MORE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Examples
DRUMLESS TRACKS
My personal brand is built on unique products that foster community and push the drumming industry forward. Over the last few years, social media has seen an influx in new drummers posting performance content. Drummers want to post videos of themselves playing over music; but often, they face their posts of playing over popular music being removed from Instagram or YouTube for copyright violations. I created my drumless tracks to serve these drummers.
Drumless tracks are musical loops that that feature every piece of an arrangement minus the drum set. Thus, the drummer can record drums over these tracks and it’ll sound perfectly natural. This can be a tool for drummers to work on beats or fills during a practice regimen. It can be used to foster better audio production for drummers entering the recording world. And it can be a tool simply to create great social media content. This last use case creates the perfect marketing storm.
This product is built to market itself. When a consumer purchases my tracks, they generally create video content afterwards. Then, they post it to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Reddit. These drummers tell all their friends where they found these drumless tracks, which then drives traffic back to my socials and ultimately it drives more sales. This has created a product that bolsters the most passive income one can imagine.
I’ve sold my drumless tracks on every continent except for Antartica (probably because penguins don’t drum). These tracks are used by drummers including Dan Bailey (Father John Misty) and Steve Misamore (Dierks Bentley). I’m proud of this product because it’s have been a tool that I’ve put to use myself, and I’m so proud that it’s inspired countless other drummers around the world.
MORFBEATS
Morfbeats is a bespoke brand of musical instruments used by artists including Sean Lennon, Mark Guiliana (David Bowie) and Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin, & Wood). I played a gig in 2018 and saw another drummer using an elephant bell on a clutch positioned above his top hi hat cymbal to create quiet chimes when he’d press the hi hat pedal down. I loved this idea, but I thought the design could be improved to create a substantially louder and richer sound.
I drew the first mock-up immediately on a napkin and started a conversation with Adam Morford at Morfbeats. We went back and forth for a few months, using his stock Sleigh Bells as the basis for this new design. We created the two-bell model above and a single-bell model too.
This has been a really cool product that has given my sessions a really unique sonic touch. I’ve used both models on sessions, and they create a sound that always impresses my clients.
HONEST ABE INSTRUMENT COMPANY
Honest Abe Instrument Company is the drum-manufacturing branch of Paul Odom’s work. After much discussion, Paul and I decided it’d be special to bring his family’s four generations of metalworking experience into the drum manufacturing space.
I designed the drum you see above, the Odom 7 Heavy Steel snare, and it’s four-inch depth counterpart. I also provided art direction on the badge, which resembles a penny and features a photo of Paul with the company’s information adorned around it. To complete the drum, I also provided direction on the lug design to create something simple, tough, and aesthetically on brand that is able to be crafted in-house.
After successfully bringing these two workhorse drums to market and landing them in legendary drum shop cross the country (including Revival and Nelson Drum Shop), Paul and I continued to collaborate through early 2023 to develop exciting new metal drum shells (both for snare drums and full drum kits). Honest Abe drums have landed in the hands of legendary players like Abe Laboriel, Jr. (Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Sting) and Connor Denis (Beartooth), plus heavy-hitting producers like Sam Pura (The Story So Far, Basement, Heavy Heavy Low Low), Jonathan Gilmore (The 1975, Carly Rae Jepson, Charlie XCX), and in spaces like Atlantic Studios West.
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