” What's your take on that?

I understand why he said that. Of course, if we speak about a “regular” drum kit, you don’t have to pretend you're playing better on a 10.000€ drumkit instead of on a cheap 400€ drumkit. You reconize a great drummer when they can do an amazing show with a very cheap drumkit. Bad gear is never an excuse.

But in my personnal experience, equipement makes a big difference when you add different gear on your drumkit like I described in the previous question.

Drumming is an integral part of many cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from in your playing – and why?

I’m coming from jazz music in the first place. Today I’m playing with many different styles of artists, some of them really pop/rock, others more hip-hop/funk, and also pure electronic music. I love to be a cameleon and try to strictly respect the codes of each type of music.

But the thing I alway keep in mind is to use the dynamics of jazz in every case - not the complexity of jazz, but this amazing range of dynamics you can learn from and use in every style.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a drummer / percussionist? Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals?

Dynamics are one of my challenges. But also precision is a big, big, big issue for me. I like to record myself a lot just to listen back to what I’m working for at the moment and analyse what can be more precise.

I’m also very carreful about my posture / position / breathing when I’m playing. This point may completely change the quality of a live show, whatever your level and skills. It’s why I’m usually filming myself - just to analyse if I’m using my body in a good way when I’m playing. A mirror in your practice room can be very helpfull too.

With the stress or the huuuge focus you need on stage, one of the first things you forget to care about is keeping a good posture. This can be very dangerous for most of us after 10, 20, 50 years of intense drumming if you forget to consider this point.

How do you experience the concepts of "groove," "swing," and "rhythmic feel" in music?

For me, the “groove” is all the little inaccuracies you can add when you play. For example, a perfectly quantised drum loop is not grooving. These little ghost notes which are not exaclty on time, this snare backbeat rushing a bit, but the hi hat accent coming back in just a little too late etc etc, this is how your beat becomes alive. Like Adam Deitch (Lettuce’s drummer) said:

“The imperfection is the perfection: how to push and pull things foward and back to create a human-esque imperfect sound.”

But one important detail: Exactly the same inaccuracies in a one measure loop is groove. Completely different inaccuracies in every measure is just bad playing ahah.

Do you feel that honing your compositional / songwriting skills has an effect on your drumming skills?

Totally. Since I’m doing beatmaking and composing music, I’m a lot more focused on everything around the drum part. It’s so important to focus on other instrumental parts even if you only play drums in your life, because you’ll probably be playing differently just because if that. You’ll choose different interpretations of drum parts to let more space, play with less breaks and technical skills, or in contrary put more rythmics informations if it’s necessary.

Songwriting can helps a lot to realize all this in music.

How has technology, such as drum machines and sequencers, impacted the way rhythm is created and perceived? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

Drum machines and sequencers were a incredible game changer in music, and drummers obviously had to adapt their skills in this new era.

We can also speak about groove here. Drum machines can not groove like a real human, and it’s interesting to see how much music and rhythmic precision has changed with it. When you listen to some old Herbie Hancock albums or some old school rock bands or funk bands, the bpm moves sometimes a lot between the beginning and the end of a track, sometimes just because the music and the energy of playing are taking the band there. And it’s wasn’t a problem! Now, the majority of music is recorded with metronome, and sometimes, it makes the music less alive.

Drum machines also brought incisive changes in the drum sounds. We now add triggers and samples on acoustic kick and snares, because drums machines have created new colors, new styles of music, and we now love to mix them with an acoustic drumkit, to bring more life.

Many recording engineers have remarked that the drums can be particularly hard to capture. What, from your perspective, makes drums sound great on record and in a live setting?

One big issue: tuning.

99% of recording engineers who have remarked that the drums can be particularly hard to capture said so because the drummer didn’t know how to tune his drums well, or worse, was too lazy to take time to do it.

I prefer using more than half of my soundcheck to tune my drums properly because I know the gig will be so much better - and confortable. Same in the studio, I don’t hesitate to take one hour or even two just to tune the drumkit properly. At some point I spent hours to check YouTube videos about tuning drums, and I also spoke with a lot of sound engineers in studios about drums tuning and what they discovered about it.

Of course tuning a drums is a very personnal matter, it’s not like tuning a guitar, a guitar is in a good tessiture or not. It’s a lot more complex and depends more on personal choices to tune a drum set well. But you need to spend the necessary time on it, no matter what, to bring you exactly where you want to be.