Did the Beatles use metronomes while recording?

[brownshoes77]

analog vs digital!!?!?! grrr!

i duno guys. fuck it, click tracks can be awesome, or they can be not awesome. that's about it!

ian

[heylow]

Joel and John....

Well said. Taken out of context, this subject is honestly worthless....at least for anything other than message board banter and pissing contests.

Too many people seem to only look at thing at one angle.

Tools is just tools....for instance, while I have no great love for click tracks, we do ALL of our records to a click. Is it cuz we suck? Nope. It's because I need to engineer drums while my drummer plays and all that the job entails. I can't very well be playing guitar, moving mics, watching levels AND giving the drummer intelligent input on the performance.

With a click, all I do is put a couple of scratch bits down and let the drummer get wicked. Everything else is done to the drums. It's a means to an end...nothing more, nothing less.

Lots of bands have to do this. I know that Spoon was doing the same thing last I heard. I know they have help these days with Mike McCarthy but I believe it's still done the same way....drums to click and everything else to drums.


I think too many people wear some of this shit like it's a badge of courage or something more than it is. Make good records....the rest is trivial.

I'm just sayin'


heylow

[drumsound]

I don't know if the Beatles used a click track, but I can tell you alot of their songs would be extremely difficult to play with a click because they shift tempo and add odd little bars with irregular beats (Happiness is a Warm gun, Here comes the sun, etc) , and sometimes they even change time signature as well as tempo (e.g., Lucy in the sky, Happiness is a warm gun, she said). As far as practicing with a metronome, though, I've been practicing guitar with one for a while and it has helped my playing immensely.

I reguards to Here Comes the Sun, the syncopation is completely in time and quite easy (IMNSHO) even easier with a metranome. The accent falls every third eigth note. Easy as pie if you're counting.

[joeysimms]

It's really not a pissing contest. Practice with a metronome? Fine if ya want, but, don't claim that not playing to one is worse. Period.

[JGriffin]

don't claim that not playing to one is worse.

Er, dude, no one on this thread said that. If anything, the prevailing winds seem to be blowing towards click-users being more tolerant of not using one than the other way around.

[hammertime]

Actually the part you'll have trouble with, though, is the bridge. There's no way you'll be able to play it without resetting the metronome. I was just practicing the song the other day. Go back and listen to it.

I don't know if the Beatles used a click track, but I can tell you alot of their songs would be extremely difficult to play with a click because they shift tempo and add odd little bars with irregular beats (Happiness is a Warm gun, Here comes the sun, etc) , and sometimes they even change time signature as well as tempo (e.g., Lucy in the sky, Happiness is a warm gun, she said). As far as practicing with a metronome, though, I've been practicing guitar with one for a while and it has helped my playing immensely.

I reguards to Here Comes the Sun, the syncopation is completely in time and quite easy (IMNSHO) even easier with a metranome. The accent falls every third eigth note. Easy as pie if you're counting.

[hammertime]

Wait a minute, you might be right. I guess this book the Complete Beatles just notates the last 2 bars of the bridge as 2/4 followed by 3/8. I'm not sure, though. Not that it really matters.

Actually the part you'll have trouble with, though, is the bridge. There's no way you'll be able to play it without resetting the metronome. I was just practicing the song the other day. Go back and listen to it.

I don't know if the Beatles used a click track, but I can tell you alot of their songs would be extremely difficult to play with a click because they shift tempo and add odd little bars with irregular beats (Happiness is a Warm gun, Here comes the sun, etc) , and sometimes they even change time signature as well as tempo (e.g., Lucy in the sky, Happiness is a warm gun, she said). As far as practicing with a metronome, though, I've been practicing guitar with one for a while and it has helped my playing immensely.

I reguards to Here Comes the Sun, the syncopation is completely in time and quite easy (IMNSHO) even easier with a metranome. The accent falls every third eigth note. Easy as pie if you're counting.

[hammertime]

You could probably find out if they played to a click by copying a song to your DAW and analyzing any deviations in tempo, if you really feel like wasting your time.

[contramark]

You could probably find out if they played to a click by copying a song to your DAW and analyzing any deviations in tempo, if you really feel like wasting your time.

thats a smart idea, never thought to do that (and probably never will) but it would show whether things deviate.

[drumsound]

Wait a minute, you might be right. I guess this book the Complete Beatles just notates the last 2 bars of the bridge as 2/4 followed by 3/8. I'm not sure, though. Not that it really matters.

Actually the part you'll have trouble with, though, is the bridge. There's no way you'll be able to play it without resetting the metronome. I was just practicing the song the other day. Go back and listen to it.

I don't know if the Beatles used a click track, but I can tell you alot of their songs would be extremely difficult to play with a click because they shift tempo and add odd little bars with irregular beats (Happiness is a Warm gun, Here comes the sun, etc) , and sometimes they even change time signature as well as tempo (e.g., Lucy in the sky, Happiness is a warm gun, she said). As far as practicing with a metronome, though, I've been practicing guitar with one for a while and it has helped my playing immensely.

I reguards to Here Comes the Sun, the syncopation is completely in time and quite easy (IMNSHO) even easier with a metranome. The accent falls every third eigth note. Easy as pie if you're counting.

I was referring to the turnaround syncopation. So I went and listened to the record and figured out the bridge. I would interpret it a little differently than the music you have, but yes the time signature does change.

Now here is the rub. It would still be quite easy and useful to use a metronome. When there are shifts from 4/4 to X/8 unless otherwise noted the eight note will remain constant. Thus the metronome can instead of clicking quarter notes, it can/should click eight notes. So during 4/4 sections the metronome would be clicking 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, but during (for instance) 7/8 the clicks would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. So in "Here Comes the Sun" using your sheet music example the metronome would be going at a constant eighth note click and counted 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and 1 2 3. Does this make sense? I'd be happy to delve further.

**(Short diatribe here---Time signatures are NOT fractions but two numbers referencing two different things, but when typing there is no way to effectively stack them as a time signature should be expressed. In hand written correspondence I would never put the slash!)**

[hammertime]

If I recall with Here Comes the Sun, I had to change the tempo on the metronome when I hit the bridge. Maybe I was confusing the time signature changes with happiness is a Warm gun, I really can't remember. Maybe I'll go play it again. Having said that, most of the songs on that album are full of tempo changes and odd little measures here and there.

Wait a minute, you might be right. I guess this book the Complete Beatles just notates the last 2 bars of the bridge as 2/4 followed by 3/8. I'm not sure, though. Not that it really matters.

Actually the part you'll have trouble with, though, is the bridge. There's no way you'll be able to play it without resetting the metronome. I was just practicing the song the other day. Go back and listen to it.

I don't know if the Beatles used a click track, but I can tell you alot of their songs would be extremely difficult to play with a click because they shift tempo and add odd little bars with irregular beats (Happiness is a Warm gun, Here comes the sun, etc) , and sometimes they even change time signature as well as tempo (e.g., Lucy in the sky, Happiness is a warm gun, she said). As far as practicing with a metronome, though, I've been practicing guitar with one for a while and it has helped my playing immensely.

I reguards to Here Comes the Sun, the syncopation is completely in time and quite easy (IMNSHO) even easier with a metranome. The accent falls every third eigth note. Easy as pie if you're counting.

I was referring to the turnaround syncopation. So I went and listened to the record and figured out the bridge. I would interpret it a little differently than the music you have, but yes the time signature does change.

Now here is the rub. It would still be quite easy and useful to use a metronome. When there are shifts from 4/4 to X/8 unless otherwise noted the eight note will remain constant. Thus the metronome can instead of clicking quarter notes, it can/should click eight notes. So during 4/4 sections the metronome would be clicking 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, but during (for instance) 7/8 the clicks would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. So in "Here Comes the Sun" using your sheet music example the metronome would be going at a constant eighth note click and counted 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and 1 2 3. Does this make sense? I'd be happy to delve further.

**(Short diatribe here---Time signatures are NOT fractions but two numbers referencing two different things, but when typing there is no way to effectively stack them as a time signature should be expressed. In hand written correspondence I would never put the slash!)**

[drumsound]

Since I had it out i listened to all of Abbey Road. I love the odd time things and syncopations.

Here Comes the Sun is pretty even if you keep the eigth note constant.

[hammertime]

Yeah, if there's one thing I got from the Beatles it has to be that. I almost think they're doing it more as a poetic device then something planned out like Zappa or Brubeck. Like that 2/4, 3/8 thing. It's just a way of saying, "dum, Dum; DUm, DUM, DUM!" -- DA!!! Or in "Revolution," adding that little 2/4 bar in a blues song makes it flow in a sort of unique way.

Since I had it out i listened to all of Abbey Road. I love the odd time things and syncopations.

Here Comes the Sun is pretty even if you keep the eigth note constant.

[contramark]

i never use a metronome that clicks on the down beat, it almost always leads to problems. time signatures should change frequently.

[Mr PC]

I didn't think many classic bands used metronomes. It was just expected that a competent drummer could keep time, and I think they generally did just that.

A lot of Beatles songs sped up due to editing different takes together that had slightly different tempos. They adjusted the speed on the tape machines to make them match sometimes. I think this is a good hint to the fact that they didn't regularly use a metronome.

Listen to You Won't See Me. That tempo is all over the friggin place because of editing takes together.

Blackbird was recorded with the metronome in the track for artistic reasons, because it sounded cool, I think.

I also recall MacCartney commenting that the Beatles sped up and slowed down, but they did it together so it sounded alright. That is music to me. I think that a good tight band would generally sound better with no click. Of course song by song this might not be true. I might add that I use a click when I record myself on drums.....

If you listen to Baba O'Riley, you can hear Keith Moon charge into the opening fill and then ease back as he realizes he is ahead of the synth track (a click, effectively).

boogers

PC