MusicRadar

5. DO listen to somebody else play your drums

As Carlos says, "You sit behind your drums all the time and you think you know how they sound, right? Wrong! That's just the way they sound to you, but it's not the way they sound to everybody else.

"I discovered this during sound checks when my drum tech would play my kit and I'd walk out into the auditorium and go, 'My God, is that the way my drums sound?!' I was horrified.

"What I discovered was, the way I liked to tune for recording, with the rack toms and the floor tom tuned way down low, had no bearing on my live sound at all. You could hear my bass drum, the snare, the hi-hat and cymbals...and nothing else.

"Live, you have to tighten up the tuning on your rack toms and floor toms. But even if you're not playing arenas or theaters or whatever, have somebody play your drums and stand a good ten feet or more away from themand listen. You'll be in for quite a surprise."