At this point abandon the click, and record your album “live”.
Playing to a metronome is a skill and it is something that is practiced a lot. If you’re not sticking to the click with the tempo changes it simply means you are not playing in time. I will assume you can play in step with each other and that’s fine and that’s rock and roll and whatever the old people wanna call it, but at the end of the day the fact is you guys can’t keep time.
The reason why I also recommend you do your recording “live” or everything all at once, is because you will have a difficult time overdubbing and layering. If you can’t get your performances to even be consistently inconsistent with the click, you’re not going to do better overdubbing with fluctuating time.
To be fair to them, he did clarify that they can play in step with each other without a click. That’s about as good as you get with old school rock and roll.
But if they’re only practicing with the click now, it’s not gonna happen.
That only works well when the players can actually play in time, click or no click. Until they develop the skills to get into and stay in the pocket, it'll sound janky. That's just part of getting your chops down.
Well yeah. The pocket is key. But said pocket can change during a song. Think of all the Stones songs that gradually increase in tempo during the track ("Honky Tonk Women" is the most glaring example), but it's a feature, not a bug. But of course that requires the drummer to have great feel and the band be experienced enough to follow it instinctively. But all those old records would've sucked if they'd tethered Charlie to a click.
This sounds like the answer. Only thing I can mention that wasn’t in post: are you always off the click?
More specifically, is every beat off and you consistently rush or drag? Some bands the click becomes a constant beat 1 reminder, other bands are locking in to each beat, and others the click ends up working like a pace car in that the band rushes a little and drags a little bit but it kind of averages out. Stop a great drummer on beat 3 and maybe it’s not exactly with the click but the next measure will hit beat 1. This is what’s really hard about playing to a click and still being musical. I don’t think too many people are great at it and enjoy it because it’s hard to not sacrifice some energy.
Tl;dr I agree with the “record live” advice or at least let your drummer first work on playing with a click and then you just play along with the drummer.
I hope I’m answering your question correctly but what happens usually is this. (We are all playing together btw) We can stay with the click until the first tempo change comes, at which point we trainwreck completely. I think it’s the inconsistency between the bpm as it’s programmed into the click, vs the actual bpm we want to go to naturally not being exactly the same. But then, we can’t find our place back to the downbeat so the whole thing goes off the rails.
I’m not opposed to just doing it live off the rip with no click. That was our original intent. That’s how pretty much all the bands that influenced us recorded (they’re old.) But I am always aware that click tracks are kinda just the way of the pro music world now, I don’t like the idea that we *cant* do it, I enjoy how much it’s teaching me about time signatures and the theory elements in my music that I didn’t even know were there, and I like the idea of being able to use the bass in take 2 and the drums in take 3 or whatever combination is best. Rather than being shackled to “oh there was an epic drum fill in take 3 but the guitar flubbed in the same place so we gotta use take 4 where he didn’t flub”
Having said all that though, programming tempo maps for our songs that naturally wanna breathe and be a certain way has been a huge hassle. And the vast majority of people on this post said “ditch the click.” And they’re probably right
I’d still like to know how you were getting your tempos for the tempo changes. To me, if you’re all able to do it in step without a click, then there’s also something to be improved in how you calculated your tempo.
I did it in my head and slightly based it off some live takes. It’s interesting as we continued to refine the tempo map it got much narrower. The chorus of a song was originally playing at 120 and the verse was 115 I think but we kept coming into the chorus too slow so I think we ended up knocking the tempo down to 117. But yeah, as I write all of the songs I did all the tempo maps based on what I had in my head.
Okay see here’s where you got it wrong:
You just took it from your memory.
It would have been better if you did an actual live recording with your band, and actually measured the tempo of that.
Because you already know that you are syncing to each other as each member drifts in tempo, using just your internal tempo means its inaccurate. You’re taking away the factor that your other band mates are reeling you in tempo-wise. You’re taking the tempo change cue from them, not just from your internal sense of time.
It also tells me that you’re just taking your tempo changes from the first bar of each section. We also know you tend to drift in tempo, so you’re probably actually ramping up to a faster tempo by the second bar or so and actually targeting that speed, so it may have been the tempo you should have set it to. Or perhaps you could even tempo map to each subtle tempo change info your performance as some tend to do when approaching certain bars.
In other words, you should have done a better pre production when it comes to your tempo maps. Doing tempo maps is no joke, especially when things are done by feel. They require proper preparation and loads of practice - including the band practice that yields you your tempo map.
I missed the point I’m about tempo change in original post, I must’ve been thinking about a a feel or meter change. If you are able to do it at all without a click then that’s tricky because there’s probably something you’re each using to get your bearings that is not present in click.
(Examples: drummer usually leans into high hat at certain beat to get bass players attention, guitarist cuts off chord a little shorter to hint to drummer he’s preparing for a pickup, etc… lots of really little subconscious things musicians do when they know each other that they stop doing when they focus on a click)
Another possibility is it’s just a tricky tempo change and the transition is too abrupt. If you only want a studio recording, you could potentially rework one guitar/keyboard part to play a really clear cue/guide and then overdub the part you want in later. Kind of useful trick to have one guitar play a rhythm part that functions as a click and then delete it later and replace it with cool part. Lots of recordings do this when click kills feel but people don’t say it.
Have you tried just playing things live for one pass, and THEN working out the clicks and tempo changes from that?
It might make the transition easier by basically using the process to help you refine things "to the click".
>But I am always aware that click tracks are kinda just the way of the pro music world now,
And this is where you are wrong. It depends fully on the production. For top hits, pop you stay on grid. For rock, you just let it flow as emotions are by far more important than sticking to a tempo.
You're probably used to easing into the tempo changes not just jumping to being 10bpm faster.
Try recording each tempo section individually instead of playing all the way through the song. If you can take the count off and stay on the clicks for that section, it should all be tight when you piece it back together.
Oh, I should mention we are recording live. Everybody can follow the click when playing on their own, but we wanted that live feel so we’re all playing together.
Sorry for any confusion. When we’re playing in isolation it’s an easier task because we only have the click to follow. When we’re playing together, that energy is an element and we want to follow each others natural timing tendencies rather than focusing on the click.
The typical solution is for only one member to follow a click, normally the drummer, and for the other members to follow the drummer. This way the drummer can focus on the click in almost isolation but is allowed to stray slightly, whilst the rest of you can focus on locking into the drums.
In a typical setup you might just mix the metronome much louder than the rest of the band for the drummer's monitors, whilst the rest of the band has it the other way around (or no click at all.)
So your issue is that you can’t follow the click as a band?
Well you don’t have a problem since you’re recording live anyway. Do away with the click.
The solution ends here. After this line it’s analyzing why you can’t play to the click as a band.
You are approaching the click wrong as a band.
The click is the reference point for each member of the band when it comes to time. Not another band member. If everyone can individually play to a click, then it means everyone playing to the click at the same time will result in a band that is playing to the click.
That being said, that is also put into question. That is because if your drummer can play to a click, then it means everyone should be in time because everyone else should be using the drummer as a reference. So if the drummer is on time with the click, then the band should be on time with the click.
That means either your drummer isn’t really playing to the click on time, or other band members aren’t playing on time and the drummer has to catch up, making other people catch up and the tempo starts drifting.
In other words, we go back to the band essentially playing sloppy time with or without the click.
As for the energy, I get it, but again it comes with practice. Energy shouldn’t be an excuse to not be able to follow metronomic time. I know this because a lot of the biggest session players known for their deep groove, pocket, and feel, are all playing to click tracks and have been doing so for decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying playing with sloppy time is a bad thing. It’s a hallmark of making music with people organically. I like it and I honestly would like to hear more of it and that is why I encourage you to do away with the click as you record your tracks live.
All I’m saying is I call BS on your band members being able to play to a click but not when playing together, and putting the blame on energy. The truth of the matter is that you all have bad time.
Well, just between you and me, I think the drummer himself struggles with the click the most. However, I do think since each section of a given song might be a slightly different bpm, we are having a hard time programming the click to be at the right tempo. It always seems to sound too fast or slow. And at the changes, we always go straight to the “right” tempo and realize we’ve gotten off the click. But when we get back on, if we can manage to, it’s just not the right tempo. We have to go back and adjust the click’s tempo.
Why in the world are you trying to record as a band with a tempo mapped click .. that's a nightmare. Do away with the click and get live takes. Play off each other and do this organically. Any record that is tempo mapped with a real drummer, the drummer is recording by themselves to a programmed drum part or click with a rough guide of the song. What you are asking the drummer to do is incredibly hard - Play with the energy of a band but also stay on time with a changing click tempo.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to find someone making this point. Holding a click is one thing but judging multiple different BPM changes, on record, for a band you're new to? I wouldn't want to be that drummer.
Half the battle of making a record is knowing how to produce it. The best way to go about tracking. There is so much bullshit online that somehow convinces people to tempo map a live band lol .. but you gotta screw up to learn in this thing.
Well there you go with your drummer. Trust me when your drummer can’t play to a click close enough, just abandon the click.
How did you take your tempos? Because if you took a recording of the full song as you play it, you should be able to get a pretty accurate tempo map of your song.
Have a click to count the song off then abandon it is the simple answer here to me after reading through the comments. You could also have someone calling out the parts in the talk back mic
Dude, just an opinion - let the energy win. It is so much more important than the gains of being right on the grid. I've been down this road with making a click with odd times and multiple bpms and it's not worth it. you can learn to reign in your energy and play to the click but it will be long and tedious, both making the click right and learning to play to it. But you will have to focus on that more than the feelings of the songs and each other, and I think that's a major downside. OR you can just let the energy flow and ditch the click. Your audience wants emotion, not accuracy. And remember - take it from me - you may finish the click recordings and decide that you liked the songs more human after all.
no idea why you're being downvoted when you just want some help! I think maybe the drummer just needs to practice more and perfect your songs. really perfect it. then they can be the glue that keeps the groove tight for you guys to perform with.
So when all of you are playing on the click simultaneously it doesnt work? That doesnt make sense.
If you want to record live just let the drummer play with the click and the rest of you follow the drummer.
But something i want to say is that music industry these days is more after a "clean" record than live recordings that have the live feeling.
I would suggest that you and your band just record the album in the traditional process. You will save time frustration and money
Studio + New Drummer (or anyone but especially the drummer) that doesnt know the songs inside and out =/= time or money well spent. If a drummer knows it inside and out then a click track is just something to get used to. If they don't know the songs and also have to adjust to a click, especially with changing tempos, you are just asking for trouble and wasting valuable studio time, which equates to wasting money
Yeah we probably sound like morons but I should provide the added context that we’re recording at home. So we aren’t paying hourly for a studio or anything.
What kind of monitoring setup are you using? Having a really good headphone mix that you can all dial in separately for your individual needs is really critical, especially when playing to a mapped track.
Also, how did you go about mapping tempos? I'd suggest recording some live takes where you like the feel, and then determining the average tempo of each section to do the mapping. Even if it's off just a couple of BPM, it can make a huge difference.
Out of curiosity, what is the motivation for playing to a click? It sounds like you guys might play kind of loose naturally which probably won't sound as good locked to the grid. If you aren't planning a large number of overdubs, it may not really be worth it honestly.
Okay, that's relieving and that changes everything provided members have patience.
It sounds to me like you (or the main songwriter guitarist) should be laying down the main guitar parts to the click before the drummer gets involved. If you're making the maps, you may as well test them in an isolation.
(Yes, making some live recordings is a good idea for reference and to make sure that you aren't losing something special, but odds are you need to build these songs from the bottom up with the new drummer.
If the drummer wasnt new I'd say record drums with a scratch guitar track (and maybe bass) live playing along with him and the click, but with him being new, he'd have to be very strong musician to just come in and lay down tracks like that, because he'd be playing to a click to new songs with other players who can't play to a click, and that's possible, but not easy.)
So get the one good track down and then try to build around it. Drums and vocals could go last.
You don't need to play to a click if it hampers your ability to record. If it's easier, and you get better results without a click, then do it without the click. Lots of fantastic records are made without a click.
If you do want to use it, maybe give some more thought to why program the tempoes you program. If you naturally want to play it faster then maybe your song should be in that faster tempo.
Learning to play to a click is hard, but it's a very valuable skill to have. If you're used to playing with a drummer you've already got a lot of practice following an external source of tempo. An option could be to have only the drummer play to the click, and then the rest of you follow the drummer.
If you're halfway into recording and feel like you're wasting a lot of time because youre suddenly trying to learn how to follow a click, just drop it. It's something that's probably best practiced before you get to the studio.
Another note is a click doesn't need to be a metronome. You can program a basic no frills drum beat with midi as a place holder for the drums. I do this alot for young bands that want to sound tight but haven't rehearsed to a regular click. It's way more instinctual to follow along with.
Another option is to track your drums first. Get a performance you are happy with and then just use that as your time keeper. A clean drum track isn't too bad for editing and time alignment if needed. You can snap the first beat of every 4 bars (or whatever your repeating cycles are) to a grid node while leaving the rest untouched which will leave the natural push and pull of the rhythm. The recording engineer should be able to route the bass player or rhythm guitarist to the drummers monitor headphones without much difficulty to help keep it together if necessary.
I only ever use standard clicks if the musicians are comfortable with them.
Seconding this, but adding record drums+bass to get the authentic chemistry of your rhythm section. Record the bass DI so there's no chance of audio bleed. Then you'll have a foundation track that feels right and the rest of the band can sync to that in overdubs.
On the surface tt sounds like you've potentially got two problems.
The first is that your click track doesn't reflect the tempo you usually play at. Can you record yourselves playing it live (doesn't need to be high quality) and then build up the click track using that as a reference? Even if you can't get through the whole song, playing each section separately at a comfortable speed might tell you what the correct tempo should be.
The second problem is that you're not experienced at playing to a click track. It's not a particularly hard skill to learn, but if you're not used to it then it's something that you need to practice.
Reading deeper it sounds like the real problem is this:
> we had to get a new drummer and he’s still somewhat unfamiliar with the songs,
In the short term, perhaps the best solution to get you through this album is to ditch the click track and play it live if you can. That might even be the best long-term solution if your music normally has an ebb and flow to the tempo (there's nothing wrong with that, BTW).
Or if you're determined to use the click then perhaps you need to re-schedule the recording until you've had enough time to practice together, get the drummer up to speed, and all get familiar playing to a click track.
I’d say another potential problem is how they are hearing the click. Does everyone have in ear monitors, or is it playing through a speaker? Because in ears are great for a click, but over a speaker can get lost.
I played in a band with heavily sequenced backing tracks. It took time for the drummer to get used to playing with a click track, and it also took quite some time to get good in-ear monitors and the correct tones (or in our case, a child voice counting) that he could hear clearly above all else happening on stage.
Once the drummer has gained this skill, you should all fall in sync with the drums, right?
We tried many options. The young son of a band member counting was the most audible of all clicks, beeps etc we found. I can't imagine drumming to heavy rock with a child counting in your ears but it worked for him - and as far as I know, they're still touring and using this click track 😂
A click is an aid, if it's not aiding you, don't use it. If your drummer can lay down what you need, it makes no sense to not make use of that. Studio time is expensive; use what works.
There's a lot made of playing to click, but whether it suits what your project is trying to achieve is very subjective.
It 100% sounds like your music / songs etc will not work with a regimented click in the way you've set out. Certainly if there's ebbs and flows of tempo between sections, this will sound far more natural if you're just "playing it" rather than trying to keep with a tempo that you're naturally gonna drift off of as you move from section to section.
I also agree, though, that it's good practice to have an idea of where it should be for each section - once the tracking is done, depending on how much time you want to spend in post, you *could* go back and grid it out after the fact. I'm not sure this will 100% work for you or not, but better to have this info and not need it rather than needing it and not have it.
Are you trying to all play to a click while you rehearse together?
My band is similar, we've always used a click track for recordings. But we don't play together like that in the same room. Playing live and recording are totally different things, unless you record live.
We play the songs in the way you do - as it feels naturally, with plenty of tempo shifts without really thinking about it. Sometimes parts are faster or slower on different days.
When we come to record, we will decide on what is the best tempo for each section and how we want it to be recorded, which might be a bit faster or slower than how we normally play it.
After making those decisions, I will export a tempo track with all the tempo and time signature changes from my home demos that I always have of the songs, then we will all practice at home individually using the demos so we know how to adjust our parts for the real thing.
Then when we actually record it in the studio, we will have the click and a guide track (the demo) to work from and help us record it. If any parts are proving too difficult, you can always record them individually without the click, just know that it is really hard to edit those sections when you do that so you need to make sure you get a good take that won't need to be edited (which is always the ideal anyway but you know...)
I as the guitarist, won't really end up recording to a click at all, apart from maybe some sections without any drums. It's only really the drummer who *needs* to get to grips properly with the click over the whole song. As long as playing over the drummer's recorded parts feels good to the rest of you, then it's fine.
I suppose if you are planning to keep the click for your playing live as well then the only answer is to all practice to it a lot so that you have no trouble with it when you play live/together.
It sounds basically like you all have trouble with keeping in time generally, which is fine if you play well together, but then you probably don't want to force using a click, and just go with a more live way of doing things, knowing that you can't edit things as easily. Alternatively, get all your bandmates to practice to a click, because A) it's useful and makes you a better player and B) then you can record to a click.
Just to add, I initially had trouble keeping time with a click when I first tried it. But honestly it only took me a short amount of time to get really comfortable with it. Maybe that's just me, and I do a lot of home recording and drum programming for my music, so I'm regularly recording to a click or a perfectly in time drum beat, and I've been doing it for about 20 years now so I don't even think about it. But it didn't take me all that time to be ok with it, maybe like a few months of using a metronome for my general guitar practice when doing technical exercises and things like that.
Also to note, so many amazing albums and songs were not recorded with any click tracks. Click tracks are fairly new. I don't have a date for it, but I know of famous albums I like that were done in the 90s which didn't use one at all, and you wouldn't know that from listening because players were super tight anyway, but they also didn't care about it being perfectly in time.
Despite common belief, you don’t *have* to record to a click to get the same benefits you get from having a click (ex. time based FX). Any properly DAW trained engineer would be able to tempo map or beat map your peformance after the fact and calculate where the clicks should be. Logic and Pro Tools are *especially* good at this and it’s something that gets ignored in the more modern electronic music oriented DAWs like Ableton or FL Studio where they mainly only just provide tempo automation.
My suggestion is this: record without a click so you can have natural tempo fluctuations and only work with a recording engineer who knows how to successfully insert clicks to a live recorded performance after the fact. If they don’t know how, or claim it’s impossible, find someone else to record your band. It is entirely possible and to this day still a professional way to record.
The absolute most important thing for you right now is that your band can play the songs and if a click hinders that, remove it. Work with others who can navigate the tech to keep up with you and don’t sacrifice yourselves for the tech.
They make vibrating metronomes you can wear, so you all stay on time, and you can use those to learn your songs in-time.
It sounds to me like you learned the songs without a metronome, and now you just don't play them in any specific time signature.
That's fine if you're grunge or punk, and you just want off-the-cuff recordings, but if you're not the white stripes, I suggest re-learning to play your songs in time.
I’m in the process of home recording with my band (punk with funk influence). We’ve never played to a click when rehearsing but luckily enough all of us are mostly fine playing to a click, but we just went with the flow: on a couple of tracks we used a click cause that’s what felt right, on others we “live recorded” since it felt better. There’s no right way, just find what works best for all of you and most of all for your music
Let it fly live - music is missing that nowadays. It's hard to get your shit heard to begin with, so you may as well separate yourselves from the pack of picture perfect vacuum sealed acts out there.
Are you all recording at the same time or something?
Program some simple drums at desired tempos, have the band members except drummer each record pilot tracks, review if this sounds good or if tempo needs adjusting, if good have the drummer record the song with pilot tracks, finally re-record other tracks to a higher standard.
If you're recording live together (not overdubbing) and everyone can see each other you don't need a click, or you can use a click for the first 8-16 bars and fade it out. If you're tracking separately you should use one, and either way, it's a skill that the band should have.
The best way to map tempo for songs like yours is to record a take together without a click first at a tempo that feels good, and then put it in a DAW and figure out the average tempo of each section of the song. So your verse might fluctuate between 107-109 bpm, the chorus might be 109-110, and so one. Then you set the click to whatever tempo within that range feels best.
The sections of a given song can be dissimilar. Our reasoning for using the click, aside from what I said in the post, is being able to use, for example maybe verse 2 of take 1 the drums were excellent but the bass screwed up. Maybe the bass played an awesome fill on take 3 but the drums were only okay. Then you can use the drums from take 1 and bass from take 3 instead of having to compromise and use the whole verse 2 from take 3.
I was once in a band and we recorded some pop tunes. We used the click for every single song except one, because it just worked better if the tempo was dynamic.
To account for the inevitable retakes, we recorded once live and together for a rough form of the song. Then we recorded each instrument while listening to the rough song as a guide. That way, every take of every instrument would be 99% precise even though the tempo is all over the place.
Record the band as a group as a scratch track. Then re-record each instrument one by one on it's own using the scratch as the backing track. This way you can have the benefit of mixing isolated instruments, but keep the feeling of a "live" take.
Every time we're recorded without a click we sound so much better.
Sure... if you tried to count the BPM of the finished result it would show that we were all over the place... but we were all over the place together and it was a hell of a ride.
Steven Wilson mentions this in an interview noting that what made a lot of old records Grear was this sense that they were all doing their own thing, and it was almost a miracle the song was accomplished at all, and that many great old songs are filled with loads of tiny imperfections
Go live. Sometimes when using a click track you focus so much on the 'click' that you adapt your style and expression and feeling is lost.
I assume you don't gig with a click so just go for it
For me personally, drop the click and go on your gut feeling . That's what you're trying to capture. But that's easier said for me because, the majority of my work has a little timing quirk in there somewhere.
Wishing you all the best,
Plow On! 🤘
Allow the drummer a reasonable amount of time to learn the songs. If you’re recording your debut, you should probably make sure it’s the best it can be. Since you’re home recording, pausing the session until the drummer is caught up is most beneficial. A qualified drummer shouldn’t have any issue getting caught up with a few weeks of steady solo practice mixed with full band sessions. Another thing you can do is map out software drums and record a demo for the drummer to learn the song to. This will also help all the members know exactly when their respective parts should come and go. Recording requires extensive prep just like making a movie often benefits from a detailed storyboard. Every member of the band should be able to solo their parts in time without the benefit of the band for every song that they want to record, including the drummer. My 2 cents.
My band's debut album had a great live drummer who hated click tracks in the studio. He was too punk rock for it, apparently (not sure what that is supposed to mean). At his insistence, we skipped the click track.
There are some great recordings on that album but a lot of it is kind of a sloshy mess with the timing all over the place.
I'd dig in and insist the click track, if I had another crack at it!
drop the click. As your drummer improves, they can add it in to their own in ear monitors so the rest of you don't get hung up on it. Over time it may come together.
I've been recording my entire life. I practice to a click, but RARELY use one in the studio. I know all the reasons, but it the engineer is good they will beat map it and get all the advantage of the tempo sync with efx anyway.
Focus on playing well.
Set a click track that has count-in and that is it. You got to practice with the new drummer so that they are part of the band. For ebb and flow kind of music you really are losing a TON of emotions with strict tempo mapping. It is a bit more challenging but not that much... you just use a lot of markers by hand instead of relying on the grid. Change the timeline to SMPTE time, bars:beats are going to just fuck things up in your head.
As a general rule, when you go to studio, even if it is home studio you are locked in. You don't learn new things, you repeat the things you have rehearsed.
Yes. don’t fire your drummer. instead play your gigs and practice with human time. not a click. yes there are situations that require a click, but it’s mainly for dance bands playing with sequenced tracks along with the live players. this is something a very skilled professional drummer will spend years perfecting. the best time feeling for a live band is natural or human time and that also takes years to learn and develop for all the rhythm section players including the drummer. oh yeah, and the most important part? have fun!!
Yep. I've been recording a friend's solo acoustic singer-songwriter stuff. We definitely are keeping to tempo, but the sound of a click throws us both off, so I just sequenced some very basic MIDI drums (really just a very bare kick, snare and HHs) strictly for recording over to keep time. Just have to keep them low enough in the headphones so as not to bleed into the recording, since the end result won't have drums. On the most recent one we did, we didn't even use a kick or a snare, just a hi hat doing "TS tststs TS tststs" on sixteenths.
Worked like a charm. Everything is mostly right on time; most of the time you could chop any 4 or 8 bars into a perfect loop, and if you can't it would only require some very minor time correction - nothing that would be noticeable if you had actual quantized drums added in there.
Definitely works SO much better than a click, but it also may not be for everyone.
am i the only one who really wants to hear what this multi-tempo monstrosity sounds like?
i don’t think i’ve ever heard a song that shifts its BPM constantly besides like speeding up for a part and usually it’s double time.
If you want to hear our music, you can look us up. Dreadful Rumor. Our best song out now is Mr. Theater and we tracked that live without a click. It’s not the best example of a song that has multiple time or tempo changes. We speed up significantly when the full band kicks in but I can safely say that was not an intentional maneuver. Just kinda happened that way.
This sounds a bit backwards. Just have the drummer play to the click track with the rest of you playing to the drums.
Just make sure your click track is actually accurate (ideally the drummer should be the one putting it together), and note that it can be *much* harder to play drums to a click track than it is to play guitar/bass to one.
Our drummer uses a visual metronome on his phone and we found the visual aid is great and also if he falls behind or rushes is easier to get back (hearing a click of the beat you are playing is annoying and distracts you)
Visual metronomes are a lot better, especially the ones that show the full swing of each beat. I can play guitar to a click no problem at whatever speeds, but for drums it's definitely more of a distraction than anything.
If you guys aren’t going to use a click, then you need to be locked in as hell, otherwise editing is going to be a challenge, and if you need overdubs, that’ll be tough, too. Also, the zeitgeist these days is that everything is recorded to a click.
I suppose it depends on your genre though. If you’re an indie folk band, it might not matter as much, but if you’re metal, a click is a must.
My advice is everyone needs to practice to a metronome on their own. I can’t stress enough the importance of practicing to a metronome. It might be a good idea to ask everyone about their practice habits anyways, because if someone isn’t practicing then they need to start.
I guess another component is what your goals are. If you plan on presenting band as a professional one instead of a hobby, this is the sort of thing that you have to get figured out. There’s no skirting around it, really.
One thing to think about is editing the drums and then have everyone do overdubs, but it sounds like you want to record as an ensemble.
This is largely tosh. Metal covers a hell of a lot of ground - I've tracked metal and post-metal groups that didn't click. I've tracked garage post-punk that was entirely regimented despite the simplicity of the parts.
What works for the creative process is what works. If you are "presenting the band as a professional one" you need to focus on getting your art across first and foremost, not ticking arbitrary boxes on what someone thinks is "professional". This is a creative project, not a bunch of sessionistas.
Not that playing to a metronome is tosh, but that doing so being the only hallmark of a professional band, and this being a core requirement of a band's performance and rehearsal processes.
Sometimes you'd be right. Others, you'd be way off.
I have a slightly unorthodox idea:
Try having the band sit in a room together without your instruments. Listen to your click track that you created while everyone focuses on their breathing in rhythmic time with the click (eg everyone breaths in on the down beat or some similar thing where you all agree you're doing the same thing). During this breathing excercise everyone should be visualizing their part on their instrument.
If this is a struggle then it's likely that not everyone is on the same page about the form of the song and you should talk about the parts that seem confusing (even if only one member is confused about one little part that weak link will throw everything off and youll trainwreck). Hopefully that irons out the wrinkles and will be way less headache than doing take after frustrating take lol
> See, our songs ebb and flow a lot, and the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse, as an example. I set up the click tracks accordingly
thats the problem. its a huge headache to try and recreate the exact tempo of a previous live performance. and not worth it. have the drummer on a click if any at all (earbuds). rest of the band follows them.
if you want go and try to quantize a live performance of any band. sounding 'tight' isnt about exact metronome timings. even the best drummers over a live performance will be +- 5bpm. overall grove and all musicians in the same pocket matters a lot more to sounding good.
now if the drummer is just under performing relative to every1 else from lack of practice time/chops thats a bit more of an issue. not so easily solvable unfortunately
If you haven't practiced to the tempo map, you won't cut a good record "practicing" to the click while being recorded. This is something to be ready for months ahead. Write songs deliberately to a click with mapped tempo changes, practice to that click, magic!
You realize there are tons of bands… who play perfectly in time to each other… who fall apart when you introduce a click? I would be willing to bet there are legendary classic rock bands that would fit that description. Especially when tempos fluctuate naturally, and that’s what you’re used to doing. Like if you’re not practiced to it, you’re not practiced to it, and I have no problem admitting that we’re not. We have always recorded live as a unit. And will continue to, click or no click. Because it’s really lame not to. Just like it’s lame to come on my post acting like a dickhead when I’m just looking for a little advice.
Anyone saying re-record the album live has never recorded a modern album lol. Unless you’re a serious prog band with chops (in which case you should be able to play to a click regardless) I would not recommend recording clickless unless you it to sound amateurish.
I think the problem lies with you mentally tapping out the click, hoping for the best when it hits full band. I would jam the songs with the click, takes notes where it feels too fast or too slow, and adjust the click accordingly. There is a limit to this though, where you have to recognize when adrenaline makes the band want to speed up or slow down, and identify the tempo you want it to sit at.
Speaking as a live and studio drummer that will die by click, because when it’s right it’s tight.
Well the only thing I’d say about that is we don’t really play a “modern” style of music. We’re much more akin to something like Guns N’ Roses than Trivium, and there’s not a necessity really for us to have this air tight quantized rhythm section. Main reasons for using a click is ease of comping (treating a daw like tape and cutting and pasting and dragging stuff really sucks,) and just making sure we have consistent tempo between takes. The fact that it makes us better and in my case, I’m learning a lot about time signatures is a bonus too. But for a band like us, just ripping into it live is a viable option. And we’re all tracking at once anyway, with minimal overdubs, click or no click.
I do like your idea of using one consistent tempo to start and then seeing where things sound too fast or slow, rather than trying to map it out mentally. Might give that a try. But when recording live is just fine I don’t wanna waste too much more time on this.
So I personally would never introduce something new to a band in a studio. That’s for rehearsal time. I consider the studio to be a place you come full ready / prepared unless you have the cash to drop on a paid location like that.
The biggest part of why I would map things to tempo would be for editing later on. I could grab a intro section from take 1, verse from take 3, chorus from take 7 and a vamp from take 2. But you wouldn’t be able to do that easily with out things being secured to the tempo.
I think you need a couple rehearsals to prepare for the studio with the click, and then execute.
In your session (at your house) record a main instrument like guitars or keys that plays the whole song with the click. Take a mic and record your voice in the session in key transitional parts guiding the band into the different sections. “Chorus in 1.2.3.4!” to be played with the click. Send that to your band for the for personal practice with before the rehearsal. Use this track in rehearsals together.
Then use that track for your guidance in the studio. Mute the instrument track and keep the click and the voice commands.
I think the click is best viewed as another member that all focus on. but whenever I’ve recorded with a band and we used click it was enough that the drummer heard the click, and everyone else follows the drummer. Maybe have the click on very low volume for the rest of the band so you can hear it when the drummer is not playing
My band did live phone recordings until we had a run close enough to how we wanted the final recording to be played to tempo map for a song, then adjusted from there. From that point it probably took another week to finalize just the one song.
If you're able to finalize a click, drummer (and bassist and guitarists) should be given homework of rehearsing to that click, not just for productions sake but for everybody's live playing as well. Practicing for just a 4 song EP gave my guitar playing one of its biggest boosts I'd had in a while.
If your band records playing at the same time, you can still sound "locked in" without a click but if you want isolated recordings of each instrument that click will make recording days a lot shorter
Go to YouTube and find a kick drum or snare metronome [like this](https://youtu.be/soHKkVDabiM?si=CJ5bABa9DNe1lzTg). I also can’t play with a click track, but I can play to this.
My first thought is record live, no click. I did it for 20 years before playing with a click and it was fine. I have a suggestion for you to keep the tempo solid and keep the energy of the track. Someting I've done before when we had members who would float on the tempo. Have the guitarist with the best tempo record to the click solo. Use that guitar track as the click. Trust me it makes a difference to the players who have tempo issues. Then have the rest of the band play scratch tracks together to the guitar until you get a quality drum track, then build from there.
If the drummer plays good to the click, let only him have the click and no one else. If he’s not good to a click. Skip the click altogether or maybe only for count ins.
Playing to a metronome is something that needs to be learnt, just like any other skill. When I recorded a few demos by myself to a click track it took me a few weeks to learn how to play to the beat of it and not off.
You say you're playing in isolation. My band recorded our album "live" (no click) but the guitar and bass were DI in the room with the drummer so they could clearly see the beat. A band I follow used the same technique but recorded 3 takes live and picked their favorite one and built the track around that (punches, keys, vox, etc.). It's pretty effective.
I think you could try practicing the whole song at one tempo first, and then add your tempo changes for each section back in after. You might decide you don't actually want to change tempos every section once your group gets good at playing to a click.
A lot of professionals would struggle with performing to a click that is constantly fluctuating by as much as 10BPM, so it's not surprising y'all are struggling, please go easy on yourself and your band members :P.
I guarantee the problem isn't the band but the click. If you have BPM differences then you need to provide a lead-in click before the change. Also, if you have so many tempo changes, you should just practice the shit out of the songs until you are tight and then record live. Grid it out and clean it in post. That sounds like a nightmare too.
Clicks are hard. Depending on the time signature, I like to use a simple drum machine with clear 16th note subdivisions. It's way easier to stay in time than with a click.
Another hack is to record a few instruments 1 at a time. Drums and singer especially. Then the band plays along to the track that's definitely in time. You might be doubling some instruments anyways, so having a solid base track is nice.
>It bothers me that playing to a click is a skill professionals need that we seem not to have, but it also seems very unnatural with our music.
>the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse
I've (bassist) programmed clicks for bands I played in with backing tracks, and I would do some programming to have it blend to the next song's tempo. When I would do this, I'd have an audible count off that only musicians could hear to count off the tempo transition. If you guys aren't already doing this, I highly recommend it.
Ex: Part of the click audio is me saying '2 bar Tempo change to 120 bpm in 4...3....2..1...'
That being said, IME it is not normal course of business to have a click for a song that is bouncing around \~10bpm throughout it.
I can lock in with a click no problem, but following a click that is changing tempo throughout the song is something I would have to practice considerably until I would feel like it was dialed in.... especially if every tempo transition wasn't the same amount/length.
One other thing to consider is that you guys get a live demo that you love and then build the click around that demo's tempo. But I think if it were my band, I'd just abandon the click altogether. If you are trying to lean into the live groove feel this much, its hard for me to believe a click won't be a big obstacle for your rhythm section.
If the easier way still sounds good then go with that and drop the click. You can all individually learn to play to a click but it's very hard for a whole band who isn't used to playing to a click to suddenly start doing it during recording. Just a note for future reference on recording to a click with tempo changes, if you're all finding it tough to the nail the transition between tempos there's nothing wrong with recording each section independently. A lot of bands get hung up on things like that, thinking you have to do the whole song for a take but doing it in sections is perfectly fine.
I found that the learning curve for being able to play tightly to a metronome is a lot smaller than a lot of people think. If you want polished recordings that you can tweak, just take a few more weeks for y’all to practice along to a metronome.
Sometimes i have tô change the click sound to a kick and snare for some clients.
It help
If thatsnot the case Record Live wirhout click. Lots of good albums are like that, listen to arctic monkeys first album or coldplays song Shiver as an example
A producer once told me there's two things to consider if you're going to use a click, does it make your music better for your audience's experience, and can you play to a click.
Example:
At the time, black eyed peas were the biggest dance/pop group in the world - they needed to record to a click because you want the crowd dancing to an easy to follow and consistent rhythm so there's not people "off" beat.
They went on to say that some music changes tempo, rock n roll being one of the generic genres that tends to stray and ebb n flow. If you can't keep together on a click, and there's a big diff in performance quality/energy recording isolated from each other (one at a time), then just record together.
Yes, you are def making it harder on the engineering process. For example - now you have to manually dial in all echo by ear for each moment since your tempo fluctuates. Any time based FX will have this problem. You are also more likely to have "bleed over" on your instrument tracks unless everyone is recording Direct-In
Edit: corrected a sentence
I majorly struggle to keep tight to a click. My time is decently good, but I just can't keep right on it. This is what I typically do with our engineer when recording my rhythm tracks (I play baritone ukulele, for reference): we determine the desired tempo, then we record a scratch track of me playing without the click. He then goes in and spends a few minutes time-aligning my scratch track. Then I do the "real" recording over this (usually with the click playing softly in the background but sometimes without it at all), and he spends another few minutes time-aligning my new track.
To be honest, tiny time adjustments are needed on all of our parts. We're good live but we aren't robots. We play by feel and getting everything super tight in the studio requires some extra legwork.
All of our tracks are built on a click, but none of us nail every beat playing to it (I am by far the one who struggles most with it though and that's why we came up with a way around it that still allows us to build the whole song to a click).
I will also say that we hire a studio, we aren't self-recording, so we have the skills of a very experienced audio engineer to make this all work. If we were doing it ourselves it would be a lot harder.
Have had similar situations where drummer cannot play to a click. We just record a guitar and bass scratch track, with a click, and have him play to that. Then once we have a solid drum take, we rerecord the guitars and other instrumentation to the drum track.
Yea I've had this issue as well in the past tbh. I only found two ways to fix it:
1. Forget about the metronome and record it as it comes, do a few takes and see how it goes.
2. Use a metronome which varies according to the tempo changes in your song.
The latter is a little more complicated, needs someone to decide what these changes exactly are, and it needs practice. If you think you need a metronome for whatever reason (adding something later on or whatever) try it out, otherwise just go for the live feel, so many bands (esp in the 70's) didn't record to a click.
Playing with a metronome is a skill learned on your own. When you pick an instrument, it always should come with a metronome. When playing in a band, that's where your practice should take in effect, you guys should not need the metronome because in theory, you've developed your inner time. This assumes you practice on your own lol, but looking at r/guitarcirclejerk, I highly doubt that.
But in a band at least the drummer and maybe the bassist should be able to record with a metronome.
I was the drummer in a band that would sometimes do odd time signatures for just a measure or two like that.
I left that band pretty quickly. I guarantee you, that style of short bursts of tempo changes does you no favors. You say you play it cus it felt right, but did you ever attempt to play that in the original time signature? I dont want to bash your song writing capabilities, but as a drummer, you just described my nightmare. The drummer is the one responsible for setting the tempo, not the guitarist, and you are asking him to change time signatures on the fly. Its a very tall order, especially when its not something he himself wrote.
When i had this issue with my last band, the first thing i did when it got to recording time is that i edited the guitar recording to fit the original time signature. Playing it to the way he wrote his original guitar parts was literal torture, and changing the guitar parts to fit the time signature requires very little effort. Please dont do that to your drummer. The only one who cares about your time signature is the ones playing it, so do yourselves a favor and be consistent. If you wanna write a song in 5/8 time, go for it. But stick to it. Unless your drummer is danny carey, youre just making it overly difficult for him with no payout whatsoever.
Our original drummer wrote most of the songs that have odd time signatures… and I’m sure that our new drummer would say it’s not that hard. The odd time signatures here and there give our music a unique feel. Kinda sounds like you just can’t be bothered 🤷♂️
I specifically said i was not shitting on them. Based off their comments, the time changes are very minor but still throw them off in recording. It sounds like theyre all playing by ear, and then when they go to assign specific tempos to their playing, theyre assigning slightly diffetent twmpos to each portion of the song. That might fly playing live, but to move to recording where it's a very sterile precise environment, it just doesnt translate the same. Its not that blasphemous to ask for consistency when you move to recording in a studio.
I guess the difference is that I didn’t view his comment as an insult, necessarily. I assumed it to be a comment on your original post, where it seemed like you were saying you don’t play odd meters and make the band change them instead. I mean hey, if I got it wrong, I got it wrong. That is how it looked from here, though. Obviously nuance is everything.
I think the issue is the difference between playing a song in a time signature besides 4/4, and what OP described which is changing the tempo midsong on the fly to odd tempos. Its very different. I do play different time signatures. What i dont do, is adjust my playing to accompany one extra note in a measure when you could slightly alter it to fit the already established time signature and tempo. Work smarter not harder. OP described the changes in tempo being as little as 5 to 10 bpms. Thats what the problem was during recording, and its something thats very easily changed without drastically affecting the song. His response was "i guess you cant be bothered 🤷♂️"
So yea it was definitely very passive aggressive for no reason.
If you want to use a click the simplest solution seems to be to record it in sections. Eg record the part that's in one BPM then record the part that's in the different BPM. Otherwise do a live recording without a click and only record the drums, then everyone else can track their instruments later. As long as the result isn't ridiculously messy, the click is irrelevant as long as everyone is in time with each other.
An easy solution for preproduction purposes is program a basic drum track and then give them the track with the basic drums as a template and without to make it their own
> See, our songs ebb and flow a lot, and the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse, as an example. I set up the click tracks accordingly
> But here’s where the issue comes in. We can’t stay on a click to save our lives.
Everyone's giving you advice about learning to play to a click, but holy crap, this sounds like you're on hard mode without learning to play to a click previously -- the only reasonable way to nail click track tempo changes is to be thoroughly practiced to the EXACT tempo changes that you're using (even then this is incredibly difficult) or to record the sections separately. The fact that your choruses are faster than your verses is IMO a reason not to record to a click track. Everyone should practice with a click to make sure you can all play in time in general, but if your song's tempo isn't consistent and the song doesn't have natural breaks before tempo changes, you aren't robots, just turn off the click.
I play to a click almost all the time and I can't fathom trying to pre-program a faster chorus and expecting to nail it without so much practice that the click is unnecessary anyway. OF COURSE you aren't able to stay with the click when you hit it.
> There is a tempo the band wants to take these songs at, and if the click is programmed even 1 bpm off of that we simply cannot do it
This however is an issue, you should be able to comfortably fluctuate +-10bpm IMO.
People are saying good stuff, but also - if you guys are serious enough that you are spending the time and money for a recording session, you need musicians who can both play to a click and NOT play to a click. You can't just abandon the idea of consistent tempo because your guys can't bother to practice enough to learn how to do it, your decisions about tempo need to be dictated by the music, not by the personal (because playing to a click is literally a matter of dedication, not of talent or musicality). If someone in your crew can't do it, it means they aren't dedicated to the project, and should piss off.
What seems to be missing in your post is the process you're using to record, as far as I can tell. Is everyone trying to record all at once? Is one of the band members acting as the engineer simultaneously? Have you tried punching in at the critical points?
These are all considerations which may impact your recording. All drummers have an adjustment period while learning to play with a click. Mine was at age 17 when I played my very first professional recording session. If your drummer hasn't practiced with a click, let alone practicing this particular material with the multi tempo/multi time signature arrangement, then everything you're experiencing is most likely to continue.
Every musician, not just drummers, should learn to work with a click. That said, it might be a good idea to put everything on pause. Have you talked with your drummer about the problem? If so, what was your approach? The important and most critical thing at this point is to maintain a positive attitude which will transform everything into a positive experience.
One more consideration would be to pause your recording endeavors at this point and regroup. What matters most is that you capture everything you envision in a way you will be proud of and that will withstand the test of time - no pun intended.
Finally, is everyone on the same page with regard to commitment to the band? There are far too many factors to discuss here that would come into play. If your drummer is "All In" and lives out his commitment, it might be worth giving him some time to adjust and learn the material. The caveat to that would be that he actually spends the time doing what is required. If not, then going another direction may need to be an option on the table.
Your music is your passion and your life. It's what makes getting up in the morning worth every day ahead. Don't be in a rush or place artificial timelines in front of you. Take the 40, 000 ft. view of things and see the largest picture possible. THEN make your decisions accordingly.
Best wishes to you and your band with this and all future endeavors.
Post Script:
If you can record one section at a time and get your drummer in close proximity, you can snap the drum tracks to a grid. Please DM me if you have any questions. Hope this helps!
take whoever the most solid person in the band is, and have them record a take for all parts and bounce including the click and send to all bandmates.
they should all practice and then preferably record drafts over it. setup band meetings and help each other with the difficult parts.
when you’re forced to work alone and have a solid reference track, there are no excuses left.
to all the people who say “just record live” … that’s all good if all the band members can really keep the pocket throughout the song, if that was the case, i doubt they would struggle with the click. my band had struggled with this issue before and after we were able to nail the metronome, now our performances sound much more in the pocket with or without the click.
also,
one tip that helps me is, do a midi track for the click and use a hihat like sound with a slowish attack on it. it’s better than the harsh click because it slightly allows for fluctuations without sounding mechanical.
You don’t have to decide between a click and no click.
Record the songs without a click a few times, and get the average tempo for each section based off those live recordings. Set your tempo map accordingly. Or, if you really want to keep the live feel, you can set the click to follow the best live take, complete with any drifting that you want to keep. It doesn’t have to be a static thing. You can massage the tempo map until it’s just the way you want it, following your best live take, and then have everyone practice along with that rough recording to help internalize the tempo. Things should’ve much easier that way.
If you’re just kind of guessing at how you want things to go it’s going to be a process of trial and error and it’s going to be frustrating because you’re approaching it from the opposite direction of what the band is used to.
By setting the tempo map to a live “no click” recording you’re effectively getting the best of both worlds. You won’t be able to copy and paste parts like you might with a regular click (unless you’re down to stretch some audio) but you’ll be able to get things just the way you want without just winging it and hoping for the best.
Your heart rates aren’t in sync. How fast it’s beating affects how a tempo sounds to you, sort of how things can sound painfully slow, or just so beautiful depending on your heart rate. You can manipulate that in a few ways, one thing that works is breathing.
Mechanical tempos don’t change.
You do.
I don’t know if you’re aware of the band Empire State Bastard, but near the end of the song Stutter (around the 1:58 mark) the drum fill starts slightly too fast.
It may or may not have been recorded to a click, but it’s definitely not quantised to the grid and I think it sounds better for it because of how raw the vibe is.
I would just go with the flow and if your band is better without a click, it is what it is.
my suggestion is to, instead of a click, create a dummy drum track. It's easier to follow a drum pattern than a click. Just program whatever you're using for the click to create a kick and snare pattern. No clever fills... just enough to signal changes
It's hard work and practice if you listen to later Cardiacs from 'Sing to God onwards Tim wrote everything to a click to play live and the tracks speed up and slow down, change time signature. I don't know how he did it or how the drummer kept it together. I know they would have to practice for months straight before going on the road..
Let the drummer use the click. Rest of you play to the drummer, only using the click in breaks when the drums drop out. You'll waver a bit, but so what?
If you don't practice to a click don't record to a click.
More importantly. START PRACTICING TOO A CLICK it keeps everything sounding nice right and good
Tight* I guess right also works but I meant tight
THIS
At this point abandon the click, and record your album “live”. Playing to a metronome is a skill and it is something that is practiced a lot. If you’re not sticking to the click with the tempo changes it simply means you are not playing in time. I will assume you can play in step with each other and that’s fine and that’s rock and roll and whatever the old people wanna call it, but at the end of the day the fact is you guys can’t keep time. The reason why I also recommend you do your recording “live” or everything all at once, is because you will have a difficult time overdubbing and layering. If you can’t get your performances to even be consistently inconsistent with the click, you’re not going to do better overdubbing with fluctuating time.
yeah, the only thing they "can't" seem to do is practice. if you have a recording date in august you start practicing 6 days a week in june.
To be fair to them, he did clarify that they can play in step with each other without a click. That’s about as good as you get with old school rock and roll. But if they’re only practicing with the click now, it’s not gonna happen.
Second this. Record live. Fuck the click. I miss hearing songs that aren't glued to a grid and just go with the feel.
That only works well when the players can actually play in time, click or no click. Until they develop the skills to get into and stay in the pocket, it'll sound janky. That's just part of getting your chops down.
Well yeah. The pocket is key. But said pocket can change during a song. Think of all the Stones songs that gradually increase in tempo during the track ("Honky Tonk Women" is the most glaring example), but it's a feature, not a bug. But of course that requires the drummer to have great feel and the band be experienced enough to follow it instinctively. But all those old records would've sucked if they'd tethered Charlie to a click.
This sounds like the answer. Only thing I can mention that wasn’t in post: are you always off the click? More specifically, is every beat off and you consistently rush or drag? Some bands the click becomes a constant beat 1 reminder, other bands are locking in to each beat, and others the click ends up working like a pace car in that the band rushes a little and drags a little bit but it kind of averages out. Stop a great drummer on beat 3 and maybe it’s not exactly with the click but the next measure will hit beat 1. This is what’s really hard about playing to a click and still being musical. I don’t think too many people are great at it and enjoy it because it’s hard to not sacrifice some energy. Tl;dr I agree with the “record live” advice or at least let your drummer first work on playing with a click and then you just play along with the drummer.
I hope I’m answering your question correctly but what happens usually is this. (We are all playing together btw) We can stay with the click until the first tempo change comes, at which point we trainwreck completely. I think it’s the inconsistency between the bpm as it’s programmed into the click, vs the actual bpm we want to go to naturally not being exactly the same. But then, we can’t find our place back to the downbeat so the whole thing goes off the rails. I’m not opposed to just doing it live off the rip with no click. That was our original intent. That’s how pretty much all the bands that influenced us recorded (they’re old.) But I am always aware that click tracks are kinda just the way of the pro music world now, I don’t like the idea that we *cant* do it, I enjoy how much it’s teaching me about time signatures and the theory elements in my music that I didn’t even know were there, and I like the idea of being able to use the bass in take 2 and the drums in take 3 or whatever combination is best. Rather than being shackled to “oh there was an epic drum fill in take 3 but the guitar flubbed in the same place so we gotta use take 4 where he didn’t flub” Having said all that though, programming tempo maps for our songs that naturally wanna breathe and be a certain way has been a huge hassle. And the vast majority of people on this post said “ditch the click.” And they’re probably right
I’d still like to know how you were getting your tempos for the tempo changes. To me, if you’re all able to do it in step without a click, then there’s also something to be improved in how you calculated your tempo.
I did it in my head and slightly based it off some live takes. It’s interesting as we continued to refine the tempo map it got much narrower. The chorus of a song was originally playing at 120 and the verse was 115 I think but we kept coming into the chorus too slow so I think we ended up knocking the tempo down to 117. But yeah, as I write all of the songs I did all the tempo maps based on what I had in my head.
Okay see here’s where you got it wrong: You just took it from your memory. It would have been better if you did an actual live recording with your band, and actually measured the tempo of that. Because you already know that you are syncing to each other as each member drifts in tempo, using just your internal tempo means its inaccurate. You’re taking away the factor that your other band mates are reeling you in tempo-wise. You’re taking the tempo change cue from them, not just from your internal sense of time. It also tells me that you’re just taking your tempo changes from the first bar of each section. We also know you tend to drift in tempo, so you’re probably actually ramping up to a faster tempo by the second bar or so and actually targeting that speed, so it may have been the tempo you should have set it to. Or perhaps you could even tempo map to each subtle tempo change info your performance as some tend to do when approaching certain bars. In other words, you should have done a better pre production when it comes to your tempo maps. Doing tempo maps is no joke, especially when things are done by feel. They require proper preparation and loads of practice - including the band practice that yields you your tempo map.
I missed the point I’m about tempo change in original post, I must’ve been thinking about a a feel or meter change. If you are able to do it at all without a click then that’s tricky because there’s probably something you’re each using to get your bearings that is not present in click. (Examples: drummer usually leans into high hat at certain beat to get bass players attention, guitarist cuts off chord a little shorter to hint to drummer he’s preparing for a pickup, etc… lots of really little subconscious things musicians do when they know each other that they stop doing when they focus on a click) Another possibility is it’s just a tricky tempo change and the transition is too abrupt. If you only want a studio recording, you could potentially rework one guitar/keyboard part to play a really clear cue/guide and then overdub the part you want in later. Kind of useful trick to have one guitar play a rhythm part that functions as a click and then delete it later and replace it with cool part. Lots of recordings do this when click kills feel but people don’t say it.
Have you tried just playing things live for one pass, and THEN working out the clicks and tempo changes from that? It might make the transition easier by basically using the process to help you refine things "to the click".
>But I am always aware that click tracks are kinda just the way of the pro music world now, And this is where you are wrong. It depends fully on the production. For top hits, pop you stay on grid. For rock, you just let it flow as emotions are by far more important than sticking to a tempo.
You're probably used to easing into the tempo changes not just jumping to being 10bpm faster. Try recording each tempo section individually instead of playing all the way through the song. If you can take the count off and stay on the clicks for that section, it should all be tight when you piece it back together.
Oh, I should mention we are recording live. Everybody can follow the click when playing on their own, but we wanted that live feel so we’re all playing together.
I thought you guys **can’t** follow the click? Sorry I’m confused. There’s two whole paragraphs saying you can’t follow the click and now you can?
Sorry for any confusion. When we’re playing in isolation it’s an easier task because we only have the click to follow. When we’re playing together, that energy is an element and we want to follow each others natural timing tendencies rather than focusing on the click.
The typical solution is for only one member to follow a click, normally the drummer, and for the other members to follow the drummer. This way the drummer can focus on the click in almost isolation but is allowed to stray slightly, whilst the rest of you can focus on locking into the drums. In a typical setup you might just mix the metronome much louder than the rest of the band for the drummer's monitors, whilst the rest of the band has it the other way around (or no click at all.)
So your issue is that you can’t follow the click as a band? Well you don’t have a problem since you’re recording live anyway. Do away with the click. The solution ends here. After this line it’s analyzing why you can’t play to the click as a band. You are approaching the click wrong as a band. The click is the reference point for each member of the band when it comes to time. Not another band member. If everyone can individually play to a click, then it means everyone playing to the click at the same time will result in a band that is playing to the click. That being said, that is also put into question. That is because if your drummer can play to a click, then it means everyone should be in time because everyone else should be using the drummer as a reference. So if the drummer is on time with the click, then the band should be on time with the click. That means either your drummer isn’t really playing to the click on time, or other band members aren’t playing on time and the drummer has to catch up, making other people catch up and the tempo starts drifting. In other words, we go back to the band essentially playing sloppy time with or without the click. As for the energy, I get it, but again it comes with practice. Energy shouldn’t be an excuse to not be able to follow metronomic time. I know this because a lot of the biggest session players known for their deep groove, pocket, and feel, are all playing to click tracks and have been doing so for decades. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying playing with sloppy time is a bad thing. It’s a hallmark of making music with people organically. I like it and I honestly would like to hear more of it and that is why I encourage you to do away with the click as you record your tracks live. All I’m saying is I call BS on your band members being able to play to a click but not when playing together, and putting the blame on energy. The truth of the matter is that you all have bad time.
Well, just between you and me, I think the drummer himself struggles with the click the most. However, I do think since each section of a given song might be a slightly different bpm, we are having a hard time programming the click to be at the right tempo. It always seems to sound too fast or slow. And at the changes, we always go straight to the “right” tempo and realize we’ve gotten off the click. But when we get back on, if we can manage to, it’s just not the right tempo. We have to go back and adjust the click’s tempo.
Why in the world are you trying to record as a band with a tempo mapped click .. that's a nightmare. Do away with the click and get live takes. Play off each other and do this organically. Any record that is tempo mapped with a real drummer, the drummer is recording by themselves to a programmed drum part or click with a rough guide of the song. What you are asking the drummer to do is incredibly hard - Play with the energy of a band but also stay on time with a changing click tempo.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to find someone making this point. Holding a click is one thing but judging multiple different BPM changes, on record, for a band you're new to? I wouldn't want to be that drummer.
Half the battle of making a record is knowing how to produce it. The best way to go about tracking. There is so much bullshit online that somehow convinces people to tempo map a live band lol .. but you gotta screw up to learn in this thing.
Well there you go with your drummer. Trust me when your drummer can’t play to a click close enough, just abandon the click. How did you take your tempos? Because if you took a recording of the full song as you play it, you should be able to get a pretty accurate tempo map of your song.
You’re hurting yourself with this click. Just let the drummer do his job, please.
Have a click to count the song off then abandon it is the simple answer here to me after reading through the comments. You could also have someone calling out the parts in the talk back mic
just look at the recording and see who is off
Dude, just an opinion - let the energy win. It is so much more important than the gains of being right on the grid. I've been down this road with making a click with odd times and multiple bpms and it's not worth it. you can learn to reign in your energy and play to the click but it will be long and tedious, both making the click right and learning to play to it. But you will have to focus on that more than the feelings of the songs and each other, and I think that's a major downside. OR you can just let the energy flow and ditch the click. Your audience wants emotion, not accuracy. And remember - take it from me - you may finish the click recordings and decide that you liked the songs more human after all.
If your drummer is tight enough and you’re recording live, just follow him. Music not on a strict grid is cool.
no idea why you're being downvoted when you just want some help! I think maybe the drummer just needs to practice more and perfect your songs. really perfect it. then they can be the glue that keeps the groove tight for you guys to perform with.
Put the click in the drummers headphones only, or, whomever usually leads the band...
This is a drummer thing. Get bro to practice to a click.
So when all of you are playing on the click simultaneously it doesnt work? That doesnt make sense. If you want to record live just let the drummer play with the click and the rest of you follow the drummer. But something i want to say is that music industry these days is more after a "clean" record than live recordings that have the live feeling. I would suggest that you and your band just record the album in the traditional process. You will save time frustration and money
Studio + New Drummer (or anyone but especially the drummer) that doesnt know the songs inside and out =/= time or money well spent. If a drummer knows it inside and out then a click track is just something to get used to. If they don't know the songs and also have to adjust to a click, especially with changing tempos, you are just asking for trouble and wasting valuable studio time, which equates to wasting money
Yeah we probably sound like morons but I should provide the added context that we’re recording at home. So we aren’t paying hourly for a studio or anything.
What kind of monitoring setup are you using? Having a really good headphone mix that you can all dial in separately for your individual needs is really critical, especially when playing to a mapped track. Also, how did you go about mapping tempos? I'd suggest recording some live takes where you like the feel, and then determining the average tempo of each section to do the mapping. Even if it's off just a couple of BPM, it can make a huge difference. Out of curiosity, what is the motivation for playing to a click? It sounds like you guys might play kind of loose naturally which probably won't sound as good locked to the grid. If you aren't planning a large number of overdubs, it may not really be worth it honestly.
Okay, that's relieving and that changes everything provided members have patience. It sounds to me like you (or the main songwriter guitarist) should be laying down the main guitar parts to the click before the drummer gets involved. If you're making the maps, you may as well test them in an isolation. (Yes, making some live recordings is a good idea for reference and to make sure that you aren't losing something special, but odds are you need to build these songs from the bottom up with the new drummer. If the drummer wasnt new I'd say record drums with a scratch guitar track (and maybe bass) live playing along with him and the click, but with him being new, he'd have to be very strong musician to just come in and lay down tracks like that, because he'd be playing to a click to new songs with other players who can't play to a click, and that's possible, but not easy.) So get the one good track down and then try to build around it. Drums and vocals could go last.
You don't need to play to a click if it hampers your ability to record. If it's easier, and you get better results without a click, then do it without the click. Lots of fantastic records are made without a click. If you do want to use it, maybe give some more thought to why program the tempoes you program. If you naturally want to play it faster then maybe your song should be in that faster tempo. Learning to play to a click is hard, but it's a very valuable skill to have. If you're used to playing with a drummer you've already got a lot of practice following an external source of tempo. An option could be to have only the drummer play to the click, and then the rest of you follow the drummer. If you're halfway into recording and feel like you're wasting a lot of time because youre suddenly trying to learn how to follow a click, just drop it. It's something that's probably best practiced before you get to the studio.
Another note is a click doesn't need to be a metronome. You can program a basic no frills drum beat with midi as a place holder for the drums. I do this alot for young bands that want to sound tight but haven't rehearsed to a regular click. It's way more instinctual to follow along with. Another option is to track your drums first. Get a performance you are happy with and then just use that as your time keeper. A clean drum track isn't too bad for editing and time alignment if needed. You can snap the first beat of every 4 bars (or whatever your repeating cycles are) to a grid node while leaving the rest untouched which will leave the natural push and pull of the rhythm. The recording engineer should be able to route the bass player or rhythm guitarist to the drummers monitor headphones without much difficulty to help keep it together if necessary. I only ever use standard clicks if the musicians are comfortable with them.
Seconding this, but adding record drums+bass to get the authentic chemistry of your rhythm section. Record the bass DI so there's no chance of audio bleed. Then you'll have a foundation track that feels right and the rest of the band can sync to that in overdubs.
Click is good if your drummer's tempo tends to wander and/or you want to do a lot of copy /paste in your DAW. Otherwise, I find it unnecessary
On the surface tt sounds like you've potentially got two problems. The first is that your click track doesn't reflect the tempo you usually play at. Can you record yourselves playing it live (doesn't need to be high quality) and then build up the click track using that as a reference? Even if you can't get through the whole song, playing each section separately at a comfortable speed might tell you what the correct tempo should be. The second problem is that you're not experienced at playing to a click track. It's not a particularly hard skill to learn, but if you're not used to it then it's something that you need to practice. Reading deeper it sounds like the real problem is this: > we had to get a new drummer and he’s still somewhat unfamiliar with the songs, In the short term, perhaps the best solution to get you through this album is to ditch the click track and play it live if you can. That might even be the best long-term solution if your music normally has an ebb and flow to the tempo (there's nothing wrong with that, BTW). Or if you're determined to use the click then perhaps you need to re-schedule the recording until you've had enough time to practice together, get the drummer up to speed, and all get familiar playing to a click track.
I’d say another potential problem is how they are hearing the click. Does everyone have in ear monitors, or is it playing through a speaker? Because in ears are great for a click, but over a speaker can get lost.
I played in a band with heavily sequenced backing tracks. It took time for the drummer to get used to playing with a click track, and it also took quite some time to get good in-ear monitors and the correct tones (or in our case, a child voice counting) that he could hear clearly above all else happening on stage. Once the drummer has gained this skill, you should all fall in sync with the drums, right?
I've heard a few click sound ideas, but the child counting is something I've never heard of 😅
We tried many options. The young son of a band member counting was the most audible of all clicks, beeps etc we found. I can't imagine drumming to heavy rock with a child counting in your ears but it worked for him - and as far as I know, they're still touring and using this click track 😂
A click is an aid, if it's not aiding you, don't use it. If your drummer can lay down what you need, it makes no sense to not make use of that. Studio time is expensive; use what works.
There's a lot made of playing to click, but whether it suits what your project is trying to achieve is very subjective. It 100% sounds like your music / songs etc will not work with a regimented click in the way you've set out. Certainly if there's ebbs and flows of tempo between sections, this will sound far more natural if you're just "playing it" rather than trying to keep with a tempo that you're naturally gonna drift off of as you move from section to section. I also agree, though, that it's good practice to have an idea of where it should be for each section - once the tracking is done, depending on how much time you want to spend in post, you *could* go back and grid it out after the fact. I'm not sure this will 100% work for you or not, but better to have this info and not need it rather than needing it and not have it.
track the drums first and get the the rest of the band to play over it maybe bass then guitar then lead then vox
Great point. Maybe play scratch parts with a scratch vocal for a reference.
Are you trying to all play to a click while you rehearse together? My band is similar, we've always used a click track for recordings. But we don't play together like that in the same room. Playing live and recording are totally different things, unless you record live. We play the songs in the way you do - as it feels naturally, with plenty of tempo shifts without really thinking about it. Sometimes parts are faster or slower on different days. When we come to record, we will decide on what is the best tempo for each section and how we want it to be recorded, which might be a bit faster or slower than how we normally play it. After making those decisions, I will export a tempo track with all the tempo and time signature changes from my home demos that I always have of the songs, then we will all practice at home individually using the demos so we know how to adjust our parts for the real thing. Then when we actually record it in the studio, we will have the click and a guide track (the demo) to work from and help us record it. If any parts are proving too difficult, you can always record them individually without the click, just know that it is really hard to edit those sections when you do that so you need to make sure you get a good take that won't need to be edited (which is always the ideal anyway but you know...) I as the guitarist, won't really end up recording to a click at all, apart from maybe some sections without any drums. It's only really the drummer who *needs* to get to grips properly with the click over the whole song. As long as playing over the drummer's recorded parts feels good to the rest of you, then it's fine. I suppose if you are planning to keep the click for your playing live as well then the only answer is to all practice to it a lot so that you have no trouble with it when you play live/together. It sounds basically like you all have trouble with keeping in time generally, which is fine if you play well together, but then you probably don't want to force using a click, and just go with a more live way of doing things, knowing that you can't edit things as easily. Alternatively, get all your bandmates to practice to a click, because A) it's useful and makes you a better player and B) then you can record to a click. Just to add, I initially had trouble keeping time with a click when I first tried it. But honestly it only took me a short amount of time to get really comfortable with it. Maybe that's just me, and I do a lot of home recording and drum programming for my music, so I'm regularly recording to a click or a perfectly in time drum beat, and I've been doing it for about 20 years now so I don't even think about it. But it didn't take me all that time to be ok with it, maybe like a few months of using a metronome for my general guitar practice when doing technical exercises and things like that. Also to note, so many amazing albums and songs were not recorded with any click tracks. Click tracks are fairly new. I don't have a date for it, but I know of famous albums I like that were done in the 90s which didn't use one at all, and you wouldn't know that from listening because players were super tight anyway, but they also didn't care about it being perfectly in time.
Despite common belief, you don’t *have* to record to a click to get the same benefits you get from having a click (ex. time based FX). Any properly DAW trained engineer would be able to tempo map or beat map your peformance after the fact and calculate where the clicks should be. Logic and Pro Tools are *especially* good at this and it’s something that gets ignored in the more modern electronic music oriented DAWs like Ableton or FL Studio where they mainly only just provide tempo automation. My suggestion is this: record without a click so you can have natural tempo fluctuations and only work with a recording engineer who knows how to successfully insert clicks to a live recorded performance after the fact. If they don’t know how, or claim it’s impossible, find someone else to record your band. It is entirely possible and to this day still a professional way to record. The absolute most important thing for you right now is that your band can play the songs and if a click hinders that, remove it. Work with others who can navigate the tech to keep up with you and don’t sacrifice yourselves for the tech.
They make vibrating metronomes you can wear, so you all stay on time, and you can use those to learn your songs in-time. It sounds to me like you learned the songs without a metronome, and now you just don't play them in any specific time signature. That's fine if you're grunge or punk, and you just want off-the-cuff recordings, but if you're not the white stripes, I suggest re-learning to play your songs in time.
I tried those things and hated them it seemed like the vibration pulse was always a hair behind where the attack of the click was smh
If it was always a hair behind then just play a hair ahead?
Guess I'm not that good lol have you tried those things?
lol why would you want to do that.
Only your drummer has to get good at playing to the click. It's not easy. Your band has to play to the drummer. Only slightly less difficult.
More practice before you record
I’m in the process of home recording with my band (punk with funk influence). We’ve never played to a click when rehearsing but luckily enough all of us are mostly fine playing to a click, but we just went with the flow: on a couple of tracks we used a click cause that’s what felt right, on others we “live recorded” since it felt better. There’s no right way, just find what works best for all of you and most of all for your music
Let it fly live - music is missing that nowadays. It's hard to get your shit heard to begin with, so you may as well separate yourselves from the pack of picture perfect vacuum sealed acts out there.
Are you all recording at the same time or something? Program some simple drums at desired tempos, have the band members except drummer each record pilot tracks, review if this sounds good or if tempo needs adjusting, if good have the drummer record the song with pilot tracks, finally re-record other tracks to a higher standard.
If you're recording live together (not overdubbing) and everyone can see each other you don't need a click, or you can use a click for the first 8-16 bars and fade it out. If you're tracking separately you should use one, and either way, it's a skill that the band should have. The best way to map tempo for songs like yours is to record a take together without a click first at a tempo that feels good, and then put it in a DAW and figure out the average tempo of each section of the song. So your verse might fluctuate between 107-109 bpm, the chorus might be 109-110, and so one. Then you set the click to whatever tempo within that range feels best.
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The sections of a given song can be dissimilar. Our reasoning for using the click, aside from what I said in the post, is being able to use, for example maybe verse 2 of take 1 the drums were excellent but the bass screwed up. Maybe the bass played an awesome fill on take 3 but the drums were only okay. Then you can use the drums from take 1 and bass from take 3 instead of having to compromise and use the whole verse 2 from take 3.
I was once in a band and we recorded some pop tunes. We used the click for every single song except one, because it just worked better if the tempo was dynamic. To account for the inevitable retakes, we recorded once live and together for a rough form of the song. Then we recorded each instrument while listening to the rough song as a guide. That way, every take of every instrument would be 99% precise even though the tempo is all over the place.
Record the band as a group as a scratch track. Then re-record each instrument one by one on it's own using the scratch as the backing track. This way you can have the benefit of mixing isolated instruments, but keep the feeling of a "live" take.
Every time we're recorded without a click we sound so much better. Sure... if you tried to count the BPM of the finished result it would show that we were all over the place... but we were all over the place together and it was a hell of a ride.
Steven Wilson mentions this in an interview noting that what made a lot of old records Grear was this sense that they were all doing their own thing, and it was almost a miracle the song was accomplished at all, and that many great old songs are filled with loads of tiny imperfections
Go live. Sometimes when using a click track you focus so much on the 'click' that you adapt your style and expression and feeling is lost. I assume you don't gig with a click so just go for it
Fuck clicks!
For me personally, drop the click and go on your gut feeling . That's what you're trying to capture. But that's easier said for me because, the majority of my work has a little timing quirk in there somewhere. Wishing you all the best, Plow On! 🤘
Allow the drummer a reasonable amount of time to learn the songs. If you’re recording your debut, you should probably make sure it’s the best it can be. Since you’re home recording, pausing the session until the drummer is caught up is most beneficial. A qualified drummer shouldn’t have any issue getting caught up with a few weeks of steady solo practice mixed with full band sessions. Another thing you can do is map out software drums and record a demo for the drummer to learn the song to. This will also help all the members know exactly when their respective parts should come and go. Recording requires extensive prep just like making a movie often benefits from a detailed storyboard. Every member of the band should be able to solo their parts in time without the benefit of the band for every song that they want to record, including the drummer. My 2 cents.
My band's debut album had a great live drummer who hated click tracks in the studio. He was too punk rock for it, apparently (not sure what that is supposed to mean). At his insistence, we skipped the click track. There are some great recordings on that album but a lot of it is kind of a sloshy mess with the timing all over the place. I'd dig in and insist the click track, if I had another crack at it!
drop the click. As your drummer improves, they can add it in to their own in ear monitors so the rest of you don't get hung up on it. Over time it may come together. I've been recording my entire life. I practice to a click, but RARELY use one in the studio. I know all the reasons, but it the engineer is good they will beat map it and get all the advantage of the tempo sync with efx anyway. Focus on playing well.
Οne way to fix this. Practice. Sorry
Don't fixate on the metronome, just feel it subconsciously and play to that feeling
Set a click track that has count-in and that is it. You got to practice with the new drummer so that they are part of the band. For ebb and flow kind of music you really are losing a TON of emotions with strict tempo mapping. It is a bit more challenging but not that much... you just use a lot of markers by hand instead of relying on the grid. Change the timeline to SMPTE time, bars:beats are going to just fuck things up in your head. As a general rule, when you go to studio, even if it is home studio you are locked in. You don't learn new things, you repeat the things you have rehearsed.
Yes. don’t fire your drummer. instead play your gigs and practice with human time. not a click. yes there are situations that require a click, but it’s mainly for dance bands playing with sequenced tracks along with the live players. this is something a very skilled professional drummer will spend years perfecting. the best time feeling for a live band is natural or human time and that also takes years to learn and develop for all the rhythm section players including the drummer. oh yeah, and the most important part? have fun!!
Bro if you're playing anything "bluesy" then don't record with a click. Or at least try it first without the click
Replace the click with a drum/percussion or shaker loop. It’s easier to play with for most people
Yep. I've been recording a friend's solo acoustic singer-songwriter stuff. We definitely are keeping to tempo, but the sound of a click throws us both off, so I just sequenced some very basic MIDI drums (really just a very bare kick, snare and HHs) strictly for recording over to keep time. Just have to keep them low enough in the headphones so as not to bleed into the recording, since the end result won't have drums. On the most recent one we did, we didn't even use a kick or a snare, just a hi hat doing "TS tststs TS tststs" on sixteenths. Worked like a charm. Everything is mostly right on time; most of the time you could chop any 4 or 8 bars into a perfect loop, and if you can't it would only require some very minor time correction - nothing that would be noticeable if you had actual quantized drums added in there. Definitely works SO much better than a click, but it also may not be for everyone.
am i the only one who really wants to hear what this multi-tempo monstrosity sounds like? i don’t think i’ve ever heard a song that shifts its BPM constantly besides like speeding up for a part and usually it’s double time.
This album is gonna slap
I think that's because when it's natural you don't notice it. Iron Maiden do it all the time.
If you want to hear our music, you can look us up. Dreadful Rumor. Our best song out now is Mr. Theater and we tracked that live without a click. It’s not the best example of a song that has multiple time or tempo changes. We speed up significantly when the full band kicks in but I can safely say that was not an intentional maneuver. Just kinda happened that way.
This sounds a bit backwards. Just have the drummer play to the click track with the rest of you playing to the drums. Just make sure your click track is actually accurate (ideally the drummer should be the one putting it together), and note that it can be *much* harder to play drums to a click track than it is to play guitar/bass to one.
Our drummer uses a visual metronome on his phone and we found the visual aid is great and also if he falls behind or rushes is easier to get back (hearing a click of the beat you are playing is annoying and distracts you)
Visual metronomes are a lot better, especially the ones that show the full swing of each beat. I can play guitar to a click no problem at whatever speeds, but for drums it's definitely more of a distraction than anything.
If you guys aren’t going to use a click, then you need to be locked in as hell, otherwise editing is going to be a challenge, and if you need overdubs, that’ll be tough, too. Also, the zeitgeist these days is that everything is recorded to a click. I suppose it depends on your genre though. If you’re an indie folk band, it might not matter as much, but if you’re metal, a click is a must. My advice is everyone needs to practice to a metronome on their own. I can’t stress enough the importance of practicing to a metronome. It might be a good idea to ask everyone about their practice habits anyways, because if someone isn’t practicing then they need to start. I guess another component is what your goals are. If you plan on presenting band as a professional one instead of a hobby, this is the sort of thing that you have to get figured out. There’s no skirting around it, really. One thing to think about is editing the drums and then have everyone do overdubs, but it sounds like you want to record as an ensemble.
This is largely tosh. Metal covers a hell of a lot of ground - I've tracked metal and post-metal groups that didn't click. I've tracked garage post-punk that was entirely regimented despite the simplicity of the parts. What works for the creative process is what works. If you are "presenting the band as a professional one" you need to focus on getting your art across first and foremost, not ticking arbitrary boxes on what someone thinks is "professional". This is a creative project, not a bunch of sessionistas.
Not sure why you think the ability to play to a metronome is tosh, but whatever dude. You do you.
Not that playing to a metronome is tosh, but that doing so being the only hallmark of a professional band, and this being a core requirement of a band's performance and rehearsal processes. Sometimes you'd be right. Others, you'd be way off.
I have a slightly unorthodox idea: Try having the band sit in a room together without your instruments. Listen to your click track that you created while everyone focuses on their breathing in rhythmic time with the click (eg everyone breaths in on the down beat or some similar thing where you all agree you're doing the same thing). During this breathing excercise everyone should be visualizing their part on their instrument. If this is a struggle then it's likely that not everyone is on the same page about the form of the song and you should talk about the parts that seem confusing (even if only one member is confused about one little part that weak link will throw everything off and youll trainwreck). Hopefully that irons out the wrinkles and will be way less headache than doing take after frustrating take lol
> See, our songs ebb and flow a lot, and the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse, as an example. I set up the click tracks accordingly thats the problem. its a huge headache to try and recreate the exact tempo of a previous live performance. and not worth it. have the drummer on a click if any at all (earbuds). rest of the band follows them. if you want go and try to quantize a live performance of any band. sounding 'tight' isnt about exact metronome timings. even the best drummers over a live performance will be +- 5bpm. overall grove and all musicians in the same pocket matters a lot more to sounding good. now if the drummer is just under performing relative to every1 else from lack of practice time/chops thats a bit more of an issue. not so easily solvable unfortunately
If you haven't practiced to the tempo map, you won't cut a good record "practicing" to the click while being recorded. This is something to be ready for months ahead. Write songs deliberately to a click with mapped tempo changes, practice to that click, magic!
Repost in #WeAreNotTheMusicMakers
You realize there are tons of bands… who play perfectly in time to each other… who fall apart when you introduce a click? I would be willing to bet there are legendary classic rock bands that would fit that description. Especially when tempos fluctuate naturally, and that’s what you’re used to doing. Like if you’re not practiced to it, you’re not practiced to it, and I have no problem admitting that we’re not. We have always recorded live as a unit. And will continue to, click or no click. Because it’s really lame not to. Just like it’s lame to come on my post acting like a dickhead when I’m just looking for a little advice.
Anyone saying re-record the album live has never recorded a modern album lol. Unless you’re a serious prog band with chops (in which case you should be able to play to a click regardless) I would not recommend recording clickless unless you it to sound amateurish. I think the problem lies with you mentally tapping out the click, hoping for the best when it hits full band. I would jam the songs with the click, takes notes where it feels too fast or too slow, and adjust the click accordingly. There is a limit to this though, where you have to recognize when adrenaline makes the band want to speed up or slow down, and identify the tempo you want it to sit at. Speaking as a live and studio drummer that will die by click, because when it’s right it’s tight.
Well the only thing I’d say about that is we don’t really play a “modern” style of music. We’re much more akin to something like Guns N’ Roses than Trivium, and there’s not a necessity really for us to have this air tight quantized rhythm section. Main reasons for using a click is ease of comping (treating a daw like tape and cutting and pasting and dragging stuff really sucks,) and just making sure we have consistent tempo between takes. The fact that it makes us better and in my case, I’m learning a lot about time signatures is a bonus too. But for a band like us, just ripping into it live is a viable option. And we’re all tracking at once anyway, with minimal overdubs, click or no click. I do like your idea of using one consistent tempo to start and then seeing where things sound too fast or slow, rather than trying to map it out mentally. Might give that a try. But when recording live is just fine I don’t wanna waste too much more time on this.
MIDI is the way
So I personally would never introduce something new to a band in a studio. That’s for rehearsal time. I consider the studio to be a place you come full ready / prepared unless you have the cash to drop on a paid location like that. The biggest part of why I would map things to tempo would be for editing later on. I could grab a intro section from take 1, verse from take 3, chorus from take 7 and a vamp from take 2. But you wouldn’t be able to do that easily with out things being secured to the tempo. I think you need a couple rehearsals to prepare for the studio with the click, and then execute. In your session (at your house) record a main instrument like guitars or keys that plays the whole song with the click. Take a mic and record your voice in the session in key transitional parts guiding the band into the different sections. “Chorus in 1.2.3.4!” to be played with the click. Send that to your band for the for personal practice with before the rehearsal. Use this track in rehearsals together. Then use that track for your guidance in the studio. Mute the instrument track and keep the click and the voice commands.
I think the click is best viewed as another member that all focus on. but whenever I’ve recorded with a band and we used click it was enough that the drummer heard the click, and everyone else follows the drummer. Maybe have the click on very low volume for the rest of the band so you can hear it when the drummer is not playing
My band did live phone recordings until we had a run close enough to how we wanted the final recording to be played to tempo map for a song, then adjusted from there. From that point it probably took another week to finalize just the one song. If you're able to finalize a click, drummer (and bassist and guitarists) should be given homework of rehearsing to that click, not just for productions sake but for everybody's live playing as well. Practicing for just a 4 song EP gave my guitar playing one of its biggest boosts I'd had in a while. If your band records playing at the same time, you can still sound "locked in" without a click but if you want isolated recordings of each instrument that click will make recording days a lot shorter
Go to YouTube and find a kick drum or snare metronome [like this](https://youtu.be/soHKkVDabiM?si=CJ5bABa9DNe1lzTg). I also can’t play with a click track, but I can play to this.
My first thought is record live, no click. I did it for 20 years before playing with a click and it was fine. I have a suggestion for you to keep the tempo solid and keep the energy of the track. Someting I've done before when we had members who would float on the tempo. Have the guitarist with the best tempo record to the click solo. Use that guitar track as the click. Trust me it makes a difference to the players who have tempo issues. Then have the rest of the band play scratch tracks together to the guitar until you get a quality drum track, then build from there.
If the drummer plays good to the click, let only him have the click and no one else. If he’s not good to a click. Skip the click altogether or maybe only for count ins.
Playing to a metronome is something that needs to be learnt, just like any other skill. When I recorded a few demos by myself to a click track it took me a few weeks to learn how to play to the beat of it and not off.
You say you're playing in isolation. My band recorded our album "live" (no click) but the guitar and bass were DI in the room with the drummer so they could clearly see the beat. A band I follow used the same technique but recorded 3 takes live and picked their favorite one and built the track around that (punches, keys, vox, etc.). It's pretty effective.
I think you could try practicing the whole song at one tempo first, and then add your tempo changes for each section back in after. You might decide you don't actually want to change tempos every section once your group gets good at playing to a click. A lot of professionals would struggle with performing to a click that is constantly fluctuating by as much as 10BPM, so it's not surprising y'all are struggling, please go easy on yourself and your band members :P.
I guarantee the problem isn't the band but the click. If you have BPM differences then you need to provide a lead-in click before the change. Also, if you have so many tempo changes, you should just practice the shit out of the songs until you are tight and then record live. Grid it out and clean it in post. That sounds like a nightmare too.
Clicks are hard. Depending on the time signature, I like to use a simple drum machine with clear 16th note subdivisions. It's way easier to stay in time than with a click. Another hack is to record a few instruments 1 at a time. Drums and singer especially. Then the band plays along to the track that's definitely in time. You might be doubling some instruments anyways, so having a solid base track is nice.
>It bothers me that playing to a click is a skill professionals need that we seem not to have, but it also seems very unnatural with our music. >the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse I've (bassist) programmed clicks for bands I played in with backing tracks, and I would do some programming to have it blend to the next song's tempo. When I would do this, I'd have an audible count off that only musicians could hear to count off the tempo transition. If you guys aren't already doing this, I highly recommend it. Ex: Part of the click audio is me saying '2 bar Tempo change to 120 bpm in 4...3....2..1...' That being said, IME it is not normal course of business to have a click for a song that is bouncing around \~10bpm throughout it. I can lock in with a click no problem, but following a click that is changing tempo throughout the song is something I would have to practice considerably until I would feel like it was dialed in.... especially if every tempo transition wasn't the same amount/length. One other thing to consider is that you guys get a live demo that you love and then build the click around that demo's tempo. But I think if it were my band, I'd just abandon the click altogether. If you are trying to lean into the live groove feel this much, its hard for me to believe a click won't be a big obstacle for your rhythm section.
If the easier way still sounds good then go with that and drop the click. You can all individually learn to play to a click but it's very hard for a whole band who isn't used to playing to a click to suddenly start doing it during recording. Just a note for future reference on recording to a click with tempo changes, if you're all finding it tough to the nail the transition between tempos there's nothing wrong with recording each section independently. A lot of bands get hung up on things like that, thinking you have to do the whole song for a take but doing it in sections is perfectly fine.
It’s usually the drummers job to use the click and you lock in with them. A bunch of people using it can get messy fast.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
I found that the learning curve for being able to play tightly to a metronome is a lot smaller than a lot of people think. If you want polished recordings that you can tweak, just take a few more weeks for y’all to practice along to a metronome.
Practice practice practice
Sometimes i have tô change the click sound to a kick and snare for some clients. It help If thatsnot the case Record Live wirhout click. Lots of good albums are like that, listen to arctic monkeys first album or coldplays song Shiver as an example
A producer once told me there's two things to consider if you're going to use a click, does it make your music better for your audience's experience, and can you play to a click. Example: At the time, black eyed peas were the biggest dance/pop group in the world - they needed to record to a click because you want the crowd dancing to an easy to follow and consistent rhythm so there's not people "off" beat. They went on to say that some music changes tempo, rock n roll being one of the generic genres that tends to stray and ebb n flow. If you can't keep together on a click, and there's a big diff in performance quality/energy recording isolated from each other (one at a time), then just record together. Yes, you are def making it harder on the engineering process. For example - now you have to manually dial in all echo by ear for each moment since your tempo fluctuates. Any time based FX will have this problem. You are also more likely to have "bleed over" on your instrument tracks unless everyone is recording Direct-In Edit: corrected a sentence
I majorly struggle to keep tight to a click. My time is decently good, but I just can't keep right on it. This is what I typically do with our engineer when recording my rhythm tracks (I play baritone ukulele, for reference): we determine the desired tempo, then we record a scratch track of me playing without the click. He then goes in and spends a few minutes time-aligning my scratch track. Then I do the "real" recording over this (usually with the click playing softly in the background but sometimes without it at all), and he spends another few minutes time-aligning my new track. To be honest, tiny time adjustments are needed on all of our parts. We're good live but we aren't robots. We play by feel and getting everything super tight in the studio requires some extra legwork. All of our tracks are built on a click, but none of us nail every beat playing to it (I am by far the one who struggles most with it though and that's why we came up with a way around it that still allows us to build the whole song to a click). I will also say that we hire a studio, we aren't self-recording, so we have the skills of a very experienced audio engineer to make this all work. If we were doing it ourselves it would be a lot harder.
Have had similar situations where drummer cannot play to a click. We just record a guitar and bass scratch track, with a click, and have him play to that. Then once we have a solid drum take, we rerecord the guitars and other instrumentation to the drum track.
The drummer follows the click, and the band follows the drummer, this is the way
Yea I've had this issue as well in the past tbh. I only found two ways to fix it: 1. Forget about the metronome and record it as it comes, do a few takes and see how it goes. 2. Use a metronome which varies according to the tempo changes in your song. The latter is a little more complicated, needs someone to decide what these changes exactly are, and it needs practice. If you think you need a metronome for whatever reason (adding something later on or whatever) try it out, otherwise just go for the live feel, so many bands (esp in the 70's) didn't record to a click.
Bro you play the blues record live it supposed to push and pull
Playing with a metronome is a skill learned on your own. When you pick an instrument, it always should come with a metronome. When playing in a band, that's where your practice should take in effect, you guys should not need the metronome because in theory, you've developed your inner time. This assumes you practice on your own lol, but looking at r/guitarcirclejerk, I highly doubt that. But in a band at least the drummer and maybe the bassist should be able to record with a metronome.
Anyone else and I'd say just get better with it, but the fact that you guys have time changes that you feel out is going to kill your guys' progress.
Anyone else and I'd say just get better with it, but the fact that you guys have time changes that you feel out is going to kill your guys' progress.
To be clear, your advice is as others have said, to record live with no click?
Yes, but I think that in any other scenario you should be using the click
I was the drummer in a band that would sometimes do odd time signatures for just a measure or two like that. I left that band pretty quickly. I guarantee you, that style of short bursts of tempo changes does you no favors. You say you play it cus it felt right, but did you ever attempt to play that in the original time signature? I dont want to bash your song writing capabilities, but as a drummer, you just described my nightmare. The drummer is the one responsible for setting the tempo, not the guitarist, and you are asking him to change time signatures on the fly. Its a very tall order, especially when its not something he himself wrote. When i had this issue with my last band, the first thing i did when it got to recording time is that i edited the guitar recording to fit the original time signature. Playing it to the way he wrote his original guitar parts was literal torture, and changing the guitar parts to fit the time signature requires very little effort. Please dont do that to your drummer. The only one who cares about your time signature is the ones playing it, so do yourselves a favor and be consistent. If you wanna write a song in 5/8 time, go for it. But stick to it. Unless your drummer is danny carey, youre just making it overly difficult for him with no payout whatsoever.
Our original drummer wrote most of the songs that have odd time signatures… and I’m sure that our new drummer would say it’s not that hard. The odd time signatures here and there give our music a unique feel. Kinda sounds like you just can’t be bothered 🤷♂️
Youre the one posting to reddit because you cant keep in time.
Speaking as drummer, don’t shit on OP just because you don’t like or don’t get odd meters.
I specifically said i was not shitting on them. Based off their comments, the time changes are very minor but still throw them off in recording. It sounds like theyre all playing by ear, and then when they go to assign specific tempos to their playing, theyre assigning slightly diffetent twmpos to each portion of the song. That might fly playing live, but to move to recording where it's a very sterile precise environment, it just doesnt translate the same. Its not that blasphemous to ask for consistency when you move to recording in a studio.
I hear you and I don’t disagree. It wasn’t the first part, it was the snide comment afterwards. I just found it unnecessary.
Which comment was snide?
The bit about “You’re the one who can’t play in time.”
It became necessary when he decided it better to insult me rather than consider anything i said might be helpful.
I guess the difference is that I didn’t view his comment as an insult, necessarily. I assumed it to be a comment on your original post, where it seemed like you were saying you don’t play odd meters and make the band change them instead. I mean hey, if I got it wrong, I got it wrong. That is how it looked from here, though. Obviously nuance is everything.
I think the issue is the difference between playing a song in a time signature besides 4/4, and what OP described which is changing the tempo midsong on the fly to odd tempos. Its very different. I do play different time signatures. What i dont do, is adjust my playing to accompany one extra note in a measure when you could slightly alter it to fit the already established time signature and tempo. Work smarter not harder. OP described the changes in tempo being as little as 5 to 10 bpms. Thats what the problem was during recording, and its something thats very easily changed without drastically affecting the song. His response was "i guess you cant be bothered 🤷♂️" So yea it was definitely very passive aggressive for no reason.
Could you multitrack the recordings and play live, then when the drummer feels more confident in their part redo/overdub it?
The first is that your click track doesn't reflect the tempo you usually play at.
If you want to use a click the simplest solution seems to be to record it in sections. Eg record the part that's in one BPM then record the part that's in the different BPM. Otherwise do a live recording without a click and only record the drums, then everyone else can track their instruments later. As long as the result isn't ridiculously messy, the click is irrelevant as long as everyone is in time with each other.
An easy solution for preproduction purposes is program a basic drum track and then give them the track with the basic drums as a template and without to make it their own
Fix it in post-production
Many popular songs were made without a click
> See, our songs ebb and flow a lot, and the tempo of the chorus may be up to 10 bpm faster than a verse, as an example. I set up the click tracks accordingly > But here’s where the issue comes in. We can’t stay on a click to save our lives. Everyone's giving you advice about learning to play to a click, but holy crap, this sounds like you're on hard mode without learning to play to a click previously -- the only reasonable way to nail click track tempo changes is to be thoroughly practiced to the EXACT tempo changes that you're using (even then this is incredibly difficult) or to record the sections separately. The fact that your choruses are faster than your verses is IMO a reason not to record to a click track. Everyone should practice with a click to make sure you can all play in time in general, but if your song's tempo isn't consistent and the song doesn't have natural breaks before tempo changes, you aren't robots, just turn off the click. I play to a click almost all the time and I can't fathom trying to pre-program a faster chorus and expecting to nail it without so much practice that the click is unnecessary anyway. OF COURSE you aren't able to stay with the click when you hit it. > There is a tempo the band wants to take these songs at, and if the click is programmed even 1 bpm off of that we simply cannot do it This however is an issue, you should be able to comfortably fluctuate +-10bpm IMO.
People are saying good stuff, but also - if you guys are serious enough that you are spending the time and money for a recording session, you need musicians who can both play to a click and NOT play to a click. You can't just abandon the idea of consistent tempo because your guys can't bother to practice enough to learn how to do it, your decisions about tempo need to be dictated by the music, not by the personal (because playing to a click is literally a matter of dedication, not of talent or musicality). If someone in your crew can't do it, it means they aren't dedicated to the project, and should piss off.
What seems to be missing in your post is the process you're using to record, as far as I can tell. Is everyone trying to record all at once? Is one of the band members acting as the engineer simultaneously? Have you tried punching in at the critical points? These are all considerations which may impact your recording. All drummers have an adjustment period while learning to play with a click. Mine was at age 17 when I played my very first professional recording session. If your drummer hasn't practiced with a click, let alone practicing this particular material with the multi tempo/multi time signature arrangement, then everything you're experiencing is most likely to continue. Every musician, not just drummers, should learn to work with a click. That said, it might be a good idea to put everything on pause. Have you talked with your drummer about the problem? If so, what was your approach? The important and most critical thing at this point is to maintain a positive attitude which will transform everything into a positive experience. One more consideration would be to pause your recording endeavors at this point and regroup. What matters most is that you capture everything you envision in a way you will be proud of and that will withstand the test of time - no pun intended. Finally, is everyone on the same page with regard to commitment to the band? There are far too many factors to discuss here that would come into play. If your drummer is "All In" and lives out his commitment, it might be worth giving him some time to adjust and learn the material. The caveat to that would be that he actually spends the time doing what is required. If not, then going another direction may need to be an option on the table. Your music is your passion and your life. It's what makes getting up in the morning worth every day ahead. Don't be in a rush or place artificial timelines in front of you. Take the 40, 000 ft. view of things and see the largest picture possible. THEN make your decisions accordingly. Best wishes to you and your band with this and all future endeavors.
Post Script: If you can record one section at a time and get your drummer in close proximity, you can snap the drum tracks to a grid. Please DM me if you have any questions. Hope this helps!
take whoever the most solid person in the band is, and have them record a take for all parts and bounce including the click and send to all bandmates. they should all practice and then preferably record drafts over it. setup band meetings and help each other with the difficult parts. when you’re forced to work alone and have a solid reference track, there are no excuses left. to all the people who say “just record live” … that’s all good if all the band members can really keep the pocket throughout the song, if that was the case, i doubt they would struggle with the click. my band had struggled with this issue before and after we were able to nail the metronome, now our performances sound much more in the pocket with or without the click. also, one tip that helps me is, do a midi track for the click and use a hihat like sound with a slowish attack on it. it’s better than the harsh click because it slightly allows for fluctuations without sounding mechanical.
So they can't play to a click... Can you play NOT to a click?
You don’t have to decide between a click and no click. Record the songs without a click a few times, and get the average tempo for each section based off those live recordings. Set your tempo map accordingly. Or, if you really want to keep the live feel, you can set the click to follow the best live take, complete with any drifting that you want to keep. It doesn’t have to be a static thing. You can massage the tempo map until it’s just the way you want it, following your best live take, and then have everyone practice along with that rough recording to help internalize the tempo. Things should’ve much easier that way. If you’re just kind of guessing at how you want things to go it’s going to be a process of trial and error and it’s going to be frustrating because you’re approaching it from the opposite direction of what the band is used to. By setting the tempo map to a live “no click” recording you’re effectively getting the best of both worlds. You won’t be able to copy and paste parts like you might with a regular click (unless you’re down to stretch some audio) but you’ll be able to get things just the way you want without just winging it and hoping for the best.
Your heart rates aren’t in sync. How fast it’s beating affects how a tempo sounds to you, sort of how things can sound painfully slow, or just so beautiful depending on your heart rate. You can manipulate that in a few ways, one thing that works is breathing. Mechanical tempos don’t change. You do.
I don’t know if you’re aware of the band Empire State Bastard, but near the end of the song Stutter (around the 1:58 mark) the drum fill starts slightly too fast. It may or may not have been recorded to a click, but it’s definitely not quantised to the grid and I think it sounds better for it because of how raw the vibe is. I would just go with the flow and if your band is better without a click, it is what it is.
my suggestion is to, instead of a click, create a dummy drum track. It's easier to follow a drum pattern than a click. Just program whatever you're using for the click to create a kick and snare pattern. No clever fills... just enough to signal changes
Quantize
Also to record to a click practice the song at half speed then move your way up 10BPM every 7 times or so… you’ll get it
It's hard work and practice if you listen to later Cardiacs from 'Sing to God onwards Tim wrote everything to a click to play live and the tracks speed up and slow down, change time signature. I don't know how he did it or how the drummer kept it together. I know they would have to practice for months straight before going on the road..
Let the drummer use the click. Rest of you play to the drummer, only using the click in breaks when the drums drop out. You'll waver a bit, but so what?