Check it, I was once in a very simular position, I play drums, and I had a rock band. THen we got a keyboard player, then we started listing to dance music, now I have a full electronic kit and Im compleatly devoted to playing dance. But with acoustic drums it can be somewhat hard to get that house sound esp. if your bass drumm is tuned like crap. Some tips on fun beats to toy around with.
For house, A simple 4 on the floor beat is needed. a bass beat on 1234 with you highhat pedal going down in between each beat. As if you were walking. thus creating the boom chick boom chick> keep that going. Now start layering since you have the main beat held down with you feet, your hands are free to do a cool ride pattern, wood blocks whatever. You might want to save the snare for later. The whole point is to layer and keep on layering buliding up the beat piece by piece. It can be tricky because the up beat is so emphasized it can get confusing.
> for jungle or drumm and bass. The beat is a snare on 2 and 4, with the bass drum going on 1 and the up beat of 3, so it would sound like
also speed you metronome up to about 170 or so. THat shit is fast so your highhat hand is about to get the work out of it's life. Keep straight 8th notes on a tightly closed hat and you have a basic d&b beat. Trick it up to make things intresting and think of a sweltering jungle. fast rolls on the snare, tricky high hats are all great things to fiddle around with.
Cool, Im late for an appt. so i gotta run feel free to email if you have any Q's.
later.
Ryan