Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Andreas David aka Ydna Murd. I’m originally from Hamburg, Germany but have been living in Western Canada for the last 10 years. I have been playing drums since 1981, when I was 11 years old and became a professional drummer in 1991. I played in countless bands and projects, was involved in many studio recording sessions and have been teaching at 12 different music schools.
2 years ago I opened the Westshore Music Academy in Victoria B.C. Canada together with my wife. We hired 12 instructors and are offering lessons for more than 20 different instruments. My main focus at the Academy is drum instruction. Aside from the weekly lessons we also organize masterclasses and clinics. Jost Nickel and Thomas Lang came to our school last year for drum camps and we have some big name drummers lined up for this year as well.
When I’m not teaching at the school you can find me doing clinics and masterclasses myself or teaching online. I’m one of the Drumeo instructors and I also produce videos for my own successful YouTube channel. In addition I write workshops for Drum Magazines like Drums Etc. (Canadian) and Drumheads! (German).
I played and performed pretty much every music style in the past but have been focusing on Live Drum & Bass music for the last 12 years. I produce original Drum & Bass music and perform either live as a solo show (DJing Drummer) or with my new trio Spectra. You can find more info about my music and my drum books on my homepage at www.drumgate.com.
What do you use?
I endorse several companies: Sonor Drums, Vic Firth, Roland V-Drums, Drumtacs and Eccentric Systems Quick Torque Cam.
I’m currently using a Sonor Ascent Beech Drum Kit in 10” rack, 14” and 16” floor toms, 14” Ascent snare drum and a 22” kick. Sometimes for recording additional toms and a 10” aux snare drum. I use the Sonor 400 hardware and pedals. The drum sticks I’m using are Vic Firth 5B American Classics. I’ve been endorsing Supernatural Cymbals for many years and although my contract with them expired I still use their cymbals.
On the electronic side I’m playing my Roland TD-30 drum kit, Roland SPD-SX sample pad, additional Roland pads, bar triggers and pedals, an Akai APC-40 midi controller and a HP laptop with Ableton music software. I use Logic Audio for recording and Ableton Live for loop based live performance. For recording the acoustic drumkit I use many different mics, Sennheiser e604 for toms, AKG D-112 for kick, Rode 1’s and 5’s for cymbals and overheads and Shure 57’s for snare drums.
Furthermore an Alesis Studio 32 mixing desk, a Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer, Edirol UA 1000 and Roland Octa-Capture interfaces, Art preamps, 2 Eurorack Pro Rack mixer for live on stage and a customized InEar monitoring system. For videos I use a GoPro Silver and a Panasonic Camcorder and the Magix Pro Video Editing Software.
What would be your dream set up?
I think I’m pretty close to my dream set up already. I might add a few things, a second Roland SPD-SX would be great, I’m also planning to get into triggering acoustic drums with the Roland TM-2 module for certain recordings and maybe even live.
I love Sonor drums, so naturally I would like to own their entire catalogue, especially all of their snare drums and high end drum kits. On top of my wish list right now is actually a Giant Step bass drum pedal. And of course there’s quite a thing in the Roland product catalogue I wouldn’t mind calling mine. I would love to own a really big PA system as well. Playing D&B music requires a PA that can handle the low end and sometimes I hit the limit with the PA I have currently, especially when jamming with my trio Spectra.
I also play piano, guitar and bass, so there’s always gear I see I’d love to own, but usually I can resist the tempation of buying more, there’s only so much available space in my studio. I’m not much of a gearhead, at clinics you will hardly hear me talking about my gear but I do certainly appreciate good sounding, quality gear.
