Detecting Click Tracks

jamie found a blog entry by Paul Lamere, working for audio company Echo Nest, in which he experiments with detecting which songs use a click track. Lamere gives this background: "Sometime in the last 10 or 20 years, rock drumming has changed. Many drummers will now don headphones in the studio (and sometimes even for live performances) and synchronize their playing to an electronic metronome — the click track. ...some say that songs recorded against a click track sound sterile, that the missing tempo deviations added life to a song." Lamere's experiments can't be called "scientific," but he does manage to tease out some interesting conclusions about songs and artists past and present using Echo Nest's developer API.

Comments

It's pretty standard these days

[spliffington]

It's required to make use of drum editing and multitrack syncing. If I were to record garage rock album i would throw everyone in the same room and just play the songs. However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click.

Really? Why?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[gravos]

Wow, I had no idea that click tracks were so sophisticated. I imagine it can make it much more difficult for the drummer to follow along in a live situation - and if you get out of sync it must be disastrous! And of course you need the click track to synchronize for digital editing, it seems only natural.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Technician]

If I were to record garage rock album i would throw everyone in the same room and just play the songs. However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click.

I record garage bands. You don't need a click track for multi-track recording. Take a demo tape and use it to get the drummer to play his track. Use the drummer as the click track for the rest of the sessions. A click track is not needed for multi-track digital recording. I add the wet tracks last after recording all the dry tracks for final mixdown.

The only click track used for this is just a tempo 1 measure lead in to get the drummer started on a new tempo.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Artifice_Eternity]

Because you're not throwing everyone in a room together. You're likely recording different parts separately, and doing multiple takes, then taking the best takes of each part -- or the ones that go together best -- and mixing them after the recording's done. You can also go back and add new parts if you decide they're needed, or change a part, without re-recording the whole thing. And you can even rearrange portions of the song -- cutting a verse or chorus, moving sections around, etc.

In order to do all of this, you have to have all musicians performing to an absolutely constant tempo.

Also, much music now explicitly incorporates electronic sounds that are sequenced -- synth arpeggios, drum machine patterns, etc. These are always precisely timed. Everyone else needs to be able to match them.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because you're not throwing everyone in a room together. You're likely recording different parts separately, and doing multiple takes, then taking the best takes of each part -- or the ones that go together best -- and mixing them after the recording's done."

You mean the recording process is just like it was 40 years ago? Multitracking has been around and commong for at least that long, and splicing together the best bits from different takes to producer the final version has been around and common even longer.

I think the click track is an abomination, symptomatic of the general micro-managing, nit-picking, perfectionist trend that's been going around in business...it's not about doing it right (the organic flow of an unclicked drum track is "right"), it's about doing it how you're "supposed" to do it.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[lkeagle]

I'll have to respectfully disagree. The only reason most bands use a click track is if your drummer can't hold a tempo. There's nothing about digital recording that requires a click track, as evidenced by the enormous number of bands that popularized click tracks in the 70s and 80s.

All a click track does is remove the need for band to practice with metronomes, which unfortunately is one of the most important thing that any musician can do to improve their playing.

I'll admit, there is a case where using a click track is important, and that's if you have a sampler synchronized to it to play pre-recorded material that has to line up. You could consider this a form of 'multitrack syncing', if that's what you were referring to. This is quite common in live pop and hip hop concerts. Even more distressing is the number of 'live' acts where everything is prerecorded except for the vocals.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[MrMista_B]

Much music now is explicitly shit, and I'm not even 30.

I think you've just explained why.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Much music has always been explicitly shit, regardless of when it was made. Go back and take a look at the charts for any year you care to name, and probably 95% of the artists will be people you've never heard of...because they were shit, had their fifteen minutes, and are now long-forgotten.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[berend botje]

Or you could, you know, just have everyone in one room and record the result of that. It's called music.

The only thing this "digital revolution" has brought to music is sterile, over-compressed, lifeless, lowest common denominator elevator muzak.

Listen to a band playing live (and even then larger band have all sorts of electronic wizardry involved). Compare that to the CD. World of difference. No punch to the drummer, no life in the lead guitar.

And don't even get me started about the vocal processing these days. I'm pretty sure young people haven't heard straight-up singing in their lifes.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[lkeagle]

I also forgot one other reason click tracks are popular in today's live pop and hip-hop concerts. Turns out it screws up the choreography if you have even minor tempo fluctuations. A slight shift in tempo can make already difficult dance moves even more so.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[jrumney]

I guess you missed the article a month ago on Auto-Tune software, or you'd have already had an idea why most music today is bland shit.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that 99% of the studio albums released in the past forty or fifty years were multitracked, and probably 99.999% of those were recorded one or two instruments at a time, right? Even live albums often have considerable studio polishing done to them (additional guitar and vocal tracks, retracking certain instruments, etc). Throwing a band in the studio and having them play at once just doesn't sound good most of the time. Rock concerts are very different from listening to a record--for one thing the volume level is insanely high, the sound is massive (I'm talking sound field), and there's an audience. All of those are a huge factor.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[clickety6]

Even more distressing is the number of 'live' acts where everything is prerecorded except for the vocals.

More distressing is the number of 'live' acts where everything is pre-recorded INCLUDING the vocals!

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[HonIsCool]

If you start with the drum track then everybody can play along with that recording and there's no need for any click track to keep everything in synch. It can even be the same individual playing all the instruments...

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cgenman]

Lots of bands that play poorly live sound great on their CD's, and vice-versa. I'd go as far as to say that *most* of the bands that I've liked listening to live have sounded terrible when laid down, and vice-versa.

It's the musician's dillema. Focus on the tricks that make a recording sound good, or focus on the aspects that make a live performance sound good. They're very different sounds.

Of course, I'd guess that the major impetus for getting a click track to the drummer has not been the relentless march of soulless digitization, but simply ticked off guitarists. Sure, we might call it the natural ebb and flow of music, but on stage it is called the drummer screwing everyone else up.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Slugster]

Even more distressing is the number of 'live' acts where everything is prerecorded except for the vocals.

...You forgot the part about running the live mic through an Antares box.... :/
~

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rivaldufus]

It's not just bands now, either. Modern film scores use a click track. Some of my friends play film scores as freelancers (they are professional, classically trained musicians) - and they've all reported having to use a click track.

The "conductor" is mostly used to notify them which section to play... as most of the music doesn't merit actual rehearsal time. The conductor does get to watch the film during the session, however.

It's pure torture for the musicians... to make it worse, the "conductors" will sometimes say, "Wow! I wish you guys could have seen that scene!"

With all the attention to digital synchronization, some people seem to have forgotten to write and play decent music on occasion. Most film scores these days seem to rip-offs of other film scores or semi-quotes from classical works (John Williams, I'm looking at you.) As great as the radio and recorded music has been, I sometimes feel that it has killed music.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[dotancohen]

I guess you missed the article a month ago on Auto-Tune software, or you'd have already had an idea why most music today is bland shit.

That is because the money is not in the music, it is in the music video, accessories, and other bullshit. Just find some beautiful woman to sync to a click track, the alter her voice to actually _sound_good_ and you've got a winner, with no accusations of lip syncing or whatnot.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Phroggy]

It's not just dance choreography. A lot of concerts have some sort of video display, which is synchronized to the music. Depending on the nature of the show, there may be some pre-recorded parts as well, mixed in with the live performance. Here's an example of both: the lead vocal, keyboard and bass are live, but the drums aren't, the background vocals aren't, and there's a video on the screen.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[dargaud]

There are digital signal processing tricks that can slow down / speed up a tempo without changing the pitch of the tune. I don't see why you can't let the drummer play in his own rhythm and then synchronize everything in post-processing.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cliffski]

I'd also love to see a band like Dream Theater play to a click track. Not everyone plays to a single time signature for a whole song.
DT don't stick to one for more than 10 seconds, or so it seems :D

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 24 and have been playing drums for more than half my life. In many circumstances, drummers not only need to practice to a click track, but to perform with it as well. The biggest crowd I've ever seen bounce up and down was when Rob Zombie was on stage and the drummer was playing along to a previously recorded sample. No drummer has ever been fired for keeping too "on" the beat.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a troll. I'm genuinely curious and ignorant. If parts of a recording are done separately, what is the difference between a drummer recording a particular sequence of music over a set period of time, and a drummer recording the first non-repeating set of drum hits and simply looping that over and over again? I hope my question makes sense, I'm not familiar with music terminology (tempo, rhythm etc) that would have made my question clearer.

Thanks

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[wisty]

You could get the band to play a "master" track, then make a click track to follow that one. Then the orchestra, special effects, and other tracks follow the master track. This is just a case of human beings modifying their behaviour to make life easier for the computers. Sigh.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[wwwald]

With a little effort you can still get your head around DT... but check out earlier Meshuggah recordings, Dillinger Escape Plan and related bands.

Now *THAT* is a challenge :-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

The human ear is very quick to spot repetition resulting in a sound which can quickly become robotic sounding.

Even if a drum track sounds the same for say one section of a song there will be small variations in rhythm and volume over time that to human ears just sounds more natural.

It would also be not much fun for the drummer as he would just be laying down loops instead of an entire track.

Of course sometimes this is the effect which is desired so you might end up with a more processed sounding drum track. Think Fat Boy Slim et al.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[c0p0n]

You can't expect a single instrumentalist to record a whole base track, on their own, without screwing up the tempo if they haven't got a reference in the first place. At least the first track benefits from the presence of a metronome.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

You can post-process/edit and it is often done.
Gotta fix all the strange drum hits.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[c0p0n]

You mean the recording process is just like it was 40 years ago?

Yes. I feel a car analogy coming on. Any car from 1960 is conceptually the same as any car from 2009. Just fancier and more efficient.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Hurricane78]

I think the click track is an abomination, symptomatic of the general micro-managing, nit-picking, perfectionist trend that's been going around in business...

There's your problem. (Emphasis mine.)
It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business". When I even hear stuff like "music managers" selecting "target groups" to "monetize" their "product/resource", I'm starting to feel sick. Not that It's not Ok to earn money with your music. But it should not be your dominating factor. By far. Luckily I'm pretty sure, this will not survive P2P file sharing. ;)

it's not about doing it right (the organic flow of an unclicked drum track is "right"), it's about doing it how you're "supposed" to do it.

I know what you wanted to mean, but there is no "right" in arts. If you think the sound that your $5000 synth makes when it crashes on the floor after falling from a high-rise is the perfect sound, then so be it. ;) If you want to have a perfect, maybe even mechanical timing, then that is (well, at least it should be) a artist decision. Where you're definitely right (and what I think you wanted to say), is that it's not an artist decision, but a business one.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[equex]

A band that can't play a song with tempo changes without technical aid is not a band worth listening to, by my standards. I'd rather have a band play a few measures wrong than a whole song 'perfectly'. But then again there's people who like sterile & produced music better than organic music straight from the amps.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[dougisfunny]

I thought it was because of songsmith.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[jfim]

It's not just bands now, either. Modern film scores use a click track. Some of my friends play film scores as freelancers (they are professional, classically trained musicians) - and they've all reported having to use a click track.

The "conductor" is mostly used to notify them which section to play... as most of the music doesn't merit actual rehearsal time. The conductor does get to watch the film during the session, however.

It's pure torture for the musicians... to make it worse, the "conductors" will sometimes say, "Wow! I wish you guys could have seen that scene!"

Is the usage of the click track torture or the lack of rehearsal time? And how is it torture? (Not trolling, just curious since I'm not a musician)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

That might have been true a decade ago. I went to a Pro Tools seminar a couple of years back, and one of the very first things the guy showed us how to do was to set up a tempo map to match the subtle shifts in tempo on music recorded without a click track. Once that is done, music recorded without a click track can be edited just as easily as music done to a click track.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Attila the Bun]

I record garage bands. You don't need a click track for multi-track recording. Take a demo tape and use it to get the drummer to play his track. Use the drummer as the click track for the rest of the sessions.

That's OK if you aren't going to do any time-shifting. The advantage of the homogeneous tempo provided by the metronome is that you can chop up and rearrange each track as much as you like, and still have the final mix line up.

Of course if you need to do this much editing, you might as well not use musicians at all.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[umghhh]

that is questionable actually - real progress exists but have been used up by additional energy sinks like: air condition, computers on board, electronic control systems, support for steering and breaking, the cars of today also carry much more of the (admittedly more modern) stuff than before - isolation etc. Not sure about 40years but if you take 10 or 20 years there may be a small decrease in fuel consumption but in general the cars use approx the same now and then.
Or maybe I am just buying the wrong cars - actually I did posses an Opel which is GM - OK now I know what t he problem is....

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's the musician's dillema. Focus on the tricks that make a recording sound good, or focus on the aspects that make a live performance sound good. They're very different sounds."

Rubbish.

The reason a band that sounds good live might fail in a studio recording are...

1: The studio they used does not have the facilities to record live music. Most studios don't nowadays and it is rare to have the big good sounding live room you need for this kind of thing. One room, home or basement studios will not do! Bands try to economize on recording and then it sounds bad.

If a studio does not have the facilities, then they will often lay it down part by part, which loses all the feel.

2: The material is weak. It's exiting live, but does not cut it without that live presence.

There are not really any studio tricks you *have* to do. A good sounding band is a good sounding band, live or recorded.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Spit]

Bands that sound good live don't translate well to the overdub recording precisely because they are good bands.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

well you have the idea, but not the experience. in real life, you probably can get 1 reference track with bass and drums, and from that you can create a tempo map that matches measure by measure the changes in the tempo of the song. once you have that all the editing, aligning, re-recording takes care of itself. you create the tempo track by simply tapping to the beat yourself, or as in the case of any professional recording, from an isolated drum beat like the snare. modern day pro software can handle 'time warps' pretty well, that is say where a chorus got recorded at 120 bpm, but needs to fit into a place later in the song that ended up 122 bpm. in most cases, you will never know the difference.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[umghhh]

It(music industry) may not survive p2p sharing or it may fail because if one can simply generate music automagically - software will generate stuff that makes you feel good etc - then why need big corporations to produce the stuff in 'old fashion' way???

What is also interesting or at least what I find it interesting - all the stuff that according to TFA is created with help of computers I considered to noisy. I did not know why but now I do.
OC they find out way to change and make it more sophisticated and yet another part of human performed jobs is gone. I suppose at the end we do not need superwise skynets and such - simple GPS makes your brain sleep all the time, the music is automagically created and maybe in the future a washing machine (google for "The Washing Machine Tragedy" to learn more) will satisfy your other needs too...

But of course you are right the business decision making our lives 'simpler' and 'easier' do not necessarily promote development of our culture (if such thing exists at all of course).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

no, he is dead on - your comparing toy software to pro stuff. pro stuff does not need any click, but a lead in click helps the start of the song. after that it is often done, but NOT a requirement for multitrack digital editing / arranging / sweetening.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business". When I even hear stuff like "music managers" selecting "target groups" to "monetize" their "product/resource", I'm starting to feel sick.

From Chevelle - Wonder What's Next:

In the beginning it seems that no one
Thinks beyond having fun which is why
You write music in the first place always
Moving, refining, pushing forward the art
That one's creating, looking to the right
Time to share it, and then the headaches
Of criticism senior advisors unseen people
Above twisting and distorting that which we
Love, and never ending problems with
Money holding you back preventing progress
I thought you only started 'cause it was fun.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[daem0n1x]

Been there, done that. Recording a band without multitrack is a nightmare (call it direct take). The slightest mistake that any musician may make, and there will be many, will force to re-record everything again. Small live mistakes are acceptable, in a record, they're not.

Even worse, you may record a song with the perfect groove because the band is full of feeling, and it's so perfect it hurts. But the vocalist got one note wrong. Then you stop and start over again and the groove is gone, because of a very subtle feeling of discomfort in the musicians. Maybe they're fed up with all the takes, etc. It's a lot easier to record multitracked and then ask the vocalist to correct only that note. Then you can use beautiful, great recording you couldn't repeat if you tried.

If you have a shitload of money you can simply hire the best musicians in the world and spend lots and lots of studio time to get the direct recording just perfect. But that is not viable for the most situations.

Multitracking is not only about error-correction. It's also about processing each instrument differently and keep the balance. A vocal phrase may be too loud and muffle the band, just drop the volume a little on that part or compress the vocal track. If the guitar solo is not standing out of the mix, equalise only that segment and raise the guitar track level only for the solo, etc. Also, you need to space the instruments across the whole stereo space and equalise them so they don't clutter together.

Great jazz recordings were performed direct in the studio. But that's collective improvisation, it depends heavily in the group dynamics. You can't record a jazz band instrument by instrument, it won't sound right. You can listen to "Kind Of Blue" of Miles Davis. There are small imperfections perfectly audible throughout the whole record. But it's an irrepeatable, beautiful piece of music. Would you throw it away because one sax spilled into the other sax's microphone or you can hear the musicians whisper in the studio? But we're talking about the best of the best musicians possible. And even jazz recordings are multitracked anyway, because the tracks need to be at the very least individually panned, equalised and compressed.

Don't get me wrong, I hate over-produced music. I think the role of production is to serve the music, not the other way around. I like recordings that sound a bit dirty and spontaneous, but you'd be surprised to know the amount of hard work the producer and technicians have to make it sound that way.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[home-electro.com]

Two times I purchased CDs of musicians I did not know before at the live concerts. Both were rather disappointing... Only after a while (when the excitement of hearing the original performance wore off) I could enjoy those CDs. Music on them was so dull...

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[daem0n1x]

Stevie Wonder produces and plays most of the instruments in his own records. Lenny Kravitz works this way, too. And we're not talking about a small 3-piece band, these guys play a lot of different instruments!

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[lurcher]

Yep, I was going to say the same thing, the parent said "In order to do all of this, you have to have all musicians performing to an absolutely constant tempo."

And its not true, all you need is to have all musicians performing to the _same_ tempo

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Ashe Tyrael]

Most metal bands that use orchestral or other backing work use these too. At that point, it's a matter of synchronising the live performers with that stuff you's spent a goood deal of money getting that choir or orchestra to record. Thankfully, with the best bands of this type, they tend to try and do as much as possible within the live performance.

To be honest, I think the sheer amount of badly-done artifical pap err pop music has really soured very many people to the concept of backing tapes, and any aid that keeps tempo. Queen used a fair amount of backing tape, and nobody ever said they were fake. Sometimes, you just need a degree of synchronisation, especially when your songs are more compositions than out and out songs (Nightwish, Dream Theatre, et al) which mean that there have to be moments where the band knows, to the instant, where to come in, or back in after a gap, without being able to hear exactly where they are on the tape itself.

As an aid to lousy drummers, I can see why they'd draw ire, but a lot of these drummers are very very good. They just need to keep a lot of things synched up to make their soundscapes work as they should.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Raydome777]

Your right its "cold hard business" now, but if music as an "Industry" is on its way out with any luck it'll go back to being fun again.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[c0p0n]

You didn't quite get my point. What I mean is that a car is still an engine + wheels + chassis. All improvements made since it was first invented is accessory to make you safer, more comfortable and spend less cash on keeping it running. Take it all away, you still got a car.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[assert(0)]

True, but even the best time stretch dsp tricks produce artefacts. Possibly tolerable in the +- 5% range, but annoying as hell in the +- 50% range.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[daemonburrito]

AC is right. Beat maps are great and used everywhere. Beat detection algorithms in modern software work great; most of the time, detection is perfect and you don't even have to tweak it.

Then you have the best of both worlds: Editing and syncing sequences is easy, and you have a human feel.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Zero__Kelvin]

I absolutely agree. I have been a drummer for more than 30 years and play the guitar fairly well also. I have Ardour on Linux with a TASCAM US122L audio to digital USB interface. I know how to use them. I would never use a click track, and I am sure as hell not wearing headphones during a live performance. Any drummer that needs a click track needs to improve their timing / skills.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cayenne8]

I pine for the days back when we had drummers like Keith Moon....just beat the hell out of everything, fast. No click track needed there. Man, I've seen films of him when he was young and really had his chops, those stick were a blurrrrrr.

I think I heard an interview with Pete, saying someone was asking him after listening to some recordings of a session or two of the Who, asking about overdubs, etc on the drumming, and when told it was just Keith, he said it was impossible for someone to hit the drums that fast.

Personally...I'd rather hear things a little more 'raw' than to have everything so 'perfect' so that the digital tools of today can work better.

I think in some ways, the modern recording tools, have helped kill good music in many ways, it can really mask the lack of talent in todays musicians. Some of those old classic albums were recorded practically live. There is very little in the way of overdubs on the studio version of "Since I've Been Loving You". That track was mostly recorded live in one take. Why can't the groups of today play together as a band live like that?

Regardless....I've rather FEEL the emotion in an imperfectly played tune, rather than hear a lifeless perfect rendition of a tune.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[El Torico]

And I miss the days when we had cowbell players like Gene Frenkle. No click track needed there either, not that it would have done any good.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Zero__Kelvin]

"on stage it is called the drummer screwing everyone else up"

Yes. If only the drummer could keep a beat the way the rest of the band can! ROTFLMAO

Disclaimer: I am a very good drummer and a decent guitarist. I have no bias except experience.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Zero__Kelvin]

Exactly. And it doesn't have to be the final drum track. The drummer can always lay a new more meaty track down after the rest of the sound starts filling in.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[pz]

Also, much music now explicitly incorporates electronic sounds that are sequenced -- synth arpeggios, drum machine patterns, etc. These are always precisely timed. Everyone else needs to be able to match them.

Interestingly, I remember reading an interview with one band (perhaps The Pet Shop Boys?) where the artists were complaining about the inherent inaccuracy in MIDI control. Seems they were able to hear the few milliseconds uncertainty that the article claimed was due to limitations of the MIDI spec. The band went to great lengths to control and minimize this timing slop.

I guess this goes to show that one man's crystalline perfect timing is another man's ear bleeding horror.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[AttillaTheNun]

Most bands don't have the talent to record direct these days,not that you could find a producer willing to do it.

Your reference a jazz album recorded in the 50s. Name the last #1 jazz album that was recorded in that manner.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[moxley]

Well, I am not sure if this is specifically what spliffington was referring to, but one of the things that makes things like pro tools or sonar or reason or any of that stuff so powerful and innovative is the ability to work with individual tracks in a gui - cutting and pasting down to the millisecond level, taking sections and looping them or pasting them into several other areas within a song.

So for an example: Let's say you have a performance where the drummer isn't using any sort of metronome or click track to keep time and there are natural variations in his timing - in this performance when it is captured in one take it sounds great, because it doesn't sound sterile or robotic...

Now, let's say you want to use that same recording in a multitrack recording editor, and lets say while playing with it in the software you decide you like the first four beats and want to loop them a few times before moving on and sort of change the song - now this natural slightly off time variation may not sound so great because instead of fitting nicely in with the swing of the original unedited song, the fact that it is off time becomes much more pronounced because the off time beat is coming out in places where it doesn't work so well everywhere that loop (which you have just cut and pasted into different areas of the new track) is inserted, that offtime beat comes up. Now, in addition to that, you also have the issue of it not syncing perfectly with the bass track and stuff.

You could then probably go down to the individual beats and chop those out, but that may be a lot of work and may not end up sounding so good.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[machine321]

Even more distressing is the number of 'live' acts where everything is prerecorded except for the vocals.

They have pop or hip-hop concerts where the vocals aren't pre-recorded?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[tim_uk]

I've tried to do this live and it's almost impossible. You stop listening to the song and only listen to the click. No soul, emotion or feel. Tim

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cayenne8]

"Queen used a fair amount of backing tape, and nobody ever said they were fake."

From what I've studied about them...about the only 'tape' Queen used was during the Bohemian Rhapsody opera section.

They played pretty much everything else live. They used delays quite a bit, but, that's an effect...not a backing tape in the sense of what is done today.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[eggy78]

It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business".

I have to say that even when I'm just "having fun, making music" that I'm much happier using a click track for two primary reasons:

1. Although I absolutely love playing music, I'm just not that great of a musician. I'm always getting better, but my goal is more to "make" music than to "play" music. I like composing, I like building a song up from a concept; I like being able to play the guitar part first if I need to.

2. From an editing/production standpoint, it is a NIGHTMARE trying to get even the best musicians (at least the ones that I know) to stay locked in with each other on a recording. It's just not the same as a live performance, and they will drift slightly in tempo against each other. You can take this drift out if you want to spend the next month of your life fixing the recording, or you can record to a click track and its brutal adherence to the tempo. I won't record anyone who won't record to a click unless they're planning on doing a "live" take with no additional instruments or overdubs than what they can perform at once. It's just a pain in the ass.

Finally, although this goes with reason number 1 a little more, I really like to use the grid and other tempo-dependent features available in DAW software. If you're just trying to "make" a song, you can grab a sound from one part of the song, put it somewhere else, specify the tempo and add a delay with appropriate speed, and really change the face of a passage.

I'm not going to say that it's universally good, and I agree that it can result in a mechanical feel, but as an amateur performer, engineer, and producer, a click track just takes so much of the fuss out of the process that I prefer to work with it than without.

On a different note, I have heard some tracks lately where you can actually hear the click (with your ears!) through quieter passages. ( intro to The Starting Line's "Inspired by the $" is the specific track I'm thinking of) I totally understand that they have as much of a right to use a click as I do, but you'd think they'd do a better job of masking it.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[plover]

There's your problem. (Emphasis mine.) It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business". When I even hear stuff like "music managers" selecting "target groups" to "monetize" their "product/resource", I'm starting to feel sick. Not that It's not Ok to earn money with your music. But it should not be your dominating factor. By far. Luckily I'm pretty sure, this will not survive P2P file sharing. ;)

But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.

At the one end of the spectrum, you've got Muzak -- people who are specifically recording background music to achieve a physiologic response: calm, desire to buy, etc. They are under no pretense as to what they are doing. Artistic freedom is almost non-existent.

At the next level, you've got the Hannah Montanas. She was hired to perform exactly to specifications. She is doing a job, more like an actor playing a rock star. She is under no delusion that what she does is a business. She also has no freedoms.

At the next step it gets more interesting. You've got the Britney Spears type. She may think of herself as an "artist", but she was really just "sorted to the top". Lets say ten thousand artists sent in their music. The label says "I have a contract to deliver a band that will sell hair-care products. She fits best." So they hire the "artist," who is perfectly free to delude herself into thinking she's hot stuff, but in reality she just happened to be the best match to the goal of the label. It's no coincidence that pop stars sound similar. And despite her delusions, she really has very few freedoms.

Further along, you've got the smaller and independent labels. They're only listening for a particular "sound" that fits with their other sounds - electronica, ska, house, whatever. Their promotions, concerts, and all that other stuff align, which makes it easier to promote more of the same. But it's still business.

And at the other end, you have the self-produced or independent music. It can be any sound of any quality. Nobody promotes them, nobody works for them, and they do as they please. That doesn't mean they don't want to perform or to get paid for performing, just that they are on their own. But even they have limits. Picture some garage band at a local show deciding to play a bunch of Spice Girls covers -- they'd either get thrown off the stage, or they'd "readjust" their style back to the show. It's not total freedom at this level, either -- they have to play to their audience.

So I don't know why you "feel sick" about "music managers targeting groups to monetize their products." That's what they do at every level. Its just that some of these people have done it for a long time and are very good at it.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[CrashandDie]

Been there, done that as well.

But I think you're simply off topic. I'm a drummer myself, and I was also the sound engineer of the band, and the only times we would do single-track recording over multi-track is when we would just record ourselves so we could improve ourselves by listening to our messing about during rehearsals. Call it an audio logbook.

Yet, there is no way in hell that I would discard multi-track recording when actually recording something that has any other purpose than what I explained above. For all the very good reasons that you've explained, being able to lower the drums, or accent the bass during a solo (at some point I had extra hardware and multi-tracked my drumkit just for fun, only used it for a while and then switched back to mixing my drumkit live), but the thing is we never used a metronome for any of that.

As we did it, we would just play, everyone together and record the whole thing for the first time. Once that was done, we would listen to each track individually, and could see which parts needed improving. Everyone would then take turns and improve each section of the song --while listening to the other instruments while they re-recorded their part-- until we were happy with it. The only time I use a metronome is when I'm drumming on my own, to improve my own performance, but I could never play a whole song with the invariable click in my ears (actually that's not true, there is one song where I used a metronome, but only because I had a continuous snare drum pattern and was (am?) just not good enough to keep the rythm).

My point being that multi-track is completely different than playing with a metronome. You don't need one to do the other, even though I am confident both greatly improve the overall quality when applied to the correct scenario.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you take away the electronic gizmos and rely on musical talent, most of today's bands are out of business. Instead of hiring beautiful people who can kinda/sorta sing and play, the music industry would have to hire talented people, many of whom would be unattractive and therefore less marketable. The alternative to click tracks and Auto-tune is ... well ... plastic surgery.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[hesaigo999ca]

Yes, I have seen some kind of monster by Metallica, and you see exactly this, the problem with this is that like Led Zep in the day, when it comes time to play it live, the artists can't reproduce the track properly and end up disappointing their fans. I saw Metallica on the and justice for all tour, and the song dyer's eve, where the double bass drums are just amazing, does not get played the same live....trust me....makes a world of difference, especially if the cool thing about the song, was the double bass...but now its missing.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[shawb]

When I was in the studio we had the whole band play while the drummer laid down the drum track. Then me (the bassist) and the guitarist recorded our parts to the drum track. You get a tiny bit of bleed through in the tracks, but aggressive EQ shaping can cut that down, and in theory the same bled through sounds will be pulled into the final mix so it isn't much of an issue. We even got bleed through of some really unintended sounds (voices, feedback) that just went really well so we decided to augment them in the mix rather than diminish them. Then again, the engineer is a drummer at heart and started back in the days of tape and razor blades, so it would make sense that he would try to allow the drummer to provide the pulse of a song rather than a click track.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Lord Apathy]

I've never heard of this "click track" before. Actually it does make sense if you look at it from a purely technological point of view. Computers beat to a click, sort of, and everything in our society has become computerized. So why not music?

But as I've heard machines make good servants, but terrible masters. I'm going to throw my lot in with the group that thinks this is an abomination. I've always though that the drummer was supposed to be the bands "click track." When I played I took all my cues from the drummer. When he went off on a "drum solo" the rest of the band just stood around and watched him till he got it out of his system.

My be this is one of the reasons I like the music from the 70's and before. It just seems to be more alive to me.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Yewbert]

I pretty much agree with you. Another aspect of this that I just feel like blathering about is that the process of developing/educating/training (especially rock/popular) musicians is a lot more methodical and business-like than it used to be, too.

The Beatles learned to play their instruments in their bedrooms, parlors and grungy little clubs in very dubious neighborhoods, fueled by adrenalin, speed and demanding crowds, in ten-or twelve-hour shifts. Everybody who bought that particular Velvet Underground album then picked up a guitar and learned to make it work on their own. A lot of today's bands who may even cultivate a garage band look, well, didn't. Look up the various Musician's Institutes - and even the real Paul Green School of Rock - and check out some of the musicians who have come through those backgrounds. Virtuosos, to be sure, and a lot of them I really like - but there are a few who are just essentially robots - they probably don't need click-tracks 'cos they're just that disciplined and precise, and sometimes this has some of the same soul-draining effect as click tracks.

Not to come across as calling this all a bad thing, all the theory-chops and all, 'cos sometimes it's just amazing, and I do love me some math-rock,... Find any footage of, to pick a drummer example, Virgil Donati in action, maybe with Planet X. The guy is just inhuman - his arms look like a helicopter behind a kit, and it strains credulity that so many things can be hit so fast and with such precision. And I've seen and heard him live, so I know it's not studio effects. Ditto Mike Mangini (both he and Donati have played behind Steve Vai) - who can operate more simultaneous time-signatures than anyone I've ever seen.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[sleigher]

I played in a band and put out 6 albums. We did exactly what you said instead of using a click track. We isolated all instruments in sound proof chambers and just recorded the drums. The drum tracks became that reference. The advantage of this was that the whole band played the song together and the drum tracks reflected that. Then the other instruments laid their parts over top after the fact. We could do punch ins and make good use of digital editing equipment and software. Worked out rather well in my opinion.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

and if you get out of sync it must be disastrous!

If you are playing with competent musicians (and you are a competent drummer) then they'll know to adjust to the drums, since they are locked to the click. I played for three years to a click/sequencer, and the only "disaster" we ever experienced is when my ear piece fell out (sweaty) and my floor monitor wasn't loud enough for me to hear what was going on.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[poot_rootbeer]

I'll admit, there is a case where using a click track is important, and that's if you have a sampler synchronized to it to play pre-recorded material that has to line up.

Even then, it's possible (though not often done, for myriad reasons) to have the click track follow the drummer, instead of vice versa. It's not that complicated to put microphones or contact triggers on the drums and feed them into a computer to generate MIDI or SMPTE clock pulses.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

I shudder every time non-drummers name Keith Moon as one of the best drummers...man that guy was pure slop. I've been playings drums for 25 years now, and I've yet to hear another drummer praise Keith Moon.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[MadKeithV]

"How do I get to Carnegie Hall?"
"Practice, practice, practice!"

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Yewbert]

The only time I use a metronome is when I'm drumming on my own, to improve my own performance, but I could never play a whole song with the invariable click in my ears (actually that's not true, there is one song where I used a metronome, but only because I had a continuous snare drum pattern and was (am?) just not good enough to keep the rythm).

I've toyed with the idea of creating a "whoosh" track, a less fucking annoying and more forgiving version of a click-track, to help my own occasionally shaky rhythm-keeping. Dig, with something like a white-noise swell whooshing in time instead of the click. I truly don't mind playing with headphones on, even if usually just to give me a mix of everyone else's monitors that can compete with my own volume, but, man, that unforgiving click is worse than having Roger Waters glaring at you balefully.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[poot_rootbeer]

In order to do all of this, you have to have all musicians performing to an absolutely constant tempo. ...OR have the ability to manipulate tempo via studio technology. Back in the days when time-stretching meant running the tape reel at a few inches per second below spec, then applying pitch correction, yes, it was not worth the effort.

But today, in the era of ProTools and audio manipulation entirely in the digital domain, it couldn't be easier to take a performance with bad tempo fluctuations and correct them. Heck, there's probably plugins to do it automatically for you.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Actually, I can say the opposite. After about 4 clicks you don't even really hear the click anymore. If you are playing well, your playing will drown out the click anyways. If your playing is bad, you'll hear he click a lot, because you are not on tempo. If you aren't hearing the song, then you need to practice playing with a click more.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's so difficult to do a direct take, how do the White Stripes manage it? We worked on a White Stripes video (Seven Nation Army) where the budget for the single video project was almost triple that of the entire album recording cost. The music industry is insane.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[M-RES]

...Buddy Rich on the other hand :D

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[poot_rootbeer]

even the best time stretch dsp tricks produce artefacts. Possibly tolerable in the +- 5% range, but annoying as hell in the +- 50% range.

If the rhythm section can't maintain a tempo within a +/- 50% tolerance, there are bigger problems than the lack of a click track.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

It(music industry) may not survive p2p sharing

Wait, I thought the industry didn't lose any money on p2p, because people who steal...err, borrow songs wouldn't have purchased them in the first place?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[penguinchris]

Unless it's really awful, I find mistakes in the vocals or playing on album tracks to be endearing. It gives you a sense that the musicians were really playing it and putting a lot of emotion into it, as you described. I can think of several songs from the 60's and 70's that have flaws either in the recording or in the performances, but I wouldn't have it any other way because they were excellent takes.

When it's "perfect" you lose some of that. When you say it takes a lot of hard work from the producers and technicians to make it sound dirty and spontaneous - well, that just doesn't seem right. Why not just let it be dirty and spontaneous to begin with and not worry about small mistakes? Keep it a multitrack recording so you can try to do something about it if there are really big problems, sure, but for the most part just let it be.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cnock]

I hear this complaint a lot, usually from people who don't take the time to seek out "good" music. By "good" music, I mean music that suits you personally, that moves you personally.

There is more music being made today than ever before, thanks to technology. The downside is that anybody with Garage Band can churn out shit, but it also means that there is some really great, moving music being released independently, on small labels, and the like.

Go seek it out, it is there. I am almost 40 and I buy a lot of current music, none of it that you'd hear on the radio/tv/etc. And I don't mean to be elitist, but do a little surfing and there is greatness being produced all the time. And boy is it rewarding when you find it.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.

I couldn't disagree more. For every plastic-wrapped Britney Spears or generic Nashville pretty-girl-country star there are 100 unknown, unsigned musicians out there playing venues every night of the week. They are doing it partly as a 'business', but not THE Nashville/LA-based business we are all condemning here. Then for every guy slugging it out every night in small bars, there are millions more like me who play for beer at our local blues bar.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[clone53421]

All a click track does is remove the need for band to practice with metronomes, which unfortunately is one of the most important thing that any musician can do to improve their playing.

A click track is a metronome.

A click track is a series of audio cues used to synchronize sound recordings, often to a moving image.(1)

A metronome is any device that produces a regulated aural, visual or tactile pulse to establish a steady tempo in the performance of music.(2)

They're the same thing.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

You can blame a specific genre of every era for that, but on the other hand, I can pretty much name excellent music from any era just as easily. The main problem is that back in the 70s and early 80s, great music also made the charts. We still have great music now, it just doesn't make the charts as frequently as it did back in the day. While the 70s and 80s had their one hit gimmicks, hair bands and disco, there were still a lot of good tunes (that are still good today) in Simon, Taylor, the Cars, Petty, AC/DC, etc. etc. I highly doubt there will be any longevity with the current crop of hip-hop and generic rock (as compared to the 70s, 80s and early 90s).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[sleigher]

That is just Lars Ulrich though. That is to be expected. Go to a Krisiun, or a Slayer show if you want to see the album songs performed live. I knew guys who made drum tacks on Metallica albums. It is a shame, I know, and a disappointment to the fan. The problem here is Lars sucks where many other drummers don't. James should have recognized this and not allowed his band to make recordings that they band cannot play. When we recorded, we were always aware of what our limitations were and created the albums so that they can be played live. They probably lacked in terms of what people say is a good album, but they were true to what 4 people can do with instruments.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[daem0n1x]

The White Stripes clearly have overdubs. I listen to more than one guitar in the songs. They may record "live" drums and rhythm guitar, but I suspect that at least the voices and one additional guitar track are recorded separately.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[daem0n1x]

When you say it takes a lot of hard work from the producers and technicians to make it sound dirty and spontaneous - well, that just doesn't seem right. Why not just let it be dirty and spontaneous to begin with and not worry about small mistakes?

Well, I didn't mean the engineers and producers will make it sound dirty and spontaneous. What I meant is that the producing team has hard work to capture the band in a "dirty and spontaneous" way and make a recording that meets the modern demands for sound quality and clarity.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[jollyreaper]

Lots of bands that play poorly live sound great on their CD's, and vice-versa. I'd go as far as to say that *most* of the bands that I've liked listening to live have sounded terrible when laid down, and vice-versa.

It's the musician's dillema. Focus on the tricks that make a recording sound good, or focus on the aspects that make a live performance sound good. They're very different sounds.

Here here. Most live recordings I've heard aren't very good because the bands can't handle their material live. It kills me when a band I like goes on stage and it sounds like someone covering their material and doing a poor job of it. Zeppelin is pretty awful live, or at least every live recording I've heard is disappointing. They're gods in the studio. Metallica hasn't been able to play their good stuff since they stopped touring after the Black Album. They went to shit with Load and haven't looked back since.

Probably the most impressive band I've ever heard both on studio and stage has been Dream Theater. Musicians I know are amazed by what they hear. "They didn't just dub in stage noise on a studio recording here, all this is really live?" Yup. Just that good.

Now with Blue Oyster Cult, they did a live album called Extraterrestrial Live. Holy smokes, that band was on fire. But you listen to the studio versions of the songs and they're completely flat. This band needs a live crowd to come alive. The Red and the Black is a good example. The studio track of that song is just anemic. Listen to it on the live album and you'd think someone distilled awesome into a black, viscous ooze and mainlined it right into their veins.

Computers can do too much of the work these days. It's analogous to the fashion model vids on youtube where you see a woman who looks attractive in a commonplace way sit down in the makeup chair and between that and the photoshop she becomes a plastic elfin goddess, unnatural and unreal. Don't feel good about not looking like that, girls, because she doesn't look like that either. This computer processing shit is like A1 sauce -- you put it on a poor cut of meat to cover for the taste, it's got no business being anywhere near a good cut of meat.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[tepples]

Recording a band without multitrack is a nightmare (call it direct take). The slightest mistake that any musician may make, and there will be many, will force to re-record everything again.

Record three takes, and when a musician makes a critical mistake, switch to one of the other two that doesn't have a mistake in that measure.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

The only reason most bands use a click track is if your drummer can't hold a tempo.

ABSOLUTELY not true. The main reason bands use a click track depends on the situation, but all session drummers can play to a click. In a live environment lots of stuff is sequenced. You HAVE to be playing to a click (and the rest of the band hears the same click) to be in sequence with the sequencer (duh), otherwise the band doesn't play the right notes when the computer plays its part. I'm not a studio guy, but if an engineer demands it, and somebody is paying you, you should probably use the click track. If you are being paid as a session musician, then I seriously doubt you have a tempo problem requiring a click in the first place.

More telling is the drummer who CAN'T play to a click track is the guy who has tempo problems.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[man_ls]

Technically non-challenging music arranged to be played in such a way as to minimize the musician's individual artistry (what I assume to be a terribly boring task, to someone with skill in the matter) in an environment where they have to fully attend to the boring task for a rather long uninterrupted interval?

One of my best friends is a drummer for a major-label band, he loves to talk about what goes on behind the scenes of pretty much anything involving music. It's fascinating.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Rary]

Exactly. And it doesn't have to be the final drum track. The drummer can always lay a new more meaty track down after the rest of the sound starts filling in.

A drummer trying to match up a new drum track to a pre-recorded set of guitar and bass tracks will sound like garbage if there isn't a click track to maintain the underlying tempo. What you're describing is exactly the situation where a click track is most needed.

Something has to be a constant in the process. If it's not the drum track, it needs to be a click track.

Click tracks are not inherently evil. A good drummer doesn't absolutely need one, but is likely to want to use one. A good drummer is also willing to deviate from the click track if the urge to do so arises.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rivaldufus]

The lack of rehearsal time is because a lot of the music is so simple it isn't needed. They do play through some sections multiple times - but often because the composer may not have actually heard the orchestration (it's sometimes farmed out to an arranger, as the composer won't have time to orchestrate the music) and he or she will want to re-hear it to change something. Rehearsal time is usually a bit inadequate, even for big orchestras. For simpler music - from the classical era, like Mozart and Haydn, the orchestra might have only one rhearsal. The same for concertos. This is often because there will be a more difficult piece on the same concert, and the conductor will want to maximize his time on it, at the expense of everything else on the concert.

The click track is torture for several reasons: because string players (without frets) need to hear themselves for tuning purposes (the headphones obstruct this), it's too rigid - it's more like using a metronome. Metronomes are useful while practicing alone.

The click track is important, however, as while programs like Autotune and Melodyne can adjust rhythms for solo parts, it doesn't really work with polyphonic (multiple pitches concurrently) music (and this is one reason why rock bands usually record individual parts (or at least the singer) separately)

The other reason the filmscore recording sessions are torture is that the music isn't very interesting. Many horror movies have extremely repetitious scores (repeating the same four or five notes many, many time, in slightly different patterns.) Recording sessions usually go on for many hours.

The redeeming thing is that recording sessions pay better (or, at least more hours) than other gigs. Weddings are usually torture for musicians, at least from those in the ceremony. Some of my friends have played over a hundred weddings, and playing Pachabel's canon for the 60th time isn't very inspiring.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Gilmoure]

No way man! John Entwhistle was the monster man in The Who. His bass work is unreal. Totally changed how folks looked at the bass and how it could be used with other instruments.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Dr. Smoove]

rofl, no shit... moon was a hack. I haven't played in years but every drummer i knew usually made fun of keith moon for sounding like a drunken ape. My favorite modern drummer is probably adam deitch. That's just cause I like funk and jazz, but if you're interested, check out N'Yack off "Live in Tokyo" by Lettuce. Not only is the drum track superb, but every other track is sick, and it's live.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Record three takes, and when a musician makes a critical mistake, switch to one of the other two that doesn't have a mistake in that measure.

Except you can't edit them together, because the tempo will be slightly different. Unless, of course, you have the drummer listen to a click track!

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

I've played in a band that was sequenced so heavily, the only real instrumentalists were me on drums and the lead guitarist (who would drink beer up until the guitar solo every song).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[conureman]

A drummer I used to work for, Tony Hernandez, was trying to improve his skills, and started practicing with a metronome. Art Najera and the rest of the band got pissed 'cause he got so solid that he sounded like a guy with a click track, and lost his dynamics. BTW, I pointed out how some of the good drummers, i.e. Prairie Prince, often pump the beat on the high hat- A big plus when he incorporated THAT.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Rary]

The only reason most bands use a click track is if your drummer can't hold a tempo.

I can't speak for "most bands", but I can speak for the ones I've been in. I agree that there's no "requirement" for a click track, but it is a good tool to help achieve the best possible recording.

On the last recording project I was involved in, one of the things we did to prepare for the studio was record multiple versions of each song at various different tempos using a metronome, then listened to each version to decide which one we considered to be the "best possible" tempo for that song — at least, in a recorded format. That's the tempo we used for the click track when we went into the studio.

You'd be surprised what a difference a tempo change of as little as 2 BPM can have on some songs. When playing live, we would play the songs at the tempo that felt right in that moment, but on record it's a different story.

Of course, music is subjective. TFA suggests that something is lost when a recording is too mechanical, while some of us get driven insane by songs whose tempos keep fluctuating randomly.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Or Travis Barker, or Mike Portnoy, or any other long list of extremely over rated (yet popular) drummers of their respective times.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Zero__Kelvin]

Strange that it works so well for me then ;-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

I've heard Deitch...good stuff. I'm a big fan of Keith Carlock myself. And of course my Facebook religious preference reads: "Church of Gadd".

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Or Ringo. Oh wait... no one ever over rated him, except maybe Ringo.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[mcgrew]

You can listen to "Kind Of Blue" of Miles Davis. There are small imperfections perfectly audible throughout the whole record.

What my art teachers called "happy accidents". Sometimes these little imperfections are put in on purpose, which is called a, um, crap I forgot what it's called and Wikipedia fails me. The ancient Persians would put a tiny imperfection in their rug because "only God can make a perfect thing".

See Jackson Pollock for the ultimate in "happy accidents".

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cayenne8]

"I shudder every time non-drummers name Keith Moon as one of the best drummers...man that guy was pure slop. I've been playings drums for 25 years now, and I've yet to hear another drummer praise Keith Moon."

Well, sure, he's not a drummer drummer, but, as a listener and watching them in concert....he was fun and amazing. And in his younger days (early Who) he was good, but, drugs and booze really took their toll on him by the early 70's.

We can discuss Neil Pert, or Stuart Copeland if you'd prefer?

:)

I dare say they don't need a click track?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

I usually avoid stating the obvious, like Ringo is over-rated (or Charlie Watts), because they carry such a rabid-irrational fan-base, there's no point in holding a logical discussion about them. The main argument I hear about Ringo is that he is the MAIN reason so many people got into drumming...yeah, if you are 40+ years old. I'm almost 40, but have never been impressed with such classic drum tracks as "She Loves Me" and "I wanna hold your hand"...

just sayin' it's impossible for some people to separate celebrity from talent.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[mcgrew]

Back in around 1967 (I don't remember the exact time frame, it was before KSHE), the only station that played rock played the Archies incessantly, yet Hendrix and Zeppelin never got any air play in St Louis.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

It's not about NEEDING a click-track. I say again, good drummers can and do play to a click. Bad drummers simply can't play to a click track, so what's the point in trying to make them?

I see your point about popularist drummers (non-drummer drummers) and you've brought up the KING of them in Neil Peart. As a drummer, I like Rush's music and the drum parts, but I'm not particularly blown away. If you dissect what Peart plays, you'll see a definite repetition in his licks. Nothing wrong with having your own style, but I don't see much progress (even though he claims to be progressive) in his playing. Also, if I can play it, it isn't amazing ;-)

Stewart Copeland on the other hand...one of my inspirations and most influential guys ever.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Then for every guy slugging it out every night in small bars, there are millions more like me who play for beer at our local blues bar.

And that is the most hopeful thing about music there is these days. Growing up in the 60's, every junior high and high school dance had a live band. When I got into college in the late 60's almost every bar in town had a live band three nights a week. This continued through the 70's. You had your choice of 20 or more live bands on a weekend in what is essentially a small town.

Then it all changed in the 80's. All you could find was DJs playing canned music. No thank you. That seemed to last until the late 90's when it seemed to swing back the other way again. Now I have my choice of reggae, rock, swing, hip-hop, country, folk-rock, blues, bluegrass, and more. Get really, really lucky and someone like Waits or Charley Musselwhite might walk in. But the really good thing is that its all a bunch of folks making Real Music; maybe for beer or maybe for a little money that doesn't even cover the cost of their instruments. Great stuff!

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cjh79]

Music is a living, breathing thing, and tempo fluctuations are to be expected and welcomed. It's part of music.

The way to record properly is to first record a scratch track with the whole band playing the song. Then each musician records their own track, playing along with the scratch track in their monitors, until they've recorded the whole thing the way they want it (with whatever splices they want). This makes tempo fluctuations a moot point since everyone's playing along with the same scratch track.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Hatta]

So in other words, it's required to cover up a lack of talent on the part of the performers.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[tpz]

I can vouch for this too, and am glad to see at least one comment here stating the same.

Half of /. must think that musicians couldn't keep time before click tracks and/or that recording processes couldn't let them play together while recording to separate tracks.

That said, with so much programming (heck, even full-track drum programming for bands that have a solid live drummer), tempo-synced effects, cut-and-paste editing in the digital domain, etc. going on, its no surprise that laying down to a click track might make the rest that much easier.

That and because many drummers are shite at holding tempo. :D

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Hatta]

Small live mistakes are acceptable, in a record, they're not.

Pretty much any band worth listening to is better live. I can pick pretty much any live recording off of bt.etree.org and the performance is better than any studio recording I've heard in recent years. Just fucking play, record it, and release it. If you need studio magic to make it sound good, I probably don't want to listen anyway.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[hesaigo999ca]

Or 3 in the case of Rush, (and they are the tightest I have ever seen a band be, being able to repeatedly play their music version for version,not for note... unless they are doing a medley!)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[thebigbadme]

I'm a non-drummer, although sometimes I pretend in my home studio.... but I've got an appreciation for Danny Carey

IMO, best drummer, ever

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[sleigher]

I agree. I almost posted the same thing. People here forget that if you play with the same musicians everyday for 5, 10, 15 years, that you learn all the nuances and intricacies of those people and that is what makes a tight band. Lots of people can play, some can even keep good time. But there is NO replacement for really getting to know someone musically. The whole job of the drummer/bassist is to keep time and build the solid foundation of the song. Including a steady tempo.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[DeskLazer]

ironically, pete townshend was the human click track for the who. I can't remember where I read the article, but it was basically pete playing the stuff in time, and john and keith doing their thing, and playing to HIM. that's pretty cool.

I have no hate or love for click tracks. some bands do awesome things with it, others make it sound mechanical. you can do complex odd-time signature clicktracks with sophisticated software these days, and even adjust the tempo smoothly in cool programs like logic or even nuendo/cubase. that being said, my band recorded our first album to a click and this one will not have any clicktrack whatsoever. as an artist, YMMV depending on what kind of music you're doing.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[DeskLazer]

you can do multi-track recording with isolation, but have everyone in the same room. someone screws up, they re-record their part. that's what my band's doing. and when you go in to re-do your part, you can see the waveforms to get the timing. it's not "perfect vibe," but definitely not requiring the hold band to go again.

actually even with "live" recordings [as in, no click track], still most people go to do overdubs, and vocals sometimes are not even recorded in the take unless necessary. if anything, they're a scratch track so they can be re-recorded.

I'm definitely enjoying this topic; I just gotta fight the urge to respond to everything :)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feel [bad] about not looking like that, girls, because she doesn't look like that either.

I assume you meant "don't feel bad." Too bad just knowing that reality isn't that way isn't enough... I have two sisters, both of whom have severe body image problems. Not to mention my own irrational issues. My brother's the man, but thinks that he doesn't measure up to me... Few of us can stand up to perfection, but that doesn't stop it hurting when we don't.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[DeskLazer]

one of the first bands I heard judiciously use overdubs but not fill that gap in live was rage against the machine, when I was growing up. I know tons of bands have done it, but they were always the most noticeable to me. tom morello would play some wacky lead guitar solo, and on the records, he'd also layer 2-3 extra rhythm tracks just backing him up. live, it sounded so thin, but then again, you'd just want to see him solo, right?

but yeah, tons of bands do several overdubs. but I feel at least the ones I listen to now [and not the ones I listened to when I was in middle/high school] do a better job at translating it live.

I was gonna say to mod GP up because clicktrack is NOT multitrack, but he inserted an opinion that may be seen as flamebait or troll, so nevermind :)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[wooferhound]

""However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click."" So in order for you to be flexible with digital recording, you need to be inflexible ?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cayenne8]

Ok...interesting!!

Can you give me a drummer's opinion on:

John Bonham

Charlie Watts (I have often heard he really does have great time? Even at his current age?)

Ginger Baker

Frank Beard

Carl Palmer

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can edit live takes together when it's not done to click.

Even if the tempo has moved around a little.

In theory it should not work, but in practice it's fine almost all the time.

I'm not sure quite why, but we are much more forgiving about small tempo variations and edits than you'd imagine.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Ringo is overrated? That's pretty harsh, considering that he's mostly known to drummers nowadays as the butt of jokes.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

He's another over-playing guy that gets a lot of attention from non-drummers (and drummers alike, for that matter). Not to be negative-nancy, but when "best" drummer topic ever comes up, the list is predictable (but not very accurate).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rochrist]

Wow, I had no idea that click tracks were so sophisticated. I imagine it can make it much more difficult for the drummer to follow along in a live situation - and if you get out of sync it must be disastrous! And of course you need the click track to synchronize for digital editing, it seems only natural.

Nonsense. There's nothing about digital editing that requires playing to a click track. I've edited dozens of multitrack recordings not played to a click.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rochrist]

Because you're not throwing everyone in a room together. You're likely recording different parts separately, and doing multiple takes, then taking the best takes of each part -- or the ones that go together best -- and mixing them after the recording's done. You can also go back and add new parts if you decide they're needed, or change a part, without re-recording the whole thing. And you can even rearrange portions of the song -- cutting a verse or chorus, moving sections around, etc. In order to do all of this, you have to have all musicians performing to an absolutely constant tempo.

I do all of that with tracks that are never recorded using click tracks. The only time I have to do anything like that all is on a rare ocasion that the tracks is originally recorded to drum loops and then real drums are overdubbed at a later date. All this assumes that the drummer isn't completely imcompetent. Normal variations in tempo aren't a problem.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click.

Really? Why?

It has more to do with multitrack recording than digital recording. When you do a multitrack recording, each track is recorded individually. Usually this means that each band member will be recorded in isolation, and it's very rare for every band member to have such a developped internal metronome such that you can just tell them "play at 120 beats per minute", and when you combine all the tracks, they'll all be synced up.

Instead, what is done is that you set a metronome to play at 120bpm, and each bandmember will play along to the metronome.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Bonham--so good he doesn't get enough praise (and he gets a lot)

Watts -- not sure what "great time, even at his age means, but any drummer that has been recorded should have at least good time..in any case, top 10 over-rated celebrity drummer if there ever was one. People point to his jazz playing, but nobody in the jazz world points to his jazz playing...just sayin'

Ginger Baker--what do coffee and Ginger Baker have in common? They both suck without Cream. Actually I have no opinion on him, as I don't really know any music other than the few songs on the classic rock channels.

Frank Beard--is an interesting one, because watching him live, he plays like every beginner student I've ever seen...holds the sticks wrong, hits the cymbals with bad technique...but if you listen to the recordings, there's some really really good stuff on there. He just doesn't pull it off live, though. He's a solid, simplistic drummer, but not quite to the legendary simple status as say, Phil Rudd.

Carl Palmer--one of the best...if you are into that prog sort of thing. Not really my cuppa tea, so to speak.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

I think in some ways, the modern recording tools, have helped kill good music in many ways, it can really mask the lack of talent in todays musicians.

I guess it depends on whether you care more about the music or the musician. If all you care about is "good music", then who cares whether it was even a human who played the music, or if it was all computer generated with synthesizers?

Maybe there's an artist who can't play any instrument at all, but is a great composer, and so all his songs are "played" by software. No human has ever played the song, but the music sounds great.

Maybe there's a mathematician who can't play instruments and can't compose, but figured out an algorithm which generates beautiful melodies. No human has ever composed the song or played the song, but the music songs great.

Maybe there's a programmer who can't play instruments, can't compose, and can't figure out complex equations, but wrote a genetic algorithm that figured out the equations to compose the songs. No human ever conceived of the math, composed the song, or played the song, but the music sounds great.

etc.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cekander]

I would think some good signal processing algorithms should be able to sync up a new drum track to some pre-recorded guitar/vocals/whatever without a click-track and without leaving any noticeable audio artifacts.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

Much music has always been explicitly shit, regardless of when it was made. Go back and take a look at the charts for any year you care to name, and probably 95% of the artists will be people you've never heard of...because they were shit, had their fifteen minutes, and are now long-forgotten.

Not only that, but I bet 95% of the artists never made it to the top 5%.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rochrist]

However to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click. Really? Why? It has more to do with multitrack recording than digital recording. When you do a multitrack recording, each track is recorded individually. Usually this means that each band member will be recorded in isolation, and it's very rare for every band member to have such a developped internal metronome such that you can just tell them "play at 120 beats per minute", and when you combine all the tracks, they'll all be synced up. Instead, what is done is that you set a metronome to play at 120bpm, and each bandmember will play along to the metronome.

Uh...no. You don't. You have heard of things like ...headphones, right?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Hee hee...
[begin sarcasm]
yeah, the lead vocal is live.. Sure... Because most singers are able to twirl on one leg while doing back flips and belting out notes on-key. Singing is just that easy...
[end sarcasm]

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

The only time I use a metronome is when I'm drumming on my own, to improve my own performance, but I could never play a whole song with the invariable click in my ears (actually that's not true, there is one song where I used a metronome, but only because I had a continuous snare drum pattern and was (am?) just not good enough to keep the rythm).

I've toyed with the idea of creating a "whoosh" track, a less fucking annoying and more forgiving version of a click-track, to help my own occasionally shaky rhythm-keeping. Dig, with something like a white-noise swell whooshing in time instead of the click. I truly don't mind playing with headphones on, even if usually just to give me a mix of everyone else's monitors that can compete with my own volume, but, man, that unforgiving click is worse than having Roger Waters glaring at you balefully.

One of my most uncomfortable drumming moments was during a live show where I was using a click track which was just a tad too quiet. Everything was going perfectly fine until I hit a mini-drum-solo/fill a bit too quickly, and when I came out of it, I so I was off the rest of the song. I had to really focus to play everything with a 3/16th delay after when I actually heard the click in my headphones.

If the metronome is "click", the snare is "tack", and the two simultaneous is "clack", then the song, in my mind, went from "clack, clack, clack, clack" to "cltack, cltack, cltack, cltack". Kind of gave it a nice jazz-swing feel, but I wouldn't want to go through that again.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

Even if a drum track sounds the same for say one section of a song there will be small variations in rhythm and volume over time that to human ears just sounds more natural.

It would also be not much fun for the drummer as he would just be laying down loops instead of an entire track.

As a drummer, the presence or absence of a click track doesn't really affect the "fun". If the song has a repetitive drum pattern played over and over throughout, the song is not fun to play; and this is true regardless of whether I have to get the timing perfectly right with a click track, or if I just play the same old pattern loosely. What makes a song fun (for me) is having lots of interesting variations throughout the song.

Actually one of the more fun things for me to do as a drummer is to use a click track for some odd time signature I haven't really practiced or internalized yet (say 11/8), and try to improvise over the click. The click itself (on most metronomes the "1" will sound different from all the other beats) help me know what the "feel" of the time signature is supposed to be, and my challenge is to see how quickly I can adapt and play around with that feel.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

Sorry, I really don't understand your post. When you say "You don't", what is it that "I don't do" that you are referring to? And how are the existence of headphones relevant?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[glarbl_blarbl]

It all depends on the style of the music. If you're recording something which was composed in a sequencer then if you're going to have acoustic drums on the recording then you'll need to record to a click track. The process you describe is great for garage rock, but just won't work for heavily-sequenced styles.

Personally, I prefer to listen to music which was obviously performed by humans -- even though my current project is based upon sequenced beats which would be very difficult (if not impossible, unless you know a drummer with four arms) to play on an acoustic drum kit without overdubs. To that end I tend to leave out the pitch-correction and leave in a couple of subtle mistakes for character.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[treeves]

John Entwistle was also a French Horn player, like me.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Rary]

I would think some good signal processing algorithms should be able to sync up a new drum track to some pre-recorded guitar/vocals/whatever without a click-track and without leaving any noticeable audio artifacts.

And how would that be a better option than just using the click track? A click track is easy to use with no extra processing required.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Chabo]

Well, you have to balance it all out. Music can't be too robotic, or it sounds emotionless, but it can't be too "raw", or you cringe every time you listen to it.

About 7 years ago, music listeners were becoming jaded and bored with over-engineered pop and rock, from people like Britney Spears, Linkin Park, and so on. Then Metallica came out with "St. Anger", a raw, essentially one-take-and-it's-done album. The band and its producers made an album that sounded like it had production values like that of a garage band. James' voice cracked on several occasions, and the snare drum sounded like an empty coffee pot, especially when broadcast over the radio (the album version isn't quite so bad, trust me).

People hated it, myself included. However, I dare say that they were the first established band to predict the coming trend -- the past several years have seen tons of bands do one-take albums, intentionally going for "indie cred". Look at the popular bands of today: Fallout Boy, My Chemical Romance, etc. I hate them, but they have that "raw" sound.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Dream Theater, cause I love hearing the amount of pure orchestration that goes into their music -- every note has been pre-planned, and they execute it perfectly. However, when I want straight-up metal, Zakk Wylde can't be beat. Black Label Society is the one band that I've found I can listen to at any time without getting frustrated. It's edge-of-the-seat metal, with a heavy blues influence which gives it a much more enjoyable feel than manufactured rock.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Phroggy]

I didn't mean the lead vocals are always live, I meant they're live in the particular video I offered as an example.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Synching analog (does any even use this nowadays? been out of the recording biz for around a decade now...) to digital involves the use of SMPTE or MIDI time code, not a click track.

Pitchless tempo shifting/normalization is no big deal within Pro Tools, Vegas, Cubase VST, or any other respectable multi track hard disk recording package with the correct plugins.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[whopub]

man, that unforgiving click is worse than having Roger Waters glaring at you balefully.

I can think of three guys that would disagree, though sadly the one who could speak the most about it can no longer be heard

And that bunch did know a bit about click tracks...

:)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[smithmc]

I'll admit, there is a case where using a click track is important, and that's if you have a sampler synchronized to it to play pre-recorded material that has to line up. You could consider this a form of 'multitrack syncing', if that's what you were referring to. This is quite common in live pop and hip hop concerts.

It's not just "pop and hip-hop". Consider a band like Rush - in their live shows, all three of them are playing instruments (and like nobody else's business!), to a click track, while also kicking off samples and sequences, using pedals and such (pre-programmed key's on Lee's keyboard, V-Pads in Peart's kit, etc.) in real time.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rochrist]

You don't need to have every band member play to a metronome to sync them up, even if they're recorded individually and with isolation. If they aren't all playing at the same time, as long as the rhythm track is done first, everyone plays to that. I have no idea what you were talking about when you said 'you can't just tell everyone to play 120bpm and then have them sync up.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Nebu]

You don't need to have every band member play to a metronome to sync them up, even if they're recorded individually and with isolation. If they aren't all playing at the same time, as long as the rhythm track is done first, everyone plays to that.

In a way, what you call "the rhythm track" is essentially what this "click track" concept refers to. In some (many?) cases, the track is just two different percussive sounds played at regular intervals (essentially mimicking a metronome). In other cases, it might be a synth or MIDI rendering of the song. In yet others, it might be a "single-track" version of the song, and the musicians are replaying along with it just for the purpose of having a multitrack recording."

I have no idea what you were talking about when you said 'you can't just tell everyone to play 120bpm and then have them sync up.

I'm referring to the scenario of you telling someone to play at "120bpm", without providing them with any tempo-aid at all. One band member might end up playing at 119bpm instead, and another at 121bpm, and thus they won't be synchronized.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[bitrex]

Since the MIDI standard runs is clocked at 31250 bits per second, and any MIDI device needs to receive at least 3 bytes minimum to form a complete MIDI message, all MIDI messages have a 1 millisecond delay at least. Then there's the output delay on how long it takes for the processor to recognize that it's received a message and spit out the appropriate note. This could be up to 15 milliseconds on some older synthesizers, which is pretty bad. The worst situation is when the latency is not even constant, but is varying all over the place. Fortunately, the situation with MIDI gear has improved a lot since the Pet Shop Boy's heyday, with gear now using microprocessors clocked at much faster speeds and using priority interrupt levels and delay-compensation schemes.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Abreu]

Actually, there's a lot of praise for Keith Moon and not enough for Ringo Starr

No, seriously, stop laughing... If you listen to a Beatles track, the tempo is perfectly even and accurate throught the song... Most drummers start a little bit slow, then gradually start going faster towards the end.

And no, Ringo did not have a click track (although he did have George Martin...)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

I shudder every time non-drummers name Keith Moon as one of the best drummers...man that guy was pure slop. I've been playings drums for 25 years now, and I've yet to hear another drummer praise Keith Moon.

As a guitarist of 25 years, I shudder every time I hear dull passionless drummers who have chops but no artistic skills. Communication of feeling is about more than pure mathematics.

But clearly, audiences worldwide have expressed a marked preference for the excitement of precise drum rudiments and strict time-keeping. Nothing gets a crowd on their feet better than a perfect paradiddle.

Moonie was a millionaire after a mere ten years, yet after 25 years, you still haven't quit your day-job trolling Slashdot.

'nuff said.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[crotherm]

Then maybe the definition of a good drummer is imprecise. And who should be voting? Fans or other drummers?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[ResidntGeek]

You seem to have the worst conception of what good live music is of anyone I've ever heard. Led Zeppelin are one of the greatest live bands of all time by most accounts. Dream Theater concerts are ridiculously stupid. I've heard a recording of them live, and they might as well have hooked up a CD player to some big-ass speakers and played that for the audience, because that's all they did (for 3 studio albums in a row, mind you - all songs in order).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[bitrex]

The website http://www.deadact.com/ is devoted to showing videos of "performances" where the entire set is pre-recorded.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[cayenne8]

"Bonham--so good he doesn't get enough praise (and he gets a lot) "

Interesting...if you have time, would you expand on what you and other drummers like about him?

Don't get me wrong...I loved Bonzo on Zeppelin, but, as just a non-drummer listener, I never thought of him as one of the 'greats'....his solos seemed kinda boring and really repetitive and not that flashy. Ok, the kettle drums and playing with his hands were cool, and I must say, once I saw the Zeppelin DVD set out, showing him playing in like '69 or so...I got a much better impression of him that his later years.

I'm not trying to put him down, but, growing up, (and I was and am still a HUGE fan of Zeppelin) I just never thought of him as that good of a drummer as compared to others of the day. He was nice and loud, but, seemed really simplistic if that makes sense?

As a drummer...what makes him a great drummer?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

No, I'm just saying that many fans confuse "celebrity" with "good drumming". Unless you want to argue that celebrity should count, I think we can see eye-to-eye on this. Being famous does not necessarily equate to being good. And before anybody challenges it, yes, I actually am a better drummer than many celebrity drummers that come up in these sort of conversations...

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[turgid]

Meshuggah

How do you pronounce that? Is it "me sugar" minus the "r"?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

No time now, but you can have the short answer...nobody sounds like Bonham; you know it's Bonham when you hear it; and, well, nobody sounds like Bonham.

I haven't seen all the old videos and concert footage, but it really doesn't matter. Even if he is or isn't flashy, it can't take away from that sound. One of my most prized possessions is about 50 Bonham out-takes, in their entirety...just Bonham on drums (with some conversation between him and the sound engineers). He nails all of his tracks, mostly in one take too. He was also the master of the triplet fill and the shuffle beat. Prior to Bonham, there weren't many pop-music drummers that could drop the "Purdie Shuffle" like him. Even now, after hundreds have drummers have copped his licks and ripped his fills, his playing is relevant, and fresh. Even though a lot of his credit comes from being an early pioneer in his style (guys just weren't playing that stuff at that time...listen to Ringo and Watts, for comparison), it still sounds great today, which you can't say for all pioneering music (1980s drum pads, anyone?)

Other great drummers that are totally under-appreciated by the average fan include the greatest living drummer, Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Smith (cheesy Journey stuff included), Vinnie Coliauta...to name a few.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Ringo gets praise for one thing...being left-handed on a right-handed drum kit made him come up with a lot of strange fills. "Perfectly even" tempo is NOT his trait, rather, the odd, somewhat rushed feeling of sticking 5 notes (because he is left handed on a righty drum kit) where four would normally go. The only thing Keith Moon had going for him was Animal from the muppets was created in his image...not sure that's something to be proud of ;-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more about Lars Ulrich. The guy can't keep a fast beat to save his life, and Metallica's decision not to use a click track in the studio is painfully obvious as a result. On "My Apocalypse" from their latest album, the tempo is all over the place when he gets into the fast alternating base-snare part. Speeds up quite dramatically in the first several bars of that section.

I noticed this immediately on my first listen of the song a few months ago. More recently when I downloaded the song into Guitar Hero World Tour, the wandering tempo became a major source of frustration for me. I'm no great musician, and I play drums in the game purely for fun, but matching a fast and randomly wandering tempo is a lot harder than matching a fast steady tempo. Unfortunately the game makes you match the recorded performance rather than matching what it "should" be.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[FiloEleven]

Oh, that's easy. Jack is a decent enough guitarist to pull it off, and there's no way in hell that Meg could ever sync to a click track. I shuddered in horror when I heard their first album, but the beat was still more unsteady than I.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[treeves]

Right, instead of practicing with one, it is used during recording of the performance. The same thing in a different context sometimes has a different name.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Grail]

Drums and Bass are called "Rhythm" for a reason.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Grail]

Good music has an emotional depth. Good music is not mass-produced formula fluff. Click tracks lead to formula fluff, and even the good artists who record to a click track sound dead and mechanical. Flaws are what make us human. Trying to remove the flaws puts the music into the uncanny valley, in my opinion. Humans trying to be machines or machines trying to be humans, which way around is it? Either way doesn't work for me.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[PiSkyHi]

You saw the Beijing Olympics Ceremony as well ?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[smellotron]

There's a certain amount of truth to the drummer screwing everyone else up. I've seen plenty of cases where a guitar or bass got off... stumbled for a few beats... and synched back up with the band. If the drummer does that, it's likely to confuse the entire band, and it will be more jarring to the audience (most of whom can't even clap on a 2 and 4). Essentially, the cost of a drummer/cowbell tempo mistake is much higher than the cost of anyone else screwing up, so it's more acceptable for the rest of the band to have shit tempo.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[PiSkyHi]

For musical freedom of expression, busking is the way to go, most passers by usually think you are performing for them, and they probably feel sorry for you. Some people realise that this is where to break free from fretting your hour upon the stage, to be totally free.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rochrist]

In a way, what you call "the rhythm track" is essentially what this "click track" concept refers to. In some (many?) cases, the track is just two different percussive sounds played at regular intervals (essentially mimicking a metronome). In other cases, it might be a synth or MIDI rendering of the song. In yet others, it might be a "single-track" version of the song, and the musicians are replaying along with it just for the purpose of having a multitrack recording."

When I say rhythm track I'm talking about drums, bass and possibly rhythm guitar.

I'm referring to the scenario of you telling someone to play at "120bpm", without providing them with any tempo-aid at all. One band member might end up playing at 119bpm instead, and another at 121bpm, and thus they won't be synchronized.

You tell the drummer and everyone plays along to him. If he isn't good enough to be able to hit 120 without help, you give him a 4 beat lead in.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Progman3K]

Actually, Neil Peart uses a click track.

NOT because he needs one, you're right, but because on lots of Rush albums it keeps the synthesizer sequences in line with his playing.

If you go back before Signals (and even most of Signals), there is no click track.

Rush wanted to branch out and do more layered music without adding additional musicians.

I don't mind their sequences though; you can always tell it is a computer; very square and regular...

They use them as colour when they do (which is less and less these days) and not as a replacement for a musician.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[jeffporcaro]

I think there's a bigger-picture comment to be made about the quality of Ringo's drumming - yes, he was left-handed and therefore came up with unusual things, and yes he had good time. More importantly, he sounded like Ringo, which is a less idiotic statement than it sounds like. Drummers who sound like Ringo make Beatles music sound really really good.

Having Neil Peart or Vinnie Colaiuta or Antonio Sanchez or Dave Weckl on Beatles' music would have been a disaster. These guys are technically "better" drummers than Ringo (and truthfully, all are also good at playing simply and tastefully when it's called for), but they aren't Ringo.

If you (correctly) note that Bonham is great because nobody else sounds like Bonham, you have to give Ringo props for the same thing (OK, not for sounding like Bonham, but for sounding like Ringo). If you (correctly) note that sequenced Britney Spears drum parts are soul-less, you have to give Ringo props for being soulful. If you read the drum magazines, you'll see dozens of today's big-name drummers all saying the same thing - they got into drumming after seeing Ringo play.

Ringo made the Beatles' music sound great. He played exactly what the music needed to sound just right - it's hard to argue that Beatles songs are missing something or that they sound "off" - and despite the fact that he wasn't a writer in the band, he's responsible for 1/4 of that excellent sound.

So Ringo is a great drummer. Why? Because he made great music.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll have to respectfully disagree. A click track is NOT a crutch. It's the opposite. I guarantee you 100% that any musician who doesn't practice with a metronome can NOT play to a click track. The click is the reference to where you see how badly off beat you're getting. I'm a session guitarist in Nashville and I found this out the hard way.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[claxxical]

That's because the bands who play poorly live aren't the same band who plays on the album. You'd be amazed how many bands don't actually play on their own records. Session musicians have to be hired in. (Just a little secret for ya from inside the music industry. And yes, I'm a session guitarist in Nashville.)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[thebigbadme]

This computer processing shit is like A1 sauce -- you put it on a poor cut of meat to cover for the taste, it's got no business being anywhere near a good cut of meat.

Yes, and no.

I recently heard a death metal cover (live) of Paint it Black, it was awesome. So I bought the local band's disc, the one with same cover tune. It sucked. By the same regard I've seen other bands who have put out stellar albums, only to not be anywhere near worth listening to live.
Then there are other bands, still, such as Tool, who put out amazing albums, with at least a little wizardry. The albums, IMO, are great.
To see them live, I can't even explain. If you ever have the chance, go see them.
Don't even watch the live recorded videos unless you're already a Tool junkie, it won't do anything to move you.

None the less, yeah, computers can help doctor some stuff up, and in some cases it's a disaster... Much like bad plastic surgery. But you should also consider that, like plastic surgery, a lot of this great technology was devised to be used for good, and sometimes still is.

I view it almost like being able to custom mix the exact color pigment that you want. Yeah, it can be tedious, and used mostly for ill gain, but for the person who wants to take the time to learn to do it intuitively, and can still channel that je ne sais quoi, it can lead to some very beautiful things. Unfortunately those things tend to be overlooked when everyone starts using the same technique to produce a whole lot of rubbish.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[claxxical]

I'll have to respectfully disagree. The click track is NOT a crutch. It will bring out all of your mistakes as it is the perfect reference. I guarantee you 100% that any musician who doesn't practice to a metronome can NOT play tight to a click track. I'm a session guitarist in Nashville and I found this out the hard way. And uh....lots of live acts have prerecorded vocals, just ask Brittney or Ashlee ;)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Raenex]

[sibling said] Can you give me a drummer's opinion on:

Ooh, can I play too? What do you think of the drums in Hot for Teacher?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[plover]

But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.

I couldn't disagree more.

By your own admission you are in the same business; you're just at the opposite end from the Hannahs and Britneys. You both play for someone in exchange for a reward: you may be playing just to have a gig, a beer, and a good time, but you're still playing for the bar crowd.

And like Britney (or at least like her handlers), you "design and package" your sound to be like the blues bar crowd expects. You "sell" it to the bar manager to get some time on stage. And you have limits, too. At a blues bar, you couldn't play "Put on a Happy Face" (at least not non-ironically) and keep your reputation as blues artists.

Mentally you may claim there's some separation between you and Nashville/LA, but in reality you're both in the exact same business. We're just discussing price. And if you're playing only for beer money, you're not as good at the business aspects as Britney's manager is. (That's not a slam on your artistic talents, btw, it's my point about the business.)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[plover]

Busking is not without its hazards. A buddy worked in a London office building with no air conditioning (open window, insert fan), and a busker decided to play outside his office every day. For hours. And said busker played the freakin' BAGPIPES!

My buddy is not a violent man, but he came very close.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Zero__Kelvin]

I agree.Everyone can make a mistake ;-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[LardBrattish]

Keith played to a click track. I remember reading an interview with him when he described what it was like playing stuff like "Baba O'Reilly" & "Won't get fooled again" live when the synth parts were sequenced. Can't remember WHAT he said (it was a long time ago!!) but The Who were definitely using click tracks live in the '70s.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Falconhell]

It is no coincidence that the coming of digital recording, using click tracks occoured around the same time as most rock music turned to crap. The use of such precise time destroys the Soul and swing of a band.

I have been playing Bass for 35 years, and have played with a lot of drummers. The guy I play with currently is not a great drummer, but he can follow a click track no problems.

I find in bands without a click I am the metronome, as I have good time. (Though I find it remarkably tiring, when I played with a really good drummer I found it far more relaxing)

As for the best drummers, Kennis Arnoff would be right up there.

I would rather listen to Keith Moon or Ian Paice
than any of the drummers you mention.

I am quite surprised there are any drummers on Slashdot.

Which brings me to drummer Jokes.

Q:How do you know when there is a drummer at the door?

A:The knocks are out of time and he comes in at the wrong moment.

Q: How do you know when the stage is level?

A: The dribble comes from both sides of the drummers mouth!

Q: What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?

A: A drummer!

At a dinner where people are seated according to thier intelligence, the first table has Scientists and Doctors.

The second has lawyers and managers and programmers.

The third has Electricians, plumbers and other trades people.

The fourth has labourers.

The last table has just 2 people sitiing at it. After a few minutes one of them turns and says to the other
"What kind of sticks do you use?"

Guy goes into a shop and says I want a Fender Strat, a Marshall amp and lots of pedals to make it scream. Shop owner says "You must be a drummer"
Guy says "How did you know" shop owner says "This is a butchers shop"

(-:

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Falconhell]

Well played Sir. You are absolutely correct. After many years in the live music scene as an engineer and Bass/Guitar player I find I dislike any sequenced music, it is flat and boring.

I have come to regard the entire commercial music industry since 1990 as a garbage recycling industry.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Falconhell]

I have noticed the same thing, but it is not what you think. One cannot hear such small variations
as distict timing errors, but as a stereo image shift.

A classic example is when the drummer I play with uses his electronic kit. When he hits the kick drum, I can hear the click of the beater against the drum, and then the drum sample sounds, almost immediately. The sound seems to travel across from the beater to the speaker, but there is no sense of an echo type effect.

I forget the exact timings, but if you delay one channel of a stereo signal slighly compared to the other, it will sound like the sound is all coming from one speaker, it is a very starnge thing.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[unitron]

Since you seem a little more open-minded than the various members of the Slashdot Drum Police, let me ask your opinion on this question: If The Who had had, instead of Keith Moon, a drummer acceptable to the SDP, would they have still sounded like The Who? Would stuff like "Happy Jack" have even come into existence? Does one need to be not-a-drummer to appreciate Moon?

And what might the SDP have to say about the drumming on "Wipeout"? :-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[unitron]

Apparently intentional imperfections are known as "Persian Flaws" (don't thank me, thank Google).

Happy accidents are serendipity (I knew that before there was a Google).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Banzai042]

Actually they do use a click track in the studio, though it is a pretty complex setup. A few years ago before the release of Train of Thought Mike (The drummer) had a contest on his forum where he posted the MIDI click track config they were using along with the key signature for each section of the instrumental song, with the goal being similar to the DT song without hearing it. The closest entry was played at the intro of every concert on the Train of Thought tour.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[RMH101]

If you use any sequencing, you need a click.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Have you ever seen the video of Mike Portnoy playing with his Beatles tribute band? I despise Portnoy's over-playing Dream Theater stuff, but man, that Beatles playing he did convinced me that the Dream Theater stuff is exactly that...theater.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

Wipeout is rubbish. I can't stand surf music either. Not worth my time.

I forget the name, but The Who drummer on the track Emminence Front is an amazing "pocket" drummer. They currently use ex-Oasis drummer (and Ringo Starr's son) Zack Starkey, who is a lot like Keith Moon. Now this conversation has come full circle!

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

You'd rather listen to Deep Purple than any of the thousands of recordings that Steve Gadd has made? Hmmm.... Not that Deep Purple is bad or Iaian Paice is awful, but come on, that means Iain Paice has been heard on ONE SONG by anybody under the age of 35. EVERYBODY has heard Steve Gadd--they just don't know it. Same goes for Coliauta (even though I think he's can be over-the-top technical at inappropriate times, he does scale it back for the pop-country gigs he's recorded).

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

You are absolutely wrong. The only "packaging" my guys do is that we give away "good music", period, no strings attached. We also don't expect anything in return. I play for free...beer and tips welcome. I'm not in this business at all, as my software career is my business. My music is my hobby, there is no packaging, and it is nothing like cosmetics.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

That's a cool drum part. It's easily top 10 for "rock drumming", even though it is cliche and gimmicky. I play that one for people a lot because, well, it's cool sounding.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

I think Ringo was a drummer in a band that made great music. That's a big difference ;-) Maybe if I knew more about the behind-the-scenes involvement I would change my tune about him, but all his OTHER music projects have been pretty horrid, even by Beatles fanatics standards.

Just for the record, I'm not much of a Beatles fan. My favorite song of theirs is "Hey Bulldog", so that probably tells you a lot of what I think about them ;-)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Yewbert]

Yeah, maybe I could have phrased that more like "almost as bad as," - but then again, at least with Rog, you can always point behind him and say, "Oh, is that Margeret Thatcher?" or "Look, a sale on black shirts, black pants and dark sunglasses!" and he'll be momentarily distracted. The click-track is relentless.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[mcgrew]

Thank you for googling, I racked my brain for 20 minutes trying to remember that term! My googling didn't return it.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[Falconhell]

I have never heard of Steve Gadd, then again in my neraly all new music since 1990 has been rubbish.

I prefer simple rythmical drummers who appreciate the less is more principle.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[stewbacca]

stevegadd.com RIGHT NOW and check out the discography. Music is rubbish since 1990 or so, eh? Then try Steve Gadd's drumming with Bonnie Raitt in 1989-1990ish time frame. Most of Gadd's fame came from the 70s, so you'll certainly find something in his discography you know. James Taylor, Steely Dan, Paul Simon...anything?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[unitron]

So are you the alter-ego of jeffporcaro (1010187), or a member of the Slashdot Drum Police?

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[unitron]

It has been my experience that no matter how good one's "google-fu", sheer chance always plays a hand.

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[lkeagle]

just ask Brittney or Ashlee ;)

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about musicians ;)

Re:It's pretty standard these days

[rusl]

Why do they need to play alone on the first track? Surely you can play together yet record only the bits you want to? You're still arguing in favour of adapting to the computer rather than adapting the computer.

The Crickets

[Techman83]

Around here... I wonder if they are using a click track?

On a serious note, I do like the warmth of older music, and my listening tastes tend to meander around the times between 5 + 30 years before I was born. (Child of the 80's).

As much as a tech nut I am, I still believe there are certain area's in life where it should be left at the door.

Re:The Crickets

[Anonymous Coward]

Around here... I wonder if they are using a click track?

No. The Crickets had Buddy Holly. They also had talent.

Re:The Crickets

[Tx]

Yeah, although I mostly listen to recent rock, a lot of the stuff where I love the drumming in particular is older stuff. Mitch Mitchell for example, especially on "Are You Experienced?". I don't think it's just the use of click tracks, I have a suspicion that I just like the way drums sounded through the less sophisticated recording technology used back then, or maybe the drums themselves. But I bet Mitch would be turning in his grave at the thought of using a click track.

Re:The Crickets

[Techman83]

It must have been a sad day the day the music died. Buddy Holy, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper were all amazing artists, taken well before their time :(

Re:The Crickets

[PJ1216]

I partly disagree. I disagree when folks use technology to try and make it sound perfect because they don't want mistakes in their songs. However, I have no problem if they use technology to make it sound perfect because that perfection is part of the art. For instance, Trent Reznor has used synths and what not and he's even said in interviews about how he likes the juxtaposition of (in this case, on the album The Fragile) the imperfect nature of playing string instruments up against the perfect sound of synths.

Like someone said in an earlier post, as long as it improves upon the artistic vision of the artist, there's nothing wrong with that. Its when business decisions lead to the use of technology and what not that the real reason for music tends to be lost.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Click tracks have been used for years. I don't like 'Click tracks' myself but as Jeff Berlin once said "The timing is already built in, you just have to feel it". Sterile? yep. I agree but I don't hold listening to a metronome accountable. You have the groove or you don't.

Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

some say that songs recorded against a click track sound sterile

I'd say 90% of whatever is recorded nowadays already sound like crap, so at least it's rythmically correct crap.

Don't worry about click tracks, real musicians with real talent probably don't have any need for them.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

the drummer from linkin park spent 8hrs a day for 3 months practiciing to click track before the recording sessions started...and this was for their 2nd album...not the 1st...

what is making things sound sterile is simply crap pop music that is also waaaaay over produced. not being rhythmically correct.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[IANAAC]

Don't worry about click tracks, real musicians with real talent probably don't have any need for them.

Actually, yes, most musicians need some sort of "click track" if they're playing in any sort of ensemble. It's just that in an orchestra or band setting, they're called conductors. In modern rock/pop bands, they're called drummers.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[WWWWolf]

Don't worry about click tracks, real musicians with real talent probably don't have any need for them.

...or use click tracks to their advantage and not as a crutch.

(Just for comparison: I'm just a random writer, and I'm not afraid to admit that I use a spell checker. =)

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[tepples]

Actually, yes, most musicians need some sort of "click track" if they're playing in any sort of ensemble. It's just that in an orchestra or band setting, they're called conductors. In modern rock/pop bands, they're called drummers.

I see your philosophical angle. But what click track does the conductor or drummer use? That's what the article is about: detecting click tracks that the conductor or drummer uses.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit.

When I played in an orchestra (it's been a couple years), the conductor was more of a coach than a metronome. In fact, one of the drills we did was: he would give the downbeat, and then nothing else. After a little practice, it's not hard to listen to the rest of the orchestra and keep correct time. (Apparently with some groups he'd even do concerts this way: give the downbeat, walk off stage and sit in the audience, then rush back up to the podium just in time for the finish.)

Most small string and wind ensembles (up through quintet, at least) don't have conductors (or percussion) of any sort. I've never seen a jazz group with a conductor (or click track -- hah), even those without drums. It's not unique to really small groups, though: the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields has famously been conductorless at times (though I'm not sure if they are today or not).

These days I play taiko, which is *entirely* drums. Sometimes there's a shime part which keeps time, but only maybe half the time. Some pieces (famously Omiyage) have improvised solos for a certain number of beats (after which everybody rejoins in unison); there's simply no way to play something like that unless everybody's counting is exactly on.

Most musicians *use* some sort of "click track", especially in practice, but the reason we practice with others is specifically to play together without the *need* for a "click track".

And face it: how often do you see musicians in an orchestra look up at the conductor? (Looking up was another thing we were drilled on, because nobody does it.) The old joke goes: A conductor and his concertmaster say "Hi! See you later!" before the concert (because the concertmaster would bury his head in his sheet music and never see the conductor during the concert). It's funny because it's true.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[jfengel]

Don't worry about click tracks, real musicians with real talent probably don't have any need for them.

But real musicians are hard to come by. And performers (at least live performers) have to do things beyond just play music. They have to look pretty, and dance, and entertain the audience between songs. They even have to be able to get along with other musicians, not always an easy thing to do. Heck, just getting them to show up on time is hard.

By eliminating the talent portion of the competition, record companies can create performances that people want to see. It's musically rubbish, but we're talking about a business, not art.

It's very sad. A good friend is an extremely talented musician, the whole package: good ear, good songwriter, hits it on the first take, good with audiences, pretty, etc. But she has to compete against talentless hacks who can be overproduced into sounding good, making it very hard to get noticed, and a lot of her key skills are now computerized. She'd have made it big 20 years ago, but today, she's about to give up.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[IANAAC]

You've never played in a large concert hall then. You absolutely NEED some sort of cue (visual, in this case) to keep in line. The acoustics of a large concert hall would play havoc on your sense of space and timing.

As for small ensembles, they also have a "leader". You normally are just not aware of who that person is.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[brkello]

The old joke goes: A conductor and his concertmaster say "Hi! See you later!" before the concert (because the concertmaster would bury his head in his sheet music and never see the conductor during the concert). It's funny because it's true.

That is neither funny nor true. If an orchestral piece was only one tempo all the way through, then a conductor could start you off and let you go. But that just isn't the way it is. There are variations in the tempo that require the conductor to keep everyone together. There is always going to be a strong connection between the conductor and the concert master. You don't have to look up to see the conductor, you see them with your peripheral vision. That's why the concert masters sits where they do. They have the best vision of the conductor as well as everyone else in the section having good vision of their leader.

That being said, after practiced enough times with the conductor, the orchestra can generally do a fairly good job of repeating it since the tempos and pauses has been drilled so many times. So while it is possible to play without a conductor, it is only because the conductor drilled the timing in to everyone's head before the performance. As far as smaller groups goes, the timing is worked out in practice, but if you notice, generally the first violin (or whoever the lead instrument is for the group) will give subtle visual queues to keep everyone together.

So, I basically agree with the parent. We all use some form of click track in music...whether it be a conductor, a drummer, or a machine...there is usually one source that is keeping everything together.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're offering Linkin Park as a counter example to overproduced crap pop music?

Wow.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Petrushka]

You've never played in a large concert hall then.

No, GP is right: that is exactly how top-notch orchestras work. Even a Pretty Good orchestra works more by the musicians listening to each other than by keeping their eyes pinned to the conductor. They change tempo together because they know that's how it's supposed to go. The conductor really is there for coaching; for getting everyone to start at the same time; for really tricky bits; and in case of emergency. Even in the relatively mediocre orchestra in my home town, the conductor only goes into "strict" time if a section of the orchestra repeatedly misbehaves.

Of course, it depends on the conductor. Some conductors are control freaks; but if you watch someone like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, you'll see that he does not give any kind of "beat" at all, or when he does, it's often out of synch with the orchestra -- because they know better than to follow his beat. A classical orchestra that actually depends on the conductor, in performance, for anything more than the beginning and end is probably not worth recording.

Re:Sterile? As if it made a difference...

[Petrushka]

The old joke goes: A conductor and his concertmaster say "Hi! See you later!" before the concert (because the concertmaster would bury his head in his sheet music and never see the conductor during the concert). It's funny because it's true.

That is neither funny nor true. If an orchestral piece was only one tempo all the way through, then a conductor could start you off and let you go. But that just isn't the way it is. There are variations in the tempo that require the conductor

I wrote this in a cousin reply, but the GP is exactly correct. An orchestra or band that depends on the conductor is not an orchestra/band that is good enough to record. Musicians in a decent orchestra do indeed work precisely by listening to each other, more than (but not to the exclusion of) watching the conductor, except when it comes to sections that are particularly rhythmically tricky.

And the joke is in fact regularly used! It's derived from a quip of Thomas Beecham's.

It's been done since the 70s.

[elizium23]

Drummers have had metronomes in their headphones since at least the 70s, when Disco was king, and everyone was striving for a more rhythmic, "electronic" sound - even if they were using analog instruments. Drummers especially tried to ape drum machines before the machine even existed.

Tempo?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The steady downward slope shows shorter beat durations over the course of the song (meaning a faster song). That's something you just can't do with a click track."

You could always just ramp the tempo up slowly...

Click Track versus Pro Tools

[chromatic]

I'm not convinced you can measure this accurately without analyzing unedited master tracks. It's too easy to postproduce away uniqueness in a recording -- especially in the music that this article calls "overproduced".

How can you tell when a drummer is knocking ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Q) How can you tell when a drummer is knocking on your door?

A) He speeds up

Generalizing is usually bad

[atraintocry]

Sometimes there's an obvious speed up or slow down on a song, and in those cases you don't need software to figure out if there's a click track. A quick way to check is to compare the very end of the song and the very beginning. It's similar to acapella singing, sometimes there's a slight change in pitch. If it's not so much that you notice in the middle of the song, then it's not worth worrying about.

There are great albums that used click tracks, and great albums that didn't. Obviously a metronomic sense of tempo is a good asset for a drummer to have, especially if they're looking for session work. But a sense of dynamics and texture is, in my opinion, more important. I'd take an interesting drummer over one that just subdivides everything any day.

Then again, some songs benefit from the drum machine sound. It's all about the vision.

I don't consider a click track on a studio album to be cheating any more than a photographer using a light meter. In a live setting, however, it's a different matter. Not that I've seen anyone actually use a click track live (except for people attempting to sync up with some other prerecorded track and did it out of sheer necessity).

Re:Generalizing is usually bad

[adminstring]

Good points. It should also be noted that speedups and slowdowns aren't incompatible with click tracks. The author of TFA doesn't seem to take this into account, and assumes that if there are speedups and slowdowns, there is no click track.

In Steinberg's popular Cubase multitrack recording software, for example, you can use a pencil tool to draw a "tempo map" which is like a graph of the tempo of the song over time (similar to the graphs in TFA) and the click track will speed up and slow down as you record, to make the tempo of the song match the tempo map.

Even in the 1970s, the producer could speed up and slow down the metronome manually as the song was recorded. This would allow the song to "breathe" yet still keep the tempo more consistent. Drummers, especially inexperienced ones, have a tendency to speed up during fills, and playing to a click helps to stabilize the beat.

Re:Generalizing is usually bad

[Gordonjcp]

Even in the 1970s, the producer could speed up and slow down the metronome manually as the song was recorded.

For an extreme example of this (admittedly from the late 80s), listen to Lil' Louis - "French Kiss" ;-)

Re:Generalizing is usually bad

[Dragged Down by the]

Roger Waters used a click track on his most recent Dark Side tour, as you say to sync up with the complicated effects and video.

Re:Generalizing is usually bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, depending on the frequency chosen for the click track, you can have natural flexibility with the music. In classical music, 4/4 means 1 beat per quarter note. 2/2 means 1 beat per half note (half the frequency as 4/4). You can have the same tempo/speed for both, however, the second offers a bit more "give" in the music.

Maybe an analogy are people marching. If someone yells "left, right, left, right", every step is synchronized. If only the "left" is yelled, the speed can still be the same, however, there's room for the right step to be different for emphasis.

You can also randomize a few %

[Anonymous Coward]

I do some recording/mixing and have had the privilege of working under a Grammy winning recording engineer (and phenominal musician in his own right).

Great comments here- yes, click-tracks have been around since the 70s (maybe 60s). Tempo throughout a song can change too much without some kind of metronome. It doesn't have to be an actual click track, just something to guide the musician laying down the first tracks. Just because a drummer or other musician listens to a perfect tempo click track doesn't mean the timing will be "sterile". We're still human! However I know some drummers who are scarily close to perfect timing- without metronome.

Most better click track generators have the ability to randomize the timing a few percent (adjustable). One major midi-based recording program that I use (MOTU Digital Performer) calls it "humanize". You can "quantize" a track to get timing, then "humanize" it.

Re:You can also randomize a few %

[localman]

Yeah, but "randomizing" is not really "humanizing". A good drummer doesn't vary the tempo randomly, tiny tempo changes would go with what feels right for the song. There are many reasons why a particular section of a song might feel better with a slight tempo change. There may be some randomizing going on as well, but that is certainly not the whole picture, or in my estimation the most important part.

Even if you program in slight tempo changes for different sections of the song (which I've done on occasion) there's still an interplay between the different performers trying to stay in sync that causes slight leads and hesitations between different instrument that add to the depth of the music. If everything is quantized that is lost too, and randomizing doesn't bring it back.

I've recorded with and without click tracks for various reasons, and quantized or not for various reasons. Neither is right or wrong, it just depends on what you're trying to create. But there is a lot of depth that comes out of having people playing live together that is nearly impossible to replicate when the recording is highly controlled.

Cheers.

Re:You can also randomize a few %

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you're completely correct. I was writing to address all the pissy arguments that "perfect" timing was "lifeless" or too mechanical. (Imagine "techno" without electronic timing...)

...there's still an interplay between the different performers trying to stay in sync that causes slight leads and hesitations between different instrument that add to the depth of the music.

Methinks there is a very fine line between "depth of the music" and a trainwreck. :0

Re:You can also randomize a few %

[metaforest]

"Humanize" with the wrong settings gets the wrong effect. The Parent is correct. Quantize then "humanize" will sound like an accurate drummer with a little human jitter in their timing. "Humanize" will not create dynamics that match the thematic matter in a song. There are lots of songs that have gradual changes in tempo to make a point.

OTOH: DJs get away with murder by gradually shifting the tempo of the current song to make it 'beat-match' the next song. The dancing audience will not notice the tempo shift over 3:33 min. unless they were listening to a metronome.

To address an earlier post:

Click/whoosh track, or not, is dependent on a lot of factors. An experienced engineer knows when to use it. It has little to do with style. It has a lot to do with the experience and skill level of the musicians AND the skills (or lack) of the producer of the session. Having engineered recordings for a lot of garage bands forced me to be very flexible with the process.

YMMV

Timing doesn't equal "feel"

[whichpaul]

I'm an experienced drummer and I play regularly with, and without, click tracks; I can tell you that the assumption that "feel" or "groove" is only present when a drummer's time varies is not accurate.

There are at least two types of variation that matter in a drummer's performance: the overall sense of time and the moment by moment variations. The ability of a drummer to play a complete number and keep to a set tempo is really important, particularly in this day and age of digital editing. But it is a common feature of "click track performances" for the drummer to sway ahead of and fall behind of the beat (faster and slower). If done correctly this variance in tempo will add significant life to a performance and such a skill takes a lot of practice to perfect.

The subtle qualities of a drummer's performance go far beyond whether or not they stick to a given tempo for the duration of a number; this is just one variable that effects the quality of a performance. Some genres require a rigid sense (metal/electronica) of time whilst others benefit greatly from its absence (fusion/jazz).

Interesting software however ... I'm tempted to have a play with it.

Re:Timing doesn't equal "feel"

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is right, it's all about the drummer. Click tracks are just a guide. But with the age of ProTools and Sonar they have become a way to synthesize drum parts, by essentially using the drum mics as nothing but MIDI triggers and replacing sounds, then cutting up the performance to match the click track. Between that and auto-tune, yes, music has been ruined for the most part.

And that is why many studios have closed during this reces..I mean adjustment period...Apparently 10 years ago any moron with a mortgage could get an SBA loan to open their own business. But you have to really love recording to make it sound good.

There ARE still people out there recording rock music without the over blown effects and post production. Most of them still use a click track though. The real purists are doing one live take and are good enough to score a great take 1 out of 5 times. God bless 'em.

Re:Timing doesn't equal "feel"

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems similar to what other creative endeavors go through as their tools improve.

As techniques and technology allow performers to get closer to perfection, the "quality" of that perfection decreases. It becomes easy to make it perfect, harder to intentionally keep things rough around the edges.

Painting, photography and other art forms have gone through similar cycles of refinement, rejection and reinvention.

Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Nate4D]

I play keyboards for two different worship bands at my church, and I discovered a pretty amazing trait that our drummer/leader in the morning service has:

He doesn't change tempo unless he wants to.

At all.

To elaborate, as that sounds sketchy unless you know how I learned it:

I'm a pretty rhythmic keyboard player, and one of my favored techniques (especially if I need to fill in empty space from, say, a missing electric guitarist in addition to the other textural stuff I was doing) is to use multi-tap delay and really accurate timing to build rhythms and and evolving chords. It can be a really fun effect.

I don't use it much, though, because even with a tap-tempo delay, which I have in my rig, it's really awkward to stay synced up with the rest of the band. My delay is pretty accurate (built-in effect on the Nord Stage, which is rather high-end. I'm pretty confident it's got sub-millisecond accuracy), and I can stay tight with it, but even decent drummers can have a hard time with that (let's hear it for teachers that make you practice with metronomes, eh?), so I usually have to adjust the tempo a few times throughout a song, and that can make things get ugly fast. A less-than-decent drummer, which is all too common, can't stay consistent enough for me to even try it. Thus, I don't (or didn't, I should say) do this much at all, despite my fondness for it.

But, when I first tried it with Bob (the aforementioned drummer), I was shocked, because it just worked. I tapped in a tempo on his first measure or two, and it stayed tight the whole way through. I really hadn't expected that result - hadn't occurred to me humans could be that accurate.

Naturally, I started trying this in various places where it fit, and so far, I can't remember a single attempt where it didn't stay synced. Granted, I haven't tried it with really dragged out delay times (nothing above about two beats of delay at maybe 100 BPM), but even so...

This is the best of both worlds, because when you need him to be rock-solid, he is, but when the situation calls for it, he can (and does) manipulate tempo intentionally.

I've told him (and others) that playing with him is like having an expressive human metronome, and I mean it. It is amazingly blissful - I can wander out into strange netherworlds of syncopation and/or ethereal tempolessness (yay for pads!) and the foundation never wavers.

I'm sure that at times, he has small amounts of drift, but given that my delay stays tightly synced with him for whole songs at a single tempo, it can't get as large as even a single beat per minute very often.

We haven't tried it yet, but someday I'd like to try him out against some sequenced stuff - I'm pretty sure that if I could handle it (which I don't think I can, yet), he'd be unphased by it, even if it got pretty thick. Live band + sequenced riffs/textures/effects could result in some pretty cool stuff.

So, all that to say:

The guy who wrote TFA is actually just providing a measurement of how consistent the drummers for these bands are. Maybe they used a click track to achieve that consistency, but as a semi-pro living in central PA (not exactly renowned for its music scene), I've found one who doesn't need the click.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[u38cg]

Nice to have a drummer that listens to you, isn't it? Two more drummers that do that incredibly well belong to the Stones and Dylan.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Paul Lamere]

Nate4D - I'd love to run the analysis on your church band to see if we tell the difference from your drummer and a click track. Send me a URL to a recording and I'll generate the plot. Paul at echonest.com.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Spit]

I guess some drummers practise with metronomes too.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[stewbacca]

Yes. Always. Not only does it nail down your timing, it also is a measurement of your progress (if building your chops, you need a way to quantify, for example, how many single strokes you can play in one minute)

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Nate4D]

I'll see if I can dig anything up.

We really are just a weekly worship band, and as such, we really don't have any recordings - it's not something we focus on.

I do remember one occasion when we recruited a member of the youth group to set up some mikes and record us live, just in hopes that we might be able to get a better feel for what we sound like from the congregation's perspective, but he ran into some technical difficulties, and I'm not sure whether we actually got anything recorded or not. I'll see what I can find out.

Thanks for the offer, whether I manage to find anything or not - I appreciate it, and I'm curious too - I've wondered before how close it *really* is. Just because I don't notice any variations doesn't mean he's as consistent as I think he is.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[cekander]

The best musicians are great listeners, especially in jazz. It sounds like this is a case of an excellent listener tapping into his (subconscious?) ability to stay synchronized with your periodic effect.

It reminds me of the time I was driving BEHIND some random car with my cruise control on. I didn't step on the gas or the brake once, for a span of 30 minutes or so. Yet she stayed consistently in front of me at around 50 meters. Amazing.

It's possible that her cruise control was set exactly the same, but even then you would expect drift within minutes. More realistically she was driving without cruise at a speed similar to my cruise speed, with an excellent sense of her spatial environment. In all my hours/years of interstate driving, it's only ever happened once.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Nate4D]

That explanation hadn't occurred to me before, but I think you're probably right.

You're obviously right about the best musicians being great listeners - truly great listeners are incredibly rare. Heck, even competent ones are really uncommon. The number of people who can't hear the difference between a Fender Rhodes and an electric guitar attests to that.

For some reason, though, it hadn't occurred to me that he might be locking into the keyboard sound. Since the slapback is an electronically-generated consistent periodic effect, it would effectively be providing him a click track, as long as he paid attention to it - it's just a musical one, rather than a sound not generated by anyone in the band.

And of course, any songs I don't use that effect on, I don't have any mechanical benchmark to listen to, and thus, I probably wouldn't notice minor variations in tempo.

How I missed that up until now, I don't know, but thanks for the response. That does seem to explain it rather well, and demonstrates a significant error in the thinking that made me conclude he had a nigh-perfect tempo sense.

Of course, it's possible he actually does - but my story doesn't actually constitute good evidence of that.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[swilver]

I was about to say the same thing. The drummer probably hears the effect, and just syncs to that consciously or subconsciously. I've done some drumming, and I know that I can and will be swayed by other effects if they're consistent and close enough to the tempo I want to play.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[YourExperiment]

In actual fact, your drummer is following the cues given by your delay effect and your playing, ensuring that everything stays in time. This is very skillful in itself, but it's not the same as him somehow staying on an exact tempo via some kind of "internal metronome" throughout the song. That's not humanly possible.

One way to prove this would be to get him to begin playing along to a recording which you know is played to a precise steady tempo, then mute the playback while he continues. Unmute the sound towards the end of the song and he should still be exactly in time with the song, if what you describe is true. Not even the best drummer in the world will maintain a tempo accurately enough for this to happen. Don't forget, he only has to drift out by a tenth of a second over the course of three or four minutes for his beat to be completely out.

Please don't think I'm belittling his skills though, he sounds like a great musician. It's just that what you described isn't actually possible.

Re:Consistent Tempo != Click Track

[Nate4D]

Yep, someone else already pointed this out.

Once they did, I went 'oh yeah. DUH,' and realized that if I wanted to verify this, I could do something like what you've described.

I'd probably use a sequenced rhythm track that I could mute while playing, as that would more accurately reproduce what he's likely to do (playing with a live band is very different from playing with a recording), but it's not a huge difference.

I think the margin of error would be a lot smaller than a tenth of a second, actually - my intuitive perception of tempo is that I can hear misses much smaller than that, and I'm not even a drummer. That's why I was so shocked when it worked. Somehow, I failed to realize that he must be syncing off the delay, rather than just keeping the tempo internally. It's a dumb error to make, but the fact that I made it is why I was so astonished (and of course why I posted about it in the first place).

You'd think seventeen years of classical piano, four years of orchestral playing, and eight years playing in bands would teach me something about music.

Oh well.

I guess I'm just one more piece of evidence that even experts make stupid mistakes, and that it's incredibly dangerous to make declarations of certainty.

what about classical music

[nikolag]

I am just wondering... What would happen to classcal music if they started to use Auto-tune. the whole point of music and excellence would simply disappear on the first occasion of live performance.
What has already happened in case of "popular music". Decades ago.

Just imagine a opera singer going out of sync with others... but wait... that is what live performance is all about, to make avery performance a bit different but not wrong.

It has been proved that holding an beat perfectly makes a music boring, while artists that have tempo correct on average do sound good.

Re:what about classical music

[87C751]

I am just wondering... What would happen to classcal music if they started to use Auto-tune.

I'd expect it would sound pretty horrid. The classical instruments have a much looser model of the individual notes' exact frequencies. This is essential to harmonic construction, which is all about ratios. I once read a very good article about this where the author went through a series of calculations for a C chord that produced four different frequencies for the E note above the root C.

Symphonic players have the ability to "bend toward consonance". Auto-tuning these notes to their absolute frequency would introduce a dissonance that would sound at least different, and at worst awful.

Re:what about classical music

[PJ1216]

I don't recall it ever being proven that a perfect beat makes music boring. There are plenty of musicians, especially in the industrial rock, electronica, and dance genres that have perfect beats and there are plenty of fans to attest to it not being boring. It may or may not be your cup of tea, but I highly doubt its proven that its boring. Even dance music I don't like, I'll find my head bopping to it just because the music's beat grabs you.

Personally I'm a huge fan of Trent Reznor and I doubt you'll be able to find a music critic to say that his use of synths makes his music boring.

Sometimes that perfection is a part of the song, not just the producer being a perfectionist. And that imperfection can be done on purpose as well. The artist's vision can go beyond the notes that get played, but how they're played, who plays them, or if they're even played by humans to begin with.

Re:what about classical music

[Anonymous Coward]

digital auto tuning could potentially do for future music what the accordion did for music in the past; shift tuning frequencies around a bit so that the same piece played today on the same string instrument (for arguments sake, a guitar) would sound different to when it was performed in 1820 unless the performer was a specialist who knew to tune that guitar a specific way for that particular piece.

"can't do with a click track"

[Atario]

From TFA:

One final plot ... the venerable stairway to heaven is noted for its gradual increase in intensity - part of that is from the volume and part comes from in increase in tempo. Jimmy Page stated that the song "speeds up like an adrenaline flow". Let's see if we can see this:

[graph]

The steady downward slope shows shorter beat durations over the course of the song (meaning a faster song). That's something you just can't do with a click track.

Um...really? You can't make a click track gradually change rate over time? Or follow whatever kind of variation you program it to? That's news to me. I thought computers wuz like all smart 'n' stuff.

Re:"can't do with a click track"

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Um...really? You can't make a click track gradually change rate over time? Or follow whatever kind of variation you program it to? That's news to me. I thought computers wuz like all smart 'n' stuff.

GIGO. Which explains a lot of today's music, too.

Re:"can't do with a click track"

[Anonymous Coward]

he has the commodore 64 version of the software.

Re:"can't do with a click track"

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern recording programs have the ability to define the tempo (for generating a click track during recording, or playing back previously recorded notes) at any point in the song. A slow increase in tempo would be just one of an infinite number of possibilities...

Sonic Visualiser already does this

[Anonymous Coward]

The free Sonic Visualiser with the Queen Mary Beat/Tempo Tracker Vamp plugin already does this and more.

Also it depends on the music whether one needs a click-track. A drummer can use a click-track but still play "loosely" to it.

Is that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bob from the Enzyte commercials?

It's just like pitch

[Sycraft-fu]

Different people hear pitch to different degrees. Some are tone deaf, things can be completely out of tune and they really don't notice, they can't hear it. Others have excellent relative pitch. They can hear if two instruments playing in unison or harmony are in or out of tune to a high degree of accuracy and what the interval is. However they can't tell the tuning of a single pitch on a single instrument played solo. Well there are still others with perfect pitch, that is the ability to tell tuning of a solo sound. You can play a note and they can tell you what note it is, and what the tuning is often to a very high degree of accuracy.

So while the first group would absolutely require the use of a chromatic tuner to be able to be in tune, the second group wouldn't. They could tune their instrument by listening to the band. The third, they wouldn't even need that. They could tune by themselves.

Well, different people can also just "hear" or "feel" tempo. Again some can't hardly at all, others can lock on to an existing tempo, and still others can internalize it to a high degree of accuracy.

Nothing magic about it, different people have different skills. So ya, just because a drummer is on tempo the whole time, doesn't mean they are listening to a metronome. Maybe they simply have a good internal beat.

Re:It's just like pitch

[slash.duncan]

People do indeed have different skills... or are sensitive to different torture, that being a different way to put it. Like many thousands or tens of thousands of folks, I volunteer to run soundboards for various local organizations, but don't claim to be anywhere near pro, but perhaps because of the substandard equipment and layouts I've worked with over the years, I've apparently a rather developed sensitivity to overdrive/clipping, threshold feedback loops, and "tape on the dashboard" effect.

One that gets me regularly is overdriven/clipping distortion. The other nite, someone at work was playing "music" on their cellphone. "It's pretty loud for a cellphone" she said, while it was about all I could do to stop from running away yelling with my fingers in my ears. The poor 1/2 watt or whatever speaker was distorting so much it was worse than fingernails on a chalkboard! Momentarily I had the opportunity to reach for the thing and turn it down perhaps 30 percent or so, without much loss in volume, but a HUGE improvement in quality due to the fact that it wasn't over-driving/clip-distorting any more! MUCH better!

I used to work across from a church, with speakers shaped like bells hung in the "bell" tower. They'd play recorded bells. I guess they finally upgraded to CDs, but before that... Have you ever heard the effect of stretched tape on a bell recording? It was actually funny sometimes, watching people smile and turn to listen to the "bells"... then hear the draaagg and pitch-bend, and realize it was only a (very streeeaaaatttched) recording... or worse yet, not realize it, commenting how nice the bells were, while I and others stood there gritting our teeth.

Sitting in the audience at anything "live" can be most discomforting on occasion too, hearing the threshold telltales that say the system's /this/ close from going into the dreaded feedback squeal, yet being bound by politeness from jumping dozens of rows of chairs and half way across the hall to turn the thing down a notch NOW, then notch the resonating frequency out of the EQ after the immediate threat is passed. I end up just sitting there, ready for the fingers in the ears if the squeal actually does hit, but otherwise outwardly calm and of proper decorum, whatever internal struggle to resist that leap might be going on.

Yet most folks don't notice a thing. What's especially "interesting" is when the guys with the "phat" car stereos or the like ask what I think about their system... yeah, it's loud enough, but the bass is all rattling (apparently to some, this is the mark of "good bass" ) or the tweeters are whining in your ears.

But, like I said, I don't claim to be pro. I do like to think I at least know enough about it to recognize a decent one tho. I've always held that a great audio engineer can often make a bad performance at least tolerable, but one stroke of a fat finger at the sound board can well ruin the performance of the best, and a sound guy that doesn't know what to do to stop the squeal (or rolllingg bbooom), or knows what to do but has such underpowered equipment (and/or poor positioning) he must choose between lack of volume and constantly running at feedback threshold (maybe not even an EQ to notch out)... forget it.

Re:It's just like pitch

[Aqualung812]

I run sound as well, and I'll agree that it takes very little to make an awesome band sound like crap.

However, if I have a bad bad, nothing can make it better. The best I hope for is that we have just a single bad player in the band that I can mute.

Staying on-topic, a band that is out of sync can't be fixed at the board, unless I send a click-track into their in-ear monitors AND they use it.

Re:It's just like pitch

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us that are tone deaf (most would say I am) can detect certain pitch changes, even minute ones. I've heard cats screeching closer to in-tune compared to my singing.

One of my more odd abilities is being able to tell if a movie is a PAL rip or NTSC rip from the semi-tone change in voice pitch. I *love* mplayer for being able to actually bring the speed down to 0.96x (which isn't perfect, but is close enough to fix the problem).

So, you are right, we all have different skills.

Re:It's just like pitch

[slash.duncan]

Well, I /did/ say "tolerable". If the band's bad enough that means shutting off the amplification entirely... or all but one, making it a solo...

But seriously, a lot of the time the band isn't so bad, they just don't have anyone enforcing a decent idea of mix/balance. In a small venue the guitar guys running their own amps blasting out everything else, including the vocals, that sort of thing. As long as the mix guy can impose enough control (playing an almost entirely different program for the monitors and the mains, thus giving the band what they think they want, if it comes to that) on the program to rebalance the channels effectively, and yes, that might mean killing a particularly bad channel, it can often be made tolerable, as I said. But if they're running independent amps, God help you (and them)!

Staying on-topic, a band that is out of sync can't be fixed at the board, unless I send a click-track into their in-ear monitors AND they use it.

LOL. I can just imagine that. The confusion of "multi-sync techno-poly-rhythms" as I've heard it referred to, then all of a sudden they get a click-track coming thru the monitors, the first time they've heard it, all LIVE!

Then in keeping with the theme, have the click-track on a frequency that's already close to feedback...

If that isn't a scenario for "This is Spinal Tap, Next Generation", I don't know what is! [Interview with the board man:] "But the volume on the click-tracker goes to eleven!"

Meanwhile, there's the guy that deliberately runs feedback loops. I was watching a youtube Scooter (genre: happy hardcore) concert video (Jumping all over the World tour) recently and saw HP (lead vocalist, "singer" is arguably stretching it) deliberately squealing the mic, positioning it right in front of the monitor, etc. I could just imagine the sound guys going crazy watching their meters peaking, but that's exactly the kind of antics he's a legend for, so if they weren't ready for it the first time, I'm sure they were the next! That's the sort of band it'd be fun to run the sound for (as long as the antics weren't blowing anything), as you could get away with a lot and it'd just blend in with the show.

Re:It's just like pitch

[Nate4D]

Your analogy to pitch seems quite apropos. As someone who developed very accurate relative pitch, and wishes that I had perfect pitch, I know that some people do just have it (though there is some evidence that it can be developed).

It simply hadn't occurred to me before I played with this guy that the same might be true of rhythm.

Re:It's just like pitch

[Falconhell]

I mixed bands for many years, and often found a decent dose of bass drum in the monitors would tighten up a loose band nicely, as long as the drummer was not the loose one!

What is wrong with a click track?

[SuperAndy]

I don't see the inherent problem with using a click track. If we take a band like Dream Theater, where both John Petrucci (guitar) and Jordan Rudess (Keyboards) play ridiculous solos, generally 'dueling' with each other. This would be impossible if the rhythm section was speeding up and slowing down. I would much rather hear crisp, perfectly synchronised solos, with that hint of mechanisation, than muddy, out of time solos that finish at different times.

However, this does not mean I think click tracks are always good. They are only required for an act such as Dream Theater, because quite often the band are pushing their technical skills as far as they can go, and I believe they need that extra help. In the case of a band playing something at a somewhat gentle 60 - 80 bpm, there shouldn't really be any excuse.

Saying that, I used to play trombone in a classical orchestra, and the conductor was vital in all pieces of music. Whether he is as vital in a 5 piece band as a 100 piece orchestra, however, is up for debate.

Britney's Drummer

[gsslay]

Funniest thing on the article is even wondering if there was ever a human drummer within a million miles of Britney's "Hit Me Baby", click track or not. Like a large percentage of recent pop music it's clearly 100% sequenced from the bottom up. Not so much recorded against a "click track", but is entirely "click track".

That's not a criticism by the way. Music has room for all methods of recording, and sequencing is a good a method as any. It's the end product that counts.

Not (really) tempo and not editing

[EEDAm]

One thing TFA suggests (and a comment or two here) is that click tracks are necessary to allow digital editing. That's not really the case and isn't the reason people use clicks. You can sync an editor to a live track and in any event, if you need to push or pull an off-timed beat you can just adjust manually or snap to grids with accuracy in the hundredths of a beat in Protools or whatever. And its not drummer tempo consistency. The vast majority of pro drummers are perfectly tight and the human ear enjoys their slight variations in timing (although My Chemical Romance got rid of their first one for it among other things). No, the real reason that clicks are used 9 times out of 10 is where there are sequenced keyboard, bass line or percussion type parts and the click is used to keep the drummer in time with the pre-programmed parts.

Re:Not (really) tempo and not editing

[ACAx1985]

One thing TFA suggests (and a comment or two here) is that click tracks are necessary to allow digital editing. That's not really the case and isn't the reason people use clicks. You can sync an editor to a live track and in any event, if you need to push or pull an off-timed beat you can just adjust manually or snap to grids with accuracy in the hundredths of a beat in Protools or whatever. And its not drummer tempo consistency. The vast majority of pro drummers are perfectly tight and the human ear enjoys their slight variations in timing (although My Chemical Romance got rid of their first one for it among other things). No, the real reason that clicks are used 9 times out of 10 is where there are sequenced keyboard, bass line or percussion type parts and the click is used to keep the drummer in time with the pre-programmed parts.

Regarding My Chemical Romance, I grew up seeing them live in basements. Their new drummer is worlds better than their old one.. they used to suck live because of their drummer's inability to keep time properly.

Anyone try Carl Stalling (Looney Tunes)

[DingerX]

Classic Hollywood cartoons were synched precisely to the animation, and Carl Stalling (famous for doing the orchestration during the Golden Age of Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies), had a giant clicker for the sessions. So what do the charts look like on one of his pieces?

Get the machine(s) to sync to the drummer !

[TractorBarry]

One approach I use quite a lot is to record the band live then produce a sync track by getting the drummer to overdub a click track using a MIDI drum pad (i.e. they just hit the pad on the start of each beat). Any half decent sequencer should then be able to use this track to create a "Tempo Map" so the timing will slightly fluctuate as required by the dictates of the song. (I use an old version of Logic on Windows and it works a treat)

You then get the best of both worlds as you can add your MIDI tracks which can then be quantised to the song. Any external devices can also be synced in the usual way (i.e. MTC, MIDI Clock, SMPTE etc.)

Other times when you play with machines that are rigidly synced you just allow yourselves to have passages where you either "push" (play slightly in front of the beat) or "pull" (play slightly behind the beat) All helps with the build/release of tension.

In fact sometimes I've used old analogue machines that can't be synced together (due to lack of available interfacing hardware) and we've just left two machine running whose timings slowly drift apart but which sounds great. On the same note setting them off slightly apart and using slightly different sequences running at different tempos can also produce some odd (but very usable) polyrhythms.

So who cares if you can "tell there's a click" ? As usual when recording music just play around until you find what works for the song/band. There are no rules !

As a Musician...

[flyneye]

It's difficult to find a good drummer.
Most are so concerned with posturing,it's hard to get anything but heavy metal dynamics from their playing. While they're bashing the heads with all their might,a steady tempo becomes secondary and is eventually lost.
          Since good drummers are scarcer than honest politicians, I advocate plugging them into a metronome. It's almost better than working with a drum machine.
            Some drummer jokes:
Whadda you call the guy who hangs out with musicians?
        A drummer
          Whats the difference between a drummer and a drum machine?
          A drum machine actually keeps time and won't try to screw your ol' lady.

Re:As a Musician...

[gtall]

hehehe, I'm a drummer, but the joke I like the most is: how do you tell if the stage is even? The drummer drools out of both sides of his mouth.

The problem with most music when it comes to drummers is that it is inherently boring. There simply isn't much to do unless you lay down a fairly complicated beat in a strange time. Most musicians (these days) choke if they are presented with anything but 4/4's time. So the drummer, to not fall over with brain hemorrhages, starts to amuse him(her)self with fills and other things which, naturally, annoys the hell out of the rest of the band who for some reason seem to actually enjoy the monotony.

Gerry
 

Re:As a Musician...

[flyneye]

I understand the boredom of sameness.
        My locale doesn't offer a wide selection of drummers. Any decent ones already play for 3 bands at a time.
          So you get to choose from
a) The Peter Criss Model
b) The Tommy Lee Model or
c) Look, Dad got me a drumset and it has two bass pedals!
            Not nearly enough of the " Stewart Copeland"," Buddy Rich" or "Neal Peart" models to choose from.
          I'd settle for a "Moe Tucker" model if nothing else, she keeps time like a rolex.

Lamere's experiments can't be called "scientific"

[Richard Kirk]

Can't they? Why not? He starts out with the hypothesis that music recorded with a preset click track might give a flatter graph that one recorded without. He tests his theory with known examples. He tests his theory with unknown examples and notes that the graphs fall into two pretty distinct sets: ones with small deviations from a straight, flat line, and ones that wander about. There are some examples where a tune is flatlining, and then wanders off for a bit, then drops back again, suggesting that it is possible to use a click track but perhaps ignore it for a while.

This sounds pretty much like science as I have always known it. You don't have to sex it up with Greek symbols and arcane maths. You don't always end up with a neat E = mc^2 formula. You can't always fit all of your experimental data.

He could wear a white coat. Would that help?

For those who want to play around with this thing

[ChienAndalu]

Since the original page is slashdotted, here is the google code project page: http://code.google.com/p/echo-nest-remix/.

After installing the proper libraries and tweaking the source code to get it to work, I had to discover that the 'api' sends the music *to the echonest server over http* to analyze the audio track. Which is unreachable, obviously.

Back in the olden days....

[mikelieman]

"Recording a band without multitrack is a nightmare (call it direct take)."

Call it "Live-to-2 track", instead.

Sheffield Labs used to do it wonderfully.

Re:Back in the olden days....

[daem0n1x]

In my language we call it "take directo", which translates literally to "direct take". I didn't know the exact term in English.

Re:Back in the olden days....

[unitron]

What Sheffield Labs used to do wonderfully was direct to disc, no tape involved, just a lathe running at 33 1/3 and a cutting head.

Stop using technology as a scapegoat

[PhreezeVi]

This author is about as useful as a republican. Pin the blame on something or someone easy and which preferably can't fight back instead of looking at the larger issue. He can't possibly comprehend that all of the bland crap that has been coming out of the studios for the last couple of decades is due to a multitude of factors including but not limited to: the overwhelming power of consolidated music companies that have had far too much discretion on the issue of what music is allowed to make it to the marketplace, an industry with too much focus on quantity over quality, and an increasingly compliant public with little or no range in cultural understanding or concern.

Music is an art form but it is also an invention. Musicians merely use the tools available to them (from graphite drumsticks, to nylon strings, to our tonal system) to continue creating. What musicians do with new technology when it comes along it and the level of quality that they achieve is entirely up to them. And for the record metronomes have been around for a few hundred years.

Before there were even clicktracks and recordings musicians were expected to keep perfect time. There's no excuse. I went to university to study classical guitar and the first thing we were required to buy was a metronome. The beat is the basis on which the rest of the music is built. If it isn't strong then the music will fall. Of course rubato has its place but if a drummer can't accomplish the most simple, fundamental aspect of their job by making a perfectly timed beat sound natural and strong, then he/she needs to go back into the basement and keep practicing - or just change careers. And that goes for all musicians. Clicktracks are merely a tool to ensure everyone and everything is on the same page. And if a drummer "can't" work with one then once again get back in the basement.

I once worked with a drummer who had been playing for over 25 years yet we were spending weeks rehearsing the same couple of tunes, waiting for him to finally get it straight (4/4 rock - nothing overly complicated). It wasn't until we tried recording and we found out that he couldn't even work with a clicktrack that we fully realized how mediocre and hopeless he actually was. The signs were all there but he was friend so this was a hard admission to come to.

If you can't write good interesting solid tunes don't blame the tools available. And more importantly stop using technology as a scapegoat for human folly!

PhreezeVi

not the problem of click tracks

[advocate_one]

it's the recording engineers who drag notes around to fit against the rigid timeline, or else just cut and paste a good take of one verse and make it into all of the verses... The software they have now is just too powerful and they don't know when not to use a fancy feature like dragging individual notes around to "quantize" them

I've had it done to me... my bass notes were dragged around to make them exactly on the beat... and this sounded horrible... took all the feeling out of it... he might have well just used a disc of sampled bass notes and plonked them onto the track

Mutitrack is not clicktrack

[gr8_phk]

Multitrack recording is great, but if the guitar player screws up, you play back the rest of the band and have him/her rerecord against the other good tracks. Some have pointed out that with click-tracks, you can take a rif and loop it over the entire song. That's the kind of thing that really sucks. I'm all for multitrack in the studio, but this mechanical click-track music is repulsive. If you can't sing or play an instrument, you shouldn't be making music.

It's Not Black and White

[mangusman]

As a drummer who's spent a fair amount of time in recording studios, I can tell you that the use of a click track is not always a black and white issue. More often than not, the producer will request a click because the other musicians (guitarists typically) can't find where "1" is. So you end up rehearsing a few times with the click before recording the actual track. And sometimes, the producer demands the use of the click because of the genre of music being recorded (country, r&b for example) so as a session musician you don't have much choice in the matter. And just as often, a good drummer can play along with a click and still allow the music to breath by "rushing and dragging" just enough to give the track some life, and the other musicians are none the wiser because they usually lock in with the drummer anyway. Click tracks have been around forever and are not that big of a deal. However, what's ruining real musicianship in the studios today is the use of ProTools to edit/fix mistakes being made while recording. Musicians now realize that if they don't nail the take perfectly, the engineer will fix the track with ProTools and we don't have to spend all day in the studio. What a crock of shit. The engineering firm that remastered the Beatles Let It Be Naked used ProTools to "fix the mistakes" made by John Lennon and Paul McCartney because they didn't intend to hit the wrong notes. These guys had no more right to fix the recordings any more than someone would be allowed to "fix" the Mona Lisa.

Re:It's Not Black and White

[M-RES]

I think Banksy should be allowed to fix the Mona Lisa!

Mark this day down!

[stewbacca]

Hey, finally, a conversation that I can feel truly involved in (other that the occasional arguments over tech in education).

I am a drummer and I've made TONS of money playing live gigs. I was in a band for three years that played to a click track, but not just for tempo--we played with a sequencer too. The click is practically required to ensure the entire band kicks off together.

The sterile argument is BS. Sterile drumming comes from sterile drummers--click or no. The click doesn't keep you constrained to playing right to the click--you can play slightly ahead or behind, or dead in the pocket--whatever the music requires. More importantly to how not sterile your drumming sounds is your raport with the bassist anyway.

Re:Lamere's experiments can't be called "scientifi

[eelstretching]

He does look smashing in white.

It's all about the organic...

[MadKeithV]

Click tracks, bah. Sucking the life out of music. Music is just not organic anymore.
While we're at it, I think the clock in a CPU is just a useless crutch too. A decent processor should be able to handle the subtle emotional variations in timing of a pissed-off windows user!

Q: How do you know there's a drummer at your door?
A: Because the knocking speeds up.

Re:It's all about the organic...

[poot_rootbeer]

While we're at it, I think the clock in a CPU is just a useless crutch too.

You're joking, but this is actually more or less true. Computers could be much faster if each instruction could be executed immediately upon the necessary voltage levels arriving at the prerequisite points in the circuit, instead of having to wait a billionth of a second for the traffic lights installed every few microns to turn green.

Re:It's all about the organic...

[zevans]

Some types of computation would work better, some would fall apart. So the analogy is exact; clockless computing is a great idea in -some- situations, just as clockless drumming is -sometimes- appropriate.

Live performance and studio production are miles apart in purpose and intent, so I'm not entirely sure what you lot are arguing about.

those who say drummers keeping time is sterile...

[DragonTHC]

you're morons who have never played music in your life.

The drummer's job is to keep time. That's what he's there for. Not all drummers are good at it.

If they need a metronome to help keep time, let them. It's incredibly ignorant to say it sounds sterile.

Re:what about

[Anonymous Coward]

I hereby declare that, henceforth, any post needlessly written in a fixed-width font shall be considered a "shit track".

Missing the point

[M-RES]

You're missing the point saying that click tracks make for soulless music.

What click tracks allow, in a studio setting, is for the drummer to keep time more closely with a sequencer. The sequencer's tempo in bpm can be set to match the drummer's initial tempo, but with all the audio being recorded into a DAW (ProTools, Cubase, Logic, Nuendo etc) it's much easier to sync the final takes (visually as well as audibly) when you're producing the completed tracks.

Quite often the drums, even with correct mic placement (a combination of overheads, close mics and ambient room mics), can sound wrong for the guitar sound in a track, so the drums themselves will be recorded both as audio and via piezo triggers on the drums as midi data. This means you can swap the original drum sounds themselves (or individual drums, such as the kick or the snare) for alternatives from a sample library using velocity-mapped multi-samples and the listener would never know!

There's nothing to stop a producer 'dequantising' the final sequencer track which is quite easy actually on any modern sequencer, and some allow you to design the 'groove' yourself shifting particular beats before or after the click in a semi-random manner to bring an organic feel back to the music. Just because you listen to a track and think it sounds organic, you'll never know whether or not a click was used to record it (invariably it WAS, as I've found from experience).

For live work a click can also be useful, as most drummers will testify to generally being shoved at the back of the stage with all amps pointing forwards and unable to hear the other musicians a great deal of the time. A click helps them to stay on track and know they've not got lost or lost the other musicians along the way. And if you're playing to some sequenced stuff a click is necessary (unless you use an app that 'listens' to your tempo and adjusts the midi clock to compensate).

I've been a working musician (as drummer and percussionist) and producer for many a year, and believe me, clicks are a great aid for many things and bands who refuse to use them, particularly in the studio, just make everything ten times harder to get right.

Re:Missing the point

[M-RES]

[FLAMEBAIT] Plus, many guitarists struggle to get their heads around drummers playing triplets over time signatures like 21/16! So for THEIR sake a click can be handy ;P [/FLAMEBAIT]

Re:Missing the point

[saiha]

Any drummerphile can tell you that not using a click track gives a warmer, richer sound.

The click track is a fantastic tool if used well.

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been an interesting topic of debate that someone passed along to me...

I do not think click tracks zap the feel out of a performance. They might for some musicians, but for great musicians, it is a rhythmic tool. On my band's new CD (comes out next week, produced by the legendary Ron Nevison), we used a click-track throughout much of the album. In places where it was used, our drummer, an incredible pro, routinely plays ahead of and behind the click to keep the feel "alive" while the click brings it all back to a place for things to lock in.

I'm a guitar player who uses lots of cool digital delays -- a click track helps keep those Edge-like repeats in sync with the performance.

On one tune, we used the click track in the verses and then turned it off in the instrumental sections to both give the song some real flow and also lock some things together.

On other tunes, we have different tempos for the click track in different song sections because, hey, not all songs maintain the same tempo from start to finish.

In the live setting, the click track enables us to fly in parts/effects that can't be covered live without an 8 piece band or orchestra, while on some songs we turn it off and play live so that we have more room for improvisation.

Click tracks are just a tool. And a great one at that if you still know how to lay down a great performance.

My band: Days Before Tomorrow
Style: Melodic progressive rock
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/daysbeforetomorrow
Info: http://www.daysbeforetomorrow.com

Scott

Re:The click track is a fantastic tool if used wel

[punman]

Without much exaggeration, this might be the best thing I've found on Slashdot in years. Awesome band, great sound. Never would have heard of you guys otherwise.

I don't get it

[mcgrew]

to leverage much of the flexibility and power of a digital recording you need a click

A "click track" is pretty much the same as a metronome. If you need a metronome IMO you're a poor musician indeed.

If the musicians are in different rooms, that is one reason for much of the sterility of today's music. Back in the analog days, they'd use carefully placed sound absorbtion sheets to get the exact sound (drummers were often in a different room, but everyone used headphones).

And as to the "flexibility and power" of digital, I don't see it. Digital has a wider dynamic range than analog, but the increased range is seldom used. It has no noise (another plus for digital), but OTOH analog has no aliasing, and digital aliasing is compounded when you digitally make the tracks louder, and compounded when mixing (rounding errors).

Actually, digital's biggest advantage is that with analog, the more you spend on your equipment, especially input devices for playback, the better the sound (and anyone can hear the difference). With digital there's comparitively not much difference between a cheap setup and an expensive one.

Also, mixing analog and digital gives you the worst of both worlds with the advantages of neither. A Beatles LP will sound much better than a Beatles CD, provided you have a high quality turntable. But a Nirvana CD will sound far better than a Nirvana LP, since their masters were digital.

You can use this tool: http://jacksondj.com

[vanaeken]

You can use my application 'JacksonDJ' to easily analyze songs and see whether their tempo is fixed: http://jacksondj.com . Disclaimer: there is currently no support.

Re:How can you tell when a drummer is knocking ...

[Vindicator9000]

supposed to be the knock speeds up and he never knows when to come in.

Hey Jude!

[hemp]

That reminds me of the Beatles song "Hey Jude". The reason there is no drums on the beginning of the song is because Ringo Star was in the bathroom when they started the song.

That song could never be made today.

Re:The click track is a fantastic tool if used wel

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Punman!

I also just realized that on one song, we recorded everything without a click track because of the various tempo changes (and time signature changes, which certainly complicates programming the click). But after the song was recorded, our drummer recorded a "fake" click track manually -- playing his drum sticks in time with the recorded performance. This is useful for syncing those random FX and things in a live performance. He's happy to play along to his personal self-generated click. OK, yes, that opens this up to many jokes about our drummer playing with himself :-p.

Scott

More click tracks!

[Anonymous Coward]

To steal a line from Christopher Walken: "I've got a fever! And the only cure is more click tracks!"

Thursday - Common Existence

[ACAx1985]

Check out drummer Tucker Rule on Thursday's new album, Common Existence. I'm pretty sure he's playing to a click, but they feel raw.. and the recording of the drums is also money--the drums sound like DRUMS, not synthesized beats like most pop music. You can hear the skins.

The other musicians don't even need the click...

[tpz]

Back when I was last in the studio, and this was back in the days of tape, let alone what could be achieved with digital, it was trivial to set everyone up, preferably with the drummer off in another room for better sound isolation, and do a take with everyone tracking out as separately as possible given the studio's equipment. At the very least, you came away with a candidate for the final drum track. The rest of the band could go back in, one at a time or whatever you wanted, and re-track their part with at least the drum track available to play to and quite likely the rest of the band (as there is at least some version of it from that original take or whatever has been dubbed/punched onto the tape tracks since then).

There are some other noteworthy reasons for a click track, though, beyond making sequenced elements, tempo-synced effects, and editing work nicely:

One example is that many drummers simply can't hold tempo. They'll rush the verses and drag the chorus when if anything you might want the opposite. Or they'll do the opposite when you want the other. ;) Or they'll slowly drag the tempo up through the entire song. Or down. Or they'll drop a few BPM whenever they need to play sixteenths on the hi-hat. (This last one is getting sickeningly common in live shows but even on albums recently. Bone up on your skills, guys! There's a thing called "practice" that you might have heard of! ;) )

Re:How can you tell when a drummer is knocking ...

[mcgrew]

Q. What's the difference between a drummer and a pizza?

A. A pizza can feed a family of four.

Heavens to Murgatroid

[DannyO152]

Somewhere in the last twenty years? In 1989 I had a shelf of over 20 hours of recorded material that had been self-demoed or recorded in real studios using a click-track. And using a click track wasn't news then, or when I started recording my bands and me five years earlier. On a few recordings I gave myself a click when I just playing an acoustic guitar. In fact, come to think of it, about twenty years ago, I got to hang out offstage at a performance of a big name group with hits and the drummer was being fed a click track; I can't imagine they were the first.

Here's why we did it:

• A good drummer uses the click as a base point and swings and phrases in between the beats. (We typically used a drum machine cow bell giving quarter notes and an accent on the one. There's a lot of room for feel in between the quarter notes. The whole band got the click. If one heard the cowbell, the band had slowed down or sped up.)
• We were young and not impervious to having one dynamic, louder, which resulted in speeding up. If we capture a good drum recording that is more or less on the click, the rest can be fixed in overdubs. You could not punch in a drum part. (One sign that we got better as musicians, more of the scratch track could be kept.)
• If one sets the tempo, one can figure out delay settings that stay on the beat.
• Using the drum machine to lay down a MIDI clock stripe at the same time as it was pumping out the click meant it was a lot easier to add other instruments played via MIDI. This allows parts that can be worked out off the clock (saving money is gooooood). These parts can also be auto-performed at mixdown, which means a track or two of tape is free for other purposes.

Nowadays, parts are sampled, reassembled and layered in order to create a recording. This started about twenty years ago and is a heck of a lot easier with recording to hard drive techniques. Which brings us to another point: multi-tracking and now digital recording techniques have resulted in providing the artist and producer more time before which they have to make final choices. Yes, it's another double-edged sword, but it's human nature to keep options open as long as possible. Honestly, the track is forever, so if you can afford it, why not use the studio to explore what will showcase a good performance?

Is this one of those instances when the lay discover the technical (craft) requirements of creating art? I cannot imagine any one getting worked up about this over some sort of purity of art issue. Maybe the news is this person is proud of his algorithm for statistical analysis of tempo changes in a song. Fair enough. That is cool. Back to art and craft, since we seem to be having a discussion on how the click track ruined pop music, for a percussionist, in all but a few pop genres, the job is keeping the tempo steady and to anchor the groove so as to facilitate the fabrication of a professional sounding track. It's just like acting in the movies, sure there's the obvious, i.e., become a character and project emotion, and there's the click-track, which is you hit your mark so that the pre-set lighting and camera focus capture the art.

Tempo Map

[ovu]

Modern DAW software offers tempo mapping, which enables an engineer to create a click that breathes with a natural recording.

This means that a drummer can record a take with no click, and afterwards, the take can be mapped. Subsequent overdubs (and MIDI sync etc.) will have a click that changes with the tempo variations of the original recording.

It's a PITA, but is available.

You could conceivably record a natural drum take, construct a tempo map, and then have the band play live to the mapped click, which gives you the benefits of both worlds.

Re:Tempo Map

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern DAW software offers tempo mapping, which enables an engineer to create a click that breathes with a natural recording.

Artifically generated naturalness. What will they think of next?

Re:Tempo Map

[RMH101]

...and you cannot do this for a live performance. If you use any sequenced parts, you need a click.

Elitist Crap

[Nom du Keyboard]

some say that songs recorded against a click track sound sterile, that the missing tempo deviations added life to a song.

That's elitist crap once again. The same sort of thing you get from the people bemoaning the death of vinyl and tube amps. As long as there's a person (i.e. drummer) in the loop you'll have deviations from "perfect". I, for one, wish these complainers who want to point out how they "hear" things that none of the rest of us will never notice - and then need to point them out to all of us - would just go away to their own ultra expensive listening rooms and stay there!

As a long time bassist....

[Ken Broadfoot]

There is nothing more annoying than a sterile drummer who follows a click track. Drums, and as far as I am concerned all instruments, should "breath" in the rhythm. For lack of a better word, I like rock that "swings". i.e. Van Halen's Alex or John Bonham OVER Neil Pert.
( YES I SAID IT! Nerd's leave me alone! )

If your metronome is of the wind-up pendulum variety put a couple coins under one side. It will then "swing" a little.

If it is the electronic kind... throw it away.

ALSO don't use "QUANTIZE" on your midi stuff. It sucks the life out of a song.

Re:As a long time bassist....

[Anonymous Coward]

ALSO don't use "QUANTIZE" on your midi stuff. It sucks the life out of a song

or be sure to run "humanize" after "quantize" (really- it's in DP anyway.)

Re:How can you tell when a drummer is knocking ...

[Whorhay]

That's nonsense. I'm sure if you chopped the drummer up and slow roasted the meaty bits you could feed a family of four at the least.

Drummer Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor Drummers, always the butt of music jokes...

heres a couple.

Q: What do you someone who hangs out with musicians.
A: A drummer

Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a light bulb.
A: 2. One to hold the bulb in the air, the other to drink till the room spins.

Did you hear about the band that locked the keys in their van.. Took them 2 hours to get the drummer out.

Re:Drummer Jokes

[glarbl_blarbl]

Q. How can you tell if the stage is level?

A. The drummer is drooling out of both sides of his mouth!

This really has nothing to do with drummers...

[7Prime]

It has to do with editing and modern-day DAW track editing. If all you're doing is laying down bass, guitar, drums and vocals in a garage or folk band, then you don't really need a click track. But if you're doing a high amount of production with multi-layered guitar tracks, synth lines, and orchestral mockups (midi), you HAVETO have a click track. Many times, recording a complex rock arrangement isn't that much different from doing a film score, you have to have events coming in and out along a very precise timeframe. You can pre-determine tempo variations, but they MUST be pre-determined.

This strikes me as not so much an arguement about drummer quality or production level, but an arguement about how much rock music should be pre-determined. I know folk and punk rockers will say that it is heretical to have too much determinism in rock music, but there's another side of things. I play in and produce a progressive rock band. I had over 12 years of training in piano and composition before I did 5 years of undergrad work in composition and studio production. For what I do, I want EVERYTHING to be planned out. Usually, the more planning that goes into a tune, the more unique it can be, because everyone knows what their roll is. That's why most folk and punk bands usually sound the same.

Basically, "the click track" is one of a number of tools offered by an institution of music construction that allows for a lot of flexibility and creativity within a certain framework. Click tracks free up producers, composers, and musicians to be able to have a lot more leeway in other areas. It's not a question of "my drummer can play without a click track". The reality is, no matter HOW good a drummer is, if they don't have a click, the music isn't going to line up on the grid in Pro Tools, Digital Performer, or whatever DAW your using. If that doesn't happen, then you've just killed about 50% of the production and creative possibilities you have at your disposal... including orchestra and midi (which is much more prevolent than most would like to admit) additions.

Orchestras have a click-track: it's called a conductor. They spend hours maticulously figuring out exactly how to control the tempo of the orchestra, to the point that when they finally do it live, it's going to be the same each time. When orchestras record for film scores, the conductor wears headphones and conducts to a click-track. Recording an epic-sounding rock track is pretty much the same deal.

Ask any metal or prog band to record without a click track, and they'll probably laugh in your face. Dream Theater (for instance) maps out their entire works out on Digital Performer before they even begin the recording process. Certain types of music just require it, others don't. You want detailed, highly-controlled sound the posibility of adding a lot of post-production stuff later... you HAVE TO use a click track.

Re:This really has nothing to do with drummers...

[Anonymous Coward]

"But if you're doing a high amount of production with multi-layered guitar tracks, synth lines, and orchestral mockups (midi), you HAVETO have a click track."

Of course not.

What is the difference between playing along with a drummer, and playing to a click track? Both keep time, and the drummer is far more inspiring.

You don't *have* to be able to quantize afterwards. Tempo variations are good things, and if your working method precludes them, something is wrong! If you do need to quantize, then most daws will let you map variable tempo to audio in some way nowadays.

As long as the rhythm section is ok, then you don't need a click track.

If you are a prog fan, there are so many examples of complex music multitracked without a click. Gentle Giant is a good place to start!

Ahhh, the Ox

[Talkischeap]

I just digitized all my old John Entwistle LP's, and have been enjoying him all over again after 30 years.

Yeah, he did turn me on to the Bass.

R.I.P. Ox.

Speaking as a drummer/programmer

[kiddailey]

... that the missing tempo deviations added life to a song.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! :)

In the big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

While "slashdot" is a great news source, the never ending battles of all you great philosopher wannabes is irritating!

Here's the big picture: yes, for SOME kinds of music, near-perfect tempo drains the life out of it. But SOME music thrives on it- like some dance/techno music, some 80s synth/rock, etc.

And, SOME drummers are HORRIBLE with tempo, especially after tom rolls, fills, modulation, whatever.

I play electric guitar, and I've done a LOT of live mix. Even on live TV I've been surprised at how off-tempo some drummers can get.

And it's too easy and not fair to blame the drummer. All of the musicians (except piano, and you know who you are) contribute to music being tight.

The bottom line- there is NO absolute here- in some cases click track / metronome is a good thing, and in some, it's not.

Go back to your Wii now.

Glaring Error

[stewbacca]

The article is totally overlooking that fact that a band like Green Day has such sloppy musicianship that it's all cleaned up in Pro-tools after the fact. Tre' Cool could be drunk and high and lay down the worst tracks ever without a click and a good Pro-tools guy could make it look flat. So, the sterility is probably coming from over Pro-tooling, and not necessarily playing to click track. The insinuation that there are REAL drums on "Hit Me Baby One More Time" is just offensive. No words can describe how insulting that is.

I also take issue to Bonham not having used a click. I have several original out-takes from the studio, and not only is there a (granted, prehistoric) click track going in the form of a loud metronome in the studio. He's also laying the beat down on some tunes AFTER the other musicians have layed theirs down (presumably to the loud metronome clicky thingy)...playing to pre-recorded music is the same thing as playing to a click, as far as the sterility aspect goes. And if anyone wants to argue that Led Zeppelin's music sounded sterile, than I have no faith in humans.

Lastly, this over-analysis of an article is overlooking the most basic premise of music. So what if it is clicked, not clicked, rushing, dragging....does it SOUND good?

The plural ruined the joke

[Anonymous Coward]

"Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription... is more click track!"

Dramas

[MrKaos]

We've had a few Dramas in our band, some use click track some do not. The difference I note when they play is that drummers that use click tracks are technically very competent but sound sterile, whereas the drummers that do not use click tracks are very instinctive and can more often do things on the fly.

It's kinda funny cause I would say to my friend - 'how the fuck did you pull that off dood?' and he would answer 'dunno mate'. Great for creativity - but not for consistency. Recording at all times is usually mandatory with drummers that use instinct, drummers that use click and metronome are easier to play with (I find), but making music isn't just about what's easy.

Besides I prefer if the bass player can keep the time and the drummer elevates the drama.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has played guitar and piano for eight years prior to learning the art of electronic music, the argument that a click track is some industry shortcut that is abused like autotune is absurd. If I'm am sampling my guitar playing for inclusion in an "electronic" track, or even recording midi in real time, playing along with the click track is a necessity. The click track IS a metronome, and if you can't play to it, then you didn't practice your instrument properly by learning tempo variation.

Although I thought I had a great sense of time for years playing with bands, recording in my bedroom proved problematic when I couldn't play fluently over a digital track I already composed at, say, 128 BPM when I was really feeling and playing the guitar riff at like 125.5.

Mod down the know-nothing industry-hating slashdotters that ironically prattle about technological tools and standards supplanting some sort of innate, "organic" talent they would continue to mythify.

Re:The click track is a fantastic tool if used wel

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree. Never heard of these guys, but I just previewed the songs and now I'll definitely be looking for the album next week. I've personally found that it's rare for a small indie band to have the talent and songwriting ability to hold my interest (so many of them are decent but just not great), but these guys have it in spades. Awesome. I love finding great new music!

it's more likely than you think

[Anonymous Coward]

drummers? on MY slashdot?