I’ve been drumming for a while but wherever I hear myself in a recording my sound is a little sloppy and never very tight, in terms of both timing and intensity of hits. Besides the obvious practicing rudiments and using a metronome, does anyone have any suggesting for how to improve on this?
Practice slow, slower that you probably expect, until intensity and timing is good, then gradually ramp up speed while keeping good technique. If it gets sloppy, slow down. Basically, this is the boring answer but: practice
Do you have a recording of you playing?
A fun thing for metronome practise: try to do less and less beats in the metronome. Not 4 quarters, but only 1 and 3, or only the first quarter note. Or half time the BPM even. With only 1 beat per 2 bars to give the timing you really have to keep track of keeping the time in between the beats.
I found metronome apps that let you insert gaps where the metronome doesn’t play, which seems similar to this. Thanks!