Luke Titus is a Chicago-born drummer, producer, and solo artist who is equally comfortable playing blisteringly fast breakbeats as he is writing and producing catchy indie pop hooks. Last year his sophomore LP, From What Was Will Grow A Flower, was released on Sooper Records, marking the next chapter in a career defined by technical virtuosity and emotionally resonant songwriting. We were lucky enough to collab with Luke on “Voyage Into Sound,” his new solo piece for drumset + Sensory Percussion. And the timing worked out so that Luke was one of the first artists to incorporate our brand new cymbal sensors into their music!
Luke’s Gear:
- EVANS Hybrid Sensory Percussion System (4 drum sensors, 2 cymbal sensors).
- 19" Istanbul Agop Xist ION Dark Trash
- 22" Istanbul Agop Xist Dry Dark Crash
- 17" Istanbul Agop Traditional Dark Hi-Hats
- 22" İstanbul Agop 30th Anniversary Ride
- 18”/12”/14” Gretsch USA Custom
- 15” Gretsch Broadkaster snare
Check out the walkthrough video below to hear Luke break down how he distributes his samples across the drums + cymbals, adding controls that allows one drum to “talk” to another:
We caught up with Luke after shooting the video to get his thoughts on Sensory Percussion as a creative tool:
What was your process for writing "Voyage Into Sound" with Sensory Percussion? Did it start with a drum pattern, or with some of the samples?
The idea for the piece started with just some chords and then built from there with different melody sounds, bass notes, percussion sounds, things like that. Having chords on the kit was really helpful for my creativity, honestly, because sometimes it can be hard having to do everything separately. Like, starting an idea on the drums and then having to figure out the chords that work with it. Playing drums is such a natural environment for me, so having chord samples that I really like arranged around the kit while I'm playing is so much more fun than sitting at a laptop and trying to program.
Any other uses you’ve found for Sensory Percussion outside of live solo performance?
Totally. Yeah. As a songwriter, coming up with ideas that I might end up turning into something to put on a record is especially fun if I have samples and chords on the kit while doing that. Being able to improvise with these sounds and then chop that up later is so fun and inspiring.
So I can not only be recording my acoustic drums how I normally would, but then I'll also be recording the Sensory Percussion audio–basically sampling myself while I'm playing–so I'll come up with ideas much differently than I would if the sounds weren't on the kit. Super inspiring from a creative standpoint.
So you’re saying we might be hearing some Sensory Percussion on the next Luke Titus album? 👀
I mean, I've already made some songs using Sensory, so hopefully some of that stuff will end up on my next record! There’s some stuff I really like. I just want to keep incorporating it more into my vibe overall. Going deeper into using it for sound effects and percussion samples and things like that, and hopefully build a whole set where I'm triggering some harmonic stuff as well. Just generally incorporating it more into live performance with my band and things like that.
