French Pink Floyd tribute band drummer Sylvain Cottet has been using e-drums for decades.
I started playing drums at 15 and started performing in small concert halls around the age of 22 in the late ‘80s. I had the chance to play in France, Europe and in the eastern United States between New York city and Boston. I also taught for 25 years.
I like and play a lot of different styles, but I especially prefer anything related to ‘70s and ‘80s grooves. I particularly enjoy playing Pink Floyd music in the footsteps of Nick Mason. In the same spirit, I love Jimmy Cobb with Miles Davis, Howard Grimes with Al Green, Phil Rudd with AC/DC, Topper Headon with The Clash or Larry Mullen with U2.
My first encounter with electronics happened in 1988 when I played in Paris in places with electronic drums, in particular, Le Caf’Conc. The style was very jazz-funk but also soul, R’n’B, fusion and Afro-Jazz. We played songs by Al Jarreau, Weather Report, UZEB, David Sanborn, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, using the original ddrum kits.
At the time, I won a competition and the prize was a Simmons MTX9 module and two hexagonal drums.
I then began to experiment and regularly integrate electronic sounds into my acoustic sets. In the early ‘90s, I bought a Roland SPD-8 to complement my Yamaha Recording Custom 9000. I then upgraded in 1993 to the SPD-11 and in 1998 to the SPD-20. I kept this association until the beginning of the 2000s, a period when I opted for a complete electronic kit for the first time, the ddrum 4, which I used for four years in my apartment and mainly served me to practise and to record ideas.
In 2004, I created the Encore Floyd collective with musician friends who were Pink Floyd fans. I used the ddrum 4 (and later the ddrum 4 SE) with real cymbals, and I triggered sounds from an Akai S2000 sampler via my SPD. A contact at Clavia asked me to join the list of international drummers playing for the brand and I then appeared on the brand’s official web page to represent Clavia in France.
In 2011, the Encore Floyd collective took another direction. We had already found many instruments identical to those of Pink Floyd in the ‘70s – keyboards, guitars and bass. In collaboration with French drum shop La Baguetterie, and its director at the time, Philippe Lalite, and the importer of Ludwig in France, we reconstituted an acoustic kit similar to that of Nick Masson in Pompei, a Ludwig Silver Sparkle type 71.
In 2012 and 2014, a theatre in Paris invited us to play a total of 60 concerts in a show titled Before The Wall with our vintage instruments.
I continue to use mainly acoustics for Encore Floyd shows, but augment them with a Roland SPD-SX.
I have, however, used electronics in other productions. For example, I bought a Roland TD-12 module in 2014 which I used with a a small triggered acoustic kit. This came in handy in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when I used e-drums in videoconference collaborations with friends and fellow musicians.
Most of my material was then stuck in my producer’s offices. And it was my son’s Roland HD3 and my first ddrum 4 that allowed me to continue to share emotions.
Even today, electronic drums are part of my world. I use them for practice, creating, and I play them on stage as much as with my acoustic drums. It is true that in the ‘80s the arrival of drum machines replaced drummers in certain places and certain styles. But it is also undeniable that electronic drums have become allies since they have opened up other worlds of expression and creativity – just like the transition from piano to synthesizer.
Gear list
Besides his Ludwig Encore Floyd acoustic kit and a Yamaha Recording Custom kit,
Sylvain uses:
- Roland HD-3
- Roland TD-12
- Clavia DDrum 4
- Clavia DDrum 4 SE
- Roland SPD-S
- Roland SPDS-X