Frank Heiss is a drummer, electronic musician, producer, composer and teacher. He has toured the world as a performer, had recording contracts with a variety of record labels and shared his creative energy with audiences and students around the world. He has written articles for Keyboards Magazine in Germany on beat programming from a drummer’s perspective, and for EQ Magazine on hardware based electronic music performance. He has also given workshops on rhythm production with the Akai MPC series of sampling drum machines at The Battery Park Electronic Music Festival in Cologne, Germany.
Introduced to the drumming concept of linear patterns by his private teacher in high school, he later discovered the pioneering work of Gary Chaffee. Frank Heiss is taking the linear style into the electronic realm. It started with his almost unconscious inclination toward linear beat programming, but has now moved forward into electronic percussion, having discovered that linear patterns are the perfect tool for use with the extraordinary MIDI Controller DrumKAT by Alternate Mode in combination with Native Instruments KOMPLETE.
His training as a classical percussionist, which began at age 4 and culminated in being the youngest person to win the role of principal timpanist in the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra at New England Conservatory, gives Frank an appreciation for the value of collaborating across genres, as well as a special empathy for young musicians, whose questions and fresh perspectives have always been an exciting creative inspiration to all generations.