beat detective:an industry failsafe or helpfull tool

[Josephratf]

Some use it sparingly, major label work use it as a default to assure everything will run smooth. it might just be because I dont have it, but i find myself hating on it. I keep saying dont , dont hate. But how is this not destroying a good drummers feel.
I have a friend that recently worked on a major label record doing drum edits with a great drummer and we both agreed that the time he spent editing the drummer he could have nailed the song twice over.
Is this a must tool for now and the future of recording? (Do labels request it, as far as doing work out of my studio.)
Or is this tool making recording more unmusical as the sessions keep calling for it.
(On the other hand it does open up another job market. It sure was responsible for a pretty pay check that my friend kept reminding me with as he bought me the next drink saying "this is what real engineers make")

[lsn110]

If that's how real engineers make their $$, I'm glad I'm a fake.

[soundguy]

do you think a picasso would be worth all that money if he just did a paint by numbers water color?

beat detective is paint by numbers, period.

I feel bad for the young kids who idolize a band that RELIES on autotune to get a keeper vocal and beat detective to get a usable groove. Think about the paradox of that shit. Holy, you are my favorite drummer ever! Why thanks kid, but I owe it all to beat detective.

ugh.

dave

[Josephratf]

it turns my stomach too... I think the only thing that upset me more than finding out SANTA wasent real is when i found out bands werent playing live in the videos.
To find out its all fake as a young kid must feel like being a ribbon mic with phantom power

[jerrymac]

I think it's up to us to stop this crap. It's not so much the tools that bother me, it's the abuse of the tools. I have used pitch correction to save a track, and I have edited drum fills. I don't auto-tune everything and I don't use beat detective. I feel weird about using a metronome or click.

I guess my first sentance is kinda stupid. It's not up to us to stop this. It's going to continue to happen in pop music until you have a personalized pre-fab pop singer that you can download on your computer by selecting your likes and dislikes. There is eventually going to be two kinds of music, the kind that people like that is auto-tuned, rhythm-tuned, polished, limited and compressed, and marketed to people who don't care about any of that and then the type that isn't like that at all. When I realized this, I just started to ignore popular music. There is so much more intersting stuff out there that I can't even keep up. I just wish I could receive college stations a little better on the radio.

To wrap up my rambling post, I'm against it, too. I'm doing my part by not buying it.

jerry

and hey, Isn110, I'm in weymouth.

[lsn110]

Jerrymac's right on. I think that anything can be used creatively and to good ends. The problem is when a tool becomes a crutch/fad. I keep hoping (and believing) that the overuse of these tools is just a passing fad to which we will look back and say that was so 00's. Recording like fashion has plenty of bad ideas that become momentarily popular.

Waiting for the popular backlash....

And JM...neighbor...I'll shoot you a PM.

[XXGABEXX]

I'm glad I'm a fake.

Hey lsn110, I think I may have out-faked you. Sorry. I've never heard of a beat detective. I am assuming it's a drum beat corrector not unlike Autotune for vocals, which (I'm sad to say) I have heard of.

Bleh.

-GABE

[ctmsound]

Tim Alexander of Primus said it best: "Why edit drums? Just play it right the first time".

and he sure does.

[Toddf]

Its just another recording gadget to be used as a tool or as a crutch. I have had to use it for terrible drummers. The band and drummer loved what it did to his playing. They were happy clients. Hopefully now the drummer practices more. On the other hand I hear major label records where the drums could just as well be a drum machine from beat detective over use. Snare fills sounding robotic not natural. I have some producers that use it contantly and others who get the drummer to do his job. Todd F.

[marqueemoon]

I'm getting really tired of the cut and pasted together music aesthetic, and god forbid drums should have some feel.

The really sad thing is that this whole phenomenon has given rise to a new breed of robot drummers who get gigs solely for their ability to play to a click (in-ear monitors safely concealed behind their MTVemo haircuts of course) and whack the shit out of the drums with no degree of expression or musicality at all. After all, the live performance has to be just as soulless as the recording, right?

[joel hamilton]

I dont refuse to use it. I dont refuse to use anything in a creative manner.

I have used beat detective to do crazy stuff with things other than drums, and it is easier to make a grid that pushes and pulls with the drummer, so you can lock midi stuff like neat keyboards via midi to CV boxes, and they play in time to the drummer, not the computer. You can use these things in creative ways and make them WORK FOR YOU, rather than the other way around.

Anything is a problem if you make it one, like: "the frikking 1176 cant be turned all the way up without distorting my kick drum!"

That is either a problem or a welcome attribute.

Make the technology work for you and you have a really powerful tool on your hands.

(besides, recycle has been around for ages, and you could just fly measures, or even entire takes if you were patient out to that, then re import and overdub.)

Even sampling a snare and retriggering it on TAPE on a missed hit in an otherwise awesome take is "fake."

Each person will have their limit and preference as to what is too much faking or whatever.

What we are seeing now is the ultimate expression of technology that has been around since OVERDUBS were the new way to fake your way through this process.

When someone hands me a tool, I try to figure out how it works, not throw it away with a spiteful "this cant be used, it is too easy(fake/stupid/real/obvious/cheap/broken/interesting/wrong...etc...)

Learn the craft.

[joeysimms]

Joel, things must be well, you're really on a roll lately!

Exactly what Joel said.

[E-cue]

To find out its all fake as a young kid must feel like being a ribbon mic with phantom power

Like a Royer 122?

Tool is a tool is a tool. If someone paints over a freshly carpeted floor, that's on them. If you know when to use this stuff, it's a non-issue.

Who cares if it makes drums sound robotic: that's what I use it for. The same reason a lot of hip hop producers keep the quantize on when programing certain tracks in a MPC.

[allbaldo]

It seems like those who would entirely rule out click tracks/beat detective must be recording a lot of great drummers.

I agree that the unrealistic "perfection" of a lot of modern recording is annoying to listen to, but what are you supposed to do when you get a really crappy drummer and only a few days to do a project?... which happens a hell of a lot in my experience...let the recording suffer just to hear "real" feel?

Is it really better to just let the rhythmic thrust of the music be less than ideal? How does that make a better recording?

I've done many records both ways, and to me a recording with mediocre drumming is very difficult to listen to...even if everything else in the recording is great.

Someone said to me once, "A click can make a mediocre drummer really good, or a great drummer really good". And that holds true....but I'd rather hear a really good drummer than a mediocre one.

....that being said, I can't wait till the next time I get to record a GREAT drummer...with the click OFF!

[joel hamilton]

A great drummer would sound about the same with the click on or off.

A great drummer makes the loop or click come to them, not the other way around....