I just cannot play with a click

D

deejuks2

New member
I've tried and tried, and i just can not play ANYthing along to a click track. For songs without drums or hardly any percussion at all i can get by without it - but when i try to add any drums the lack of timing in my guitar playing really shows. Any tips? Maybe playing to a drum machine would be a good idea?

P.S. i am recording by myself. (If that wasnt already obvious)
 
I always program a drum beat to play with. And I'm a drummer. Typical click tracks are not pleasing by any means. There are free drum programs out there, but for ease of use, and pre-programmed grooves, I would recommend EZDrummer. It $39 recently, but I believe it is more than that now. Well worth it either way IMO.
 
I say man up and figure it out. I could play along to dogs barking or fleas farting, and I totally suck, so beeps or clicks should be nothing.
 
I can't play to a click either, so I just choose not to. If The first track I lay down is electric guitar through a Digitech RP300, so I just use the built-in fake drums in the pedal. This is just a guide track anyway, so it'll end up getting deleted once something real is on there.
 
deejuks2 said:
I've tried and tried, and i just can not play ANYthing along to a click track.
Click to expand...

I think that an initial dislike of click tracks is very common. It's much harder to be really accurate than most of us give credit to, especially when you're in the early stages. There's some interesting tests you can do (further down the track) when you think you're pretty darned good. One is to set the volume at a level where your playing (a scale or whatever) can just over-ride the sound of the click. You then play for a while and see how long you go without ever hearing a click! A version of that is to get a friend to turn the volume down for a few seconds and then see how close you are when it comes back up again.

The point of those stories is that timing is not an automatic skill, it's another thing that you need to work on. In fact it's one of the most important ones.

When I started I used a big old fashion clockwork metronome - the ones with a long swinging arm. The advantage of that was that it wasn't just about waiting for a noise, I could actually SEE exactly where the arm was in the beat too. Didn't take long to be able to play a whole lot more accurately. I think the next stage was to use a drum track that I made with a mixture of kick, snare and high hat (just basic KICK, snare, snare, snare 4/4 stuff). The advantage there was that if I was trying to hit a beat of quarter notes I was getting some eighth note cymbal cues in between to help me.

After some practice at all that, a click wasn't so much of a big deal.
 
It's like everything else.... you can't do something until you learn. So learn.

Use a drum beat, like Jimmy said. Much easier to get the feel... I do it all the time.
 
Try doubling the bpm of the click. Ie: the song is 120 bpm, set the click meter to 240. Works for me. :)
 
It takes months and even years to become comfortable with a click, but once you get your own internal click going, you'll be fine. Playing along to drumbeats is OK, but if a situation ever arises where you're only able to play with a click, you'll be screwed. Personally it was one of the best things I ever did, buying a pocket metronome, all those moons ago.
 
I can't stand click tracks either so, I scored a cheap drum machine from eBay and either used one of the pre-programmed tracks supplied or create my own simple kick-snare beats to play along to.

Works out great and doesn't sound too unnatural. I don't program any drum tracks that a real drummer couldn't play and keep it subtle. Works out quite well.
 
a click can be anything that helps you keep time.
There is nothing wrong with using a drum machine as your 'click' and I think very many people would feel more comfortable with that.

Actually, I can play with a click just fine but I prefer some kind of drum beat instead so that's how I do it even though a click is no prob for me.
So do what works.
 
When I first started playing to a drum machine, I, who was renowned for solid timing, discovered that my solid and the drum machine's solid were not identical ! It took a new kind of discipline because you can't argue with metronomic precision. But I soon discovered that actually, it was easy. And furthermore, once you can play solidly to it, you can easilly weave around the precision timing, being ahead of or behind it, you can be complex around it or simple. It's simply a timing reference. And I'd go one stage further by recommending learning to play to wild and wacky time signatures. It not only improves concentration, it alters thinking....
I've tried and tried, and i just can not play ANYthing along to a click track
Click to expand...
Try some more.

I once didn't understand MIDI. I once didn't understand compression. I still don't. But I understand them a heck of alot more than I did in the 90s. I just kept plugging away. You've got to. The fate of mankind may rest on this.












Ok, it doesn't but it'll make your timing life much better.
 
Bottom line to me is, practice makes perfect. Practicing to something that makes you feel more comfortable, will get you there quicker. Duck farts, cowbell, programed drum beat.....it don't matter. I have no problem playing with a 'blip' type of click track, I just am annoyed by it. I can program the drum track I am about to play in 20 minutes or so. In fact, I find it easier to experiment with what I want to play, by programming it. I am also a bit of a geek, in the way that I find it easier to lay out a song via a drum editor, before I even think about playing it. It just makes more sense to me when collaborating. That way I don't waste the valuable energy that I have left at my ripe old age of 42, recording live tracks over and over.

blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip.......

:)
 
jimmys69 said:
Bottom line to me is, practice makes perfect. Practicing to something that makes you feel more comfortable, will get you there quicker.
Click to expand...
For me, I think more in terms of "practice makes permanent". What that means is that if you practice good habits and disciplines or bad ones, what you practice becomes permanent. I guess it's both an encouragement and a warning.
 
Beat Poet said:
It takes months and even years to become comfortable with a click, but once you get your own internal click going, you'll be fine. Playing along to drumbeats is OK, but if a situation ever arises where you're only able to play with a click, you'll be screwed. Personally it was one of the best things I ever did, buying a pocket metronome, all those moons ago.
Click to expand...

"...get your own internal click going..." is definitely the key to it. One of the most common examples of that is the good old "Footronome" - musicians tapping a foot in time. But the only way to calibrate that foot is to put in the necessary hours of work on improving your timing! :)
 
Hakea said:
"...get your own internal click going..." is definitely the key to it. One of the most common examples of that is the good old "Footronome" - musicians tapping a foot in time. But the only way to calibrate that foot is to put in the necessary hours of work on improving your timing! :)
Click to expand...

*Image of Armistice yelling "Stop tapping your f*cking foot while you're playing, godammit!!!!" to band partner whose tapping is clearly being picked up by microphone*

Not such a great thing when recording acoustic guitars - you have to foot tap quite gently...:)
 
When you play to a drummer, you are playing to something else's timing. Playing to a click isn't any different. If you can't anticipate the next beat, you really need more practice.

If you can't figure out how your part is supposed to sit against the metronome, you really don't know your part. You may know what notes to play in what order, but if you don't know when they belong, you are only doing half your job. And you clearly don't understand the part you are trying to play.

The main two jobs a musician has are being in tune and in time.
 
As most people have indicated, using a drum machine/progam to create a "drum groove" can feel more natural than a simple click. However, if your timing is not yet developed enough to be able to play with "click" - then you really should work to improve your timing.

All musicians should have a well developed internal clock that allows them to keep accurate time - the concept that it is the drummer's job to keep time is simply incorrect, inaccurate and perhaps a way for some musicians to simply make an excuse why they have not learned to keep time.

You may note I used the phrase "play with a cick" vs. play to a click. Many musicians (and often drummers in particular) make the mistake of becoming intimidated by the click, thinking each beat must precisely follow the click. This is the wrong way to approach the issue. A click is simply a guidline, it can be OK to play a little ahead or behind (or even behind on the verse and ahead on the chorus) whatever best serves the music - as long as you do not stray from the beat. Playing around the click (or playing with the click) can make the process less stressful and help allow the music to breath.
 
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