click tracks

[horhey]

just wondering what your opinions of them are. do you like playing/recording with them? do you hate them? does your drummer suck at playing along with them?

if your song has lots of tempo/time sig changes do you program special clicks? what programs do you use?

do you pay a midget to run around on stage in a leprechaun suit hitting a cowbell to keep timing during live shows?

how many clicks to the center of a tootsie pop?

[Sister Khaos]

I would not record without one. I just finished a recording project with a rock band that has never really used one and their drummer did fine. Recording without a click can lead to really sloppy work and may leave you with something almost impossible to edit.

As far as playing live with one, it depends on what type of music you play and what you want to bring to the table. It can make a band a lot tighter, but if you are used to following the natural groove of a drummer, it could also come off as forced and bad. I think playing with a click is a matter of personal taste.

I do think that anyone, including drummers, wanting to hone their skills and better their timing issues, should practice to and learn to play with a click. It makes for a tighter musician. Even singers can benefit from that.

Every sequencer I ever used, keyboards, cubase, logic, protools, had a simple way to accomodate time changes. It is not hard once you get going at it.

I have had a midget on stage but he was not there to keep timing...

And I think it would be 190bpm's X 30 for me to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

[skankdrummer]

I enjoy recording with click tracks.

[Enkryajake]

Probably one of the most important things we learned while recording "It's About Time" was that click tracks are pretty much a necessity. Scotty hated the idea of playing to a click track, so we said "No, we won't use one."

Once the drums were recorded and we started doing bass and guitars, we started noticing all these slight tempo changes and songs that started with guitar riffs took multiple takes to sync up with where the drums came in. It was a major bitch, and I'll never record another album without one. (Sorry Scotty!)

For the new shit we've been writing, if I need just a quick/basic click with no tempo or time changes, I'll just use Fruity Loops. If there are time sig changes I'll use Pro Tools, which has a fairly easy to use click.

[Frank the Hammer]

Any musician who thinks they are good enough to record in a real studio (or the basment studio down the street) should learn to play to a click.

It really should be part of learning music.

It speeds the recording process up and will give you a better result.

[Morbid]

Recording the new Funeral Age CD to a click made a HUGE difference on the speeds of some of our songs. I thought I had all of the songs down without a click (yes I did practice with one a few times before we went in) at practice, but going in I realized that some of the beats were actually a little slower than what we'd been playing. When I listened to the first Funeral Age CD, (I wasn't on it) they didn't use a click and you can tell, which makes it harder to learn the songs off of it since the tempos speed up and slow down throughout the songs.

I don't practice to one, I should, but they are a pain in the ass and I only want to use them during recording.

[Adremelech]

Recording to a click makes editing 100,000,000 times easier and makes a much better sounding product as a result. That's reason enough to do it!

[horhey]

if been trying to tab our songs in powertab but that shit can get frustrating if you dont know a lot of music theory. but i figure it'd be the best way.

i agree though, better to record with a click. i know some bands are all about the feel, but if you are playing technical stuff it can start sounding like crap.

[Drew]

You can still get plenty of "feel" when playing to a click. It just ensures that every thing is in sync, and as stated above - makes digital editing much easier.

Stump (JN drummer) practices to a click/metronome every single day, and then goes nutso-fucking-crazy with it about a month before we hit the studio. He refuses to record with any of us in his headphones, and has the click on exclusively for his drum tracks. He generally knocks out his parts in 1 or 2 takes cause he's so tight from practicing with it by the time we hit record. It then makes bass/gtr easier to record, esp if there are breaks with no drums, etc. (saves time, studio money, and helps you deliver a better product)

I give guitar lessons to kids and always make all their parents buy a cheap metronome, cause it just sets good habits for playing. (part of learning music)

[Blake NWR]

Our situation was the same as Jake's when we did our newest CD, as well. Our producer even said the next time we work with him, we're using a click (and our drummer thankfully agreed).

There ARE drummers out there who record without a click (i.e. Danny Carey)... but he's really really good.

[skipp666]

Danny "the human metronome" Carey!

There ARE drummers out there who record without a click (i.e. Danny Carey)... but he's really really good.

[Adremelech]

Danny Carey also has the money to pay an engineer the extra time it takes to edit. When you have your recording software counting 1,2,3,4 for each measure, it REALLY helps to have the recorded music synced with it...hence the usage of a click track.

Of course if you do indeed play your parts perfectly, and there isn't a need to move track segments around, then the no-click recording would be OK.

[RockMyMonkey]

The last band I was in broke up because the drummer thought he was too good for a click track. Truth is that he needed it more than any drummer I have heard. His timing sucked, but his ego was huge. His energy was great. His taste in playing was good. Everything about him as a drummer was perfect except for his timing. So I thought if we could get him to start playing with a click he would be the perfect drummer. I still think this argument was worth breaking up over because without that click he sucked and with it he would have been amazing.

[mickey brown-eye]

I like them too

[pimp_randy_mack]

nice two cents worth gappy brown eye

[Ciaran]

Try rehearsing with the band with a click for awhile. When you play your next show, without it, you might be suprised at how much tighter you are.

I'm divided about using them in the studio though. Figure out which of your songs have time changes and which don't. There might be some that speed up or slow down a bit but don't really benefit from doing so. These are the ones you'll want to put a click to first. Some songs need those changes, so its up to you.

[mickey brown-eye]

nice two cents worth gappy brown eye

thanks! I thought so

[BigHurknFrontman]

Six in one, half-dozen the other, in MY opinion.

I know drummers who can't even hold onto their sticks without a click track.

They always throw me off, though.

[4G]

We used one for the new CLAW album and I would never go back to not having one. Since all of our Piano, Keys and Strings are midi, without a click track it would have been next to impossible to get right in any reasonable amount of time.

4G