We are only a couple of hours away from the closing of the Drum Your Way to Hollywood contest video submissions to the Dixon Drums YouTube group. That also means there are only a couple more hours for the videos to receive votes. We have received a lot of submission in the last 24 hours, so, check out the videos and vote for the best drummer using the star rating buttons seen below each video. The higher rated videos will get a better chance at being picked as one of the 6 finalists by our judges. See the Official Rules and the Terms and Conditions. Good luck to everyone!

It has been a bad week for drummers. The Guardian reports that Martin Bulloch was rushed to a New Your hospital due to complications with his pacemaker after his performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties. Mogwai has canceled the rest of their North American tour.

You probably already know that drummer Travis Barker and DJ AM were involved in a plane crash late in the evening on September 19th after a performance in South Carolina. While the two survived with bad burns, 4 other people, including Barker’s business partner and assistant, Chris Baker were killed. Perry Farrell and Gavin DeGraw were at first rumored to be on the plane as well, but this turned out to not be true. Our thoughts go out to the victims of the crash and their families.

More coverage by fellow drum bloggers Robonzo, Drumtom, Karma Drums, and BigDrumthump.

Here is a cool interview with Peter Katis from Mix Magazine about his unique mixing technique for drum track. He has co-produced and mixed for bands like Interpol, The National, The Grates, Tokyo Police Club and Mates of State.

Peter likes to use the distortion he can get from overdriving a Neumann EQ and an API 2500 compressor, as well as mixing compressed and non compressed tracks together. He also likes to bus drum tracks together and distort that mix slightly.

Compression is one of the most important aspect of achieving a great drum sound in both live sound systems and studio recordings. Check out this video on compression.
(Flickr photo by eyeliam.)