Post your clicks

[Gregg Juke]

You may not be trolling, but I am forced to call nonsense. Boulderdash and onion sauce, I say! There is nothing artistically stultifying or inherently wrong with subdividing. We all must do it one way or another, whether playing those subdivisions out loud or not. Those of us that do it quite well we call drummers and percussionists. And it will never hurt you to feel the spaces between the beats better, or to understand where someone else that you are playing with is coming from rhythmically, even if that someone else is a drum-machine or computer.

GJ

[cgarges]

You may not be trolling, but I am forced to call nonsense. Boulderdash and onion sauce, I say! There is nothing artistically stultifying or inherently wrong with subdividing.

A click is inherently a subdivision, no? Isn't that the whole point of a click track? I'm with you, Gregg!

Yeah, some clicks can be too busy, but for the most part I MUCH prefer playing with some kind of percussion part that DOESN'T accentuate the things I'm likely to be playing. And if I have a click like that, I'm more likely to put more space into my grooves. Sort of like playing with a good percussionist. If the conga player has the groove happening on a cha cha, all the drummer has to do is play cowbell and it should work beautifully.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[digital eagle audio]

you call nonsense on someone's opinion?
there absolutely is a difference between letting a performer use the measure how they see fit (for example swinging, not swinging, dragging) while having the downbeats as a reference, and doubling the amount of information their ears need to process.
i've subdivided the click and the performer requested quarter clicks only. i wasn't saying one way was wrong and one right.

[cgarges]

I've done it both ways and when I'm playing, I prefer subdivisions, assuming that they're appropriate for the tune. I mean, sure, a straight-16th subdivisions is going to be wrong for something that's swinging. Of course! But to suggest that a subdivided click is fucking me up is not the case AT ALL. Sure, some people prefer something simpler and if I'm engineering, I'm 100% on board to accommodate them. But when I'm playing, my preference is for a more subdivided click because A) it helps me play in a more relaxed fashion, and B) it's generally more fun. And isn't that at least part of the goal?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[fedexnman]

Great Post !! I usually use a VST like EZ drummer and MIDI drum file looped . I'll record acoustic guitar too it and sing and play at the same time , then Ill mess with the tempo in till Im right on with it . I hate a metronome its so mono and bland , I can play guitar to one, but not play guitar and sing or lip sync at the same time to a metronome .

[Judas Jetski]

I have an old Boss Dr. Rhythm that I like to use for myself. I program in the nearest approximation of the actual beat that I can find, get a scratch track of one instrument (usually guitar, sometimes bass) and play 'solo' to that. My brain hears the stilted rhythms and says "they're playing it wrong!" The rest of me compensates by dialing in a little more feel... thereby t urning the compulsive, perfectionistic, anal-retentive elements of my personality into a plus. Works like a charm, every time.

OTOH, our regular drummer utterly hates any sort of click track. Says it throws him off. But he's pretty... uh... metronomic...? already--once he gets a beat and tempo in his head, it pretty much stays there (for good or ill).

[roygbiv]

good topic.
sort of on-topic....since most of my songs start out with guitar, i've noticed that almost invariably the first couple 'scratch' guitars i record end up being the best, feel-wise. even if i'm playing to a shitty drum machine. basically i feel like the first guitars i throw down sound like The Song, whereas if i try and redo them later, it sounds like i'm playing the song. if that makes any sense.

CK, sorry to OT an epic TO thread, but TBH, MSE comment is worthy of a thread in itself. IMHO.

I have the exact same experience. My best takes are always the 1st or maybe 2nd. Sadly, they more often than not also contain a flub or two, and then I have to figure out how to deal with that. Capturing a direct line in recording and reamping can help fix that, but stilll...,

I've read that some of my favorite artists suffer this syndrome (Neal Young, Westerberg, Joe Strummer).

Apparently, Neal Young will often not let his fellow musicians rehearse a new song before recording it. His goal is to get the elusive "real", or "live" feel of the musicians responding and reacting to the essence of the song when they first hear it for the 1st time, which he can then capture on tape. Rather than letting them practice and then just play their parts, as MSE alludes to above, or in my case, start to introduce to many "precious" parts.

Anyway, I would love to see a thread describing how to best manage the "first take" wonders.

Maybe in some kind of "producers tricks thread" like cgarges was suggesting to to roscoenyc earlier this week? That might be as cool as this thread is.

Anyway, I'm learning a lot here about better ways to click track, please carry on.