Neil Rutman wrote:

I had a great drummer in my studio a while back and asked him to try such a
technique as an experiment for both of us. He couldn't do it easily. It's
like learning to play the drums all over again to some degree. An analogy
might be like asking a guitar player to play a song he's intimately familiar
with but only using the "d" & "g" strings for a pass. Possible but
uncomfortable until you've done it for a while.

Plus you are taking for granted that the drummer can do the same exact
performance several times in a row, or that the different things he
plays will at least be compatible musically.

But, what about the idea of replacing some of the parts of the drum
kit with dummies? For example, get a set of V-Drums, and then
replace the drums with V-Drums, leaving the cymbals in place, and
record that. Then afterwards, switch everything out so that you
have V-Drum cymbals and real drums, and record that. If you want,
you could even mix the V-Drum and real drum components together
into headphones for the drummer, so that they can hear a whole kit.

Of course, I'm not a drummer, so this idea may suck. :-)

- Logan