Real Time Hand Motion is a the name for the production collaboration and live performance group of Carson Carr and Christian Thomas. "RTHM" was originally the brainchild of Carson Carr aka “Busy.” In 1997, Carr had been writing and performing alongside 4 other drummers playing beats on buckets for tips on street corners under the name “Street Beats.” During this year he had the idea to incorporate their show into a live, electronic act. Three years later, after an insurance settlement was received by one of the six members of Real Time Hand Motion (appropriately named for six drummers simultaneously playing different elements of House and Drum & Bass music on drum pads, triggering samplers and synths) they invested $12,000 to purchase the gear they needed to make it happen. A year later, during the fall of 2001, Carr attended a drum and bass party in the rural college town of Murfreesboro, TN. During the party, he meet Christian Thomas aka “Crux” who was attending the university there and they quickly found themselves listening to each other’s tracks in the parking lot. During that conversation, they both realized that they shared quite a bit in common as they both had graduated from the same high school and performed at many of the same marching drum competitions, missing each other by chance. Carson then shared with Christian the idea of what he had been doing with RTHM and invited him to join. “It started as a group of guys who were really good at drums, but not djing. In fact, most didn’t really know anything about electronic music. So, it was a bunch of dudes sitting behind SPD-20 & PD-5 drumpads playing in every part…drums, bassline, even the vocals...one pad at a time.” Although very captivating to watch, it would take over a month of work just to set up one 4-6 minute song to be playable. “Once we had everything set up, then we could practice.” Unfortunately, the project was so intricate that it took years to coordinate and the other members lost patience and left the group. In the years following Carson’s and Christian’s meeting, RTHM underwent many different changes in members, hardware, software, and format. “We started the whole thing with the idea that we could make everything happen with just the drumpads, a sampler, and a synth. When the group dwindled down to just the two of us, we quickly realized that this would be harder than we had imagined.” During this time, Carr and Thomas both were regularly writing and producing new songs individually and collaboratively, finding their own “sound” as well as the sound of RTHM. Frequent collaborations with Matt Thomas, aka “M-Sonic” eventually produced what would be RTHM’s first track, “Get Ur Freak On”, a drum & bass remix of Missy Elliot’s popular 2001 hit. Carr and Thomas decided to chop up their version of this song and play it back using two sets of drumpads with a computer playing back whatever parts they couldn’t cover. This was the one and only song that was performed at RTHM’s first show in September 2003. For the first show, rendered video on a projector screen was also incorporated. This involved synching a pre-made music video for each song being played on a projector screen behind the performers. The added visuals made for a much more entertaining show for the party-goers. Over the next few months, more tracks were added at a very slow pace. However, in May of 2005, both decided to change the format. Still wanting to avoid the dj cliché, they brainstormed on ways to play back their songs without “just spinning records.” “We realized that the difference between a normal dj and us was that we made all of our tracks. Djs mostly only play other producer’s tracks. That gave us a huge advantage. We realized that, with all of our tracks sitting in the computers, we could split them into parts (i.e. drums, bass, melodic stuff, vocals) and do crazy stuff to them without effecting the whole song.” More importantly, this new way of Live P.A. / Djing allowed RTHM to create a show that could last from 30 minutes to well over an hour. Then things started to take off. “One day we were walking around a computer store and decided to look at some of the mice and joysticks. At the end of the aisle, our eyes both locked on a bunch on glowing blue lights. This flight simulator joystick put all of the others to shame so we called up Matt and asked if he knew any way that we could make them control our software. It really didn’t matter if he said yes or no cause we knew we had to buy them!” Carr and Thomas spent the next couple weeks in the studio, trying different software and configurations, eventually designing what would be their next trademark “instrument,” the GRIPS. Alongside a few MIDI keyboard controllers, they were now able to manipulate any part of a track they wanted in a way that the audience would appreciate, both audibly and visually. Real Time Hand Motion quickly began to get offers to perform outside of Nashville in cities such as Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, and Cincinnati. Building a fan base and constantly tweaking the hardware, the mixes improved as well as the tracks. They were also invited to hold multiple clinics at universities around the country to help teach up and coming producers/performers how to use the tools of their trade. Playing some shows that showcased their Drum & Bass tracks and some that showcased their House tracks, RTHM quickly found themselves producing more of the later. And in 2005 they produced “Nah Nah,” signed to Dj Sneak’s Oomph Records and found their song being played by all-star djs such as Mark Farina, Dj Heather, and Dj Sneak. Later tracks were signed to such labels as Jackin Tracks, Spatula City, Lingo Records, Guess Who, Kolour Recordings, Photo Records, and Greenhouse Recordings. These have found their way into the record boxes of djs like the Sound Republic, Dj Mes, Joey Youngman, Chuck Daniels, Bobby & Klein, and many more. Today, Real Time Hand Motion is regularly touring the US with plans to play in Europe, South America, and Australia on the horizon. When not on the road, they are constantly adding to their bag of goodies by producing and remixing some of the hottest electronic music found on today’s dance floors. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.