I’m a drummer and percussionist from Finland, based in the UK. Since 2022, I am the touring drummer for the American pop star Anastacia. I also play in the house bands for a variety of different TV shows; the most recent is the American TV show Name That Tune.
Other live TV performances include the opening of the Eurovision Song Contest (BBC One), the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee (ITV) and Team GB’s homecoming from the Olympics (BBC) at Wembley.
In 2020, I worked closely with Brian May from Queen, releasing two songs, one of which hit no. 13 in the iTunes chart. My first ‘big’ performance opportunity was with Hans Zimmer and friends (including Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr) in 2014 at the Hammersmith Apollo.
I am a co-founder of the non-profit music organisations Girls Rock London and Rock Donna, and I’ve developed different music workshops in Finland, UK, Jamaica, Mexico and USA over the years.
In 2021, I released an educational YouTube series called Drumming Through The Decades, focusing on female-identifying drummers and musicians.
In 2021, I released an educational YouTube series called Drumming Through The Decades, focusing on female-identifying drummers and musicians.n October 2023, I did drum clinics at the UK Drum Show and Herfstfest Drumfestival in the Netherlands and Belgium with a unique Ableton Live looping hybrid set-up.
I’ve also done masterclasses and guest lectures at music universities in the UK focused around Ableton Live Looping.
I have also written four pieces for ABRSM’s new drum syllabus, which will be released later this year.
I am a passionate Ableton Live user and I heavily include Live into my work as a performer wherever possible. Some of my work experience includes programming and creating the playback rig for Anastacia and using Ableton to program electronic drums and live loops for the opening concert of the Eurovision and Olympics Team GB’s Homecoming Concert.
For my live looping projects, I use Zoom’s LiveTrak L-20, as I sometimes have up to 20 inputs that we want to live loop. I use iConnectivity’s PlayAudio12s for outputs and redundancy-proof playback. Using different hardware for inputs and outputs is possible thanks to Audiomovers’ Omnibus, a virtual patchbay that makes complex audio routing easy.
For live looping in Ableton Live, I use Max for Live devices called One Button Live Looper and Fixed Clip Length from abletondrummer.com, made by Tobias Hunke. These devices make it incredibly easy to live loop multiple channels with different length loops, by just pressing one pedal. This works via MIDI mapping through my Roland SPD-SX Pro.
Abletondrummer also makes some other brilliant devices for drummers who want to incorporate Ableton into their live performances. Some of his other devices I use by him are Auto Quantise Clips, MelodyTrigger and SPD-SX button to chain selector.
Ableton Push is an important tool for my live looping performances, so I never have to touch or look at my laptop during a live show. I also use the Roland SPD-SX Pro a lot as a MIDI controller, starting and stopping songs and loops.
The audio interfaces I use vary depending on the project and how many inputs/outputs are needed. For my live looping duo L.O.O.P., we use Zoom’s LiveTrak L-20 for the inputs, as we have 20 inputs to loop and iConnectivity’s PlayAudio12s for outputs and redundancy-proof playback. Using different hardware for inputs and outputs is possible thanks to Audiomovers’ Omnibus, a virtual patchbay that makes complex audio routing easy.
For many of the TV shows I’ve done, I’ve been asked to authentically recreate drum/percussion sounds and loops from different artists’ songs, as they are an integral part of the identity of the song. For this, I’ve been required to use a multitude of drum trigger pads for more visual drum performances. These drum pads are a combination of Roland trigger pads and custom-made Jobeky drums. Thanks to the SPD-SX Pro, I can now have eight triggers connected at the same time, which has been a real game-changer for me.
This video breaks down how I’ve built one of those performances.
Gear list
British Drum Company Legend Series acoustic kit, various LP percussion instruments and Zildjian cymbals
Roland SPD-SX Pro
Roland KT-10
Roland PDX-100 pad
Roland RT-30K kick trigger
Roland RT-30H snare trigger
BC2 Porter & Davis Butt Kicker Drum Throne
- Vicky O’Neon will be appearing at the debut digitalDrummer E-drum Experience Labs at the UK Drum Show on Saturday, September 28, 2024. For more information, check out the show website.