Few players blaze onto the scene like Taku Hirano. His career has had a meteoric rise in the last 10-plus years, seeing him hailed as a “phenomenon” by his peers — making him a constant in touring and recording circles. The partial list of world tours he has done include Fleetwood Mac, Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Lionel Richie, and Japanese pop star Utada Hikaru.

Within two years of his 1995 graduation from Berklee College of Music, Taku was already augmenting his acoustic setup with electronics. “I first started using electronics within my live rig back in 1997, shortly after I first started touring regularly. It was with an R&B artist on Sony named Kenny Lattimore.” His love of Roland gear began at this time, too. “Roland has always been an integral part of my live rig. With Lattimore, I initially used Roland’s SPD-11 to play basic sounds typical to the genre, such as handclaps, fingersnaps, and electronic percussion sounds. I played on the pads of the unit itself, which was integrated into my timbale setup, and then later added several PD-7 auxiliary pads to give myself a little more flexibility within my setup.” Some of the PD-7 pads he used then, painted his trademark purple color, are still in use today, some 10 years later — a testament to the durability of Roland products.

I caught a November 2006 live performance of Lindsey Buckingham in Portland, Oregon, featuring Taku on both percussion and drums. The band sounded amazing, as expected, but I was struck by the very different setup Taku was playing — completely untraditional by any standards (photo inset). The concept of this tour was for it to be an “unplugged” tour, using percussion as the only rhythmic content, nary a drum set in sight. As fate would have it, some of the songs needed the drive of a drum set — especially the Fleetwood Mac covers—to make them really work. But wait, Lindsey didn’t want anything resembling a drum set on stage. Given these restrictions, Taku arrived at the unconventional setup I saw: A drum and percussion setup based around the SPD-20, SPD-S sample pad, and the TD-20, with the only acoustic instruments on stage being a cajon, a few cymbals, and a small assortment of percussion toys. From atop his cajon, he could smoothly and easily switch between his role as drummer or percussionist; choosing the role dictated by each song.

Taku is, again, seated in the percussionist’s chair behind Bette Midler in her new “The Showgirl Must Go On” production, beginning a two-year run (alternating with Cher and Elton John) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas — good work if you can get it! For this show he’s relying even more on Roland drum and percussion gear to get the job done.

Taku:
“For the Midler gig, I am using two SPD-20’s, two SPD-S’s, and seven two-zone PD-8 auxiliary pads. In addition to this, I am using three, electronic trigger pedals, and two electronic mallet controllers to cover all melodic/harmonic percussion (i.e. vibraphone, glockenspiel, timpani, orchestral chimes, etc.).” Taku elaborates, “On this gig, I have to cover everything from groove-related instruments (congas, bongos, timbales, handheld percussion), to acoustic sound effects (ratchet, popgun, slide whistle, bird calls), to sampled sound effects, to work, covering recorded samples in sync with what the dancers are performing onstage,” the dancer foley work being covered by the two SPD-S sample pads.

Taku Hirano’s broad-based training, skillful playing, and dedication to using all the tools that are available to him, help make him one of the busiest percussionists around.

Find out more about Taku at:
http://TakuHirano.com

Find out more about Roland Drum & Percussion Artists at:
http://www.roland.com/V-Drums/artists/