Do you HAVE to record drums first?

I like to record my drums to a guide guitar & bass if the groove centres around their parts, but my guitarist prefers to record his guide to drums.

Solution - Click track gets running and I groove 4 bars verse, stop, 4 bars chorus, stop, 4 bars bridge or whatever. Then we cut the best bar from each and paste it to the song structure, guitar goes on top of that as do bass & vocals, then the actual drum performance is recorded to those elements, sounds much more groovy to have the drums first!
 
Sure, it's very doable. I have done many collaborations and songs myself this way. The most important thing is making sure that all the instruments are tight to the click and eachother and the grove is there for your drummer to follow.

Anyone who says it's not possible (true) has no clue what she is talking about.
 
jamacian said:
Anyone who says it's not possible (true) has no clue what she is talking about.
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I don't know for sure, but I think you'll find the post queen of BBS is doin a bit of chain yanking

anyway drums are just a passing fad, it'll never catch on
 
Ick, everytime I've recorded someone who wants to do drums last I kinda cringe. The drums don't "breathe" in the song usually... I've only heard a few people do it and have it sound alright.
 
wildflower soul said:
Ick, everytime I've recorded someone who wants to do drums last I kinda cringe. The drums don't "breathe" in the song usually... I've only heard a few people do it and have it sound alright.
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Most of the people I like the work of, especially in BBS the drums are down last

& every recording I've done apart from 2 or where drums aren't used has had the drums tracked last
 
I guess you got your answer. Everyone does it differently.


It's kind of like the Europeans and salad. They eat it AFTER dinner, and we Americans eat it first.

And some folks, like me, eat some of the salad first, and save half of it for the main course, because we like to mix it in a little as we eat.


Different strokes for different folks.


For the record: I record drums first. I program them in, and then play guitar, and then play bass. Yep, I record bass third. The very last thing for me is vocals, which is pretty common.
 
KaveKong said:
I guess you got your answer. Everyone does it differently.


It's kind of like the Europeans and salad. They eat it AFTER dinner, and we Americans eat it first.

And some folks, like me, eat some of the salad first, and save half of it for the main course, because we like to mix it in a little as we eat.


Different strokes for different folks.


For the record: I record drums first. I program them in, and then play guitar, and then play bass. Yep, I record bass third. The very last thing for me is vocals, which is pretty common.
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But programming the drums makes this a non issue. We are talking about drumming, not programming.
 
jamacian said:
But programming the drums makes this a non issue. We are talking about drumming, not programming.
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whether a drum part is programmed or played it remains part of the song

I have on occasion (& drums is my 1st instrument) gone with just the initial drum loops I've programmed & not recorded my planned drum part because it didn't need it

so once again programmed or played, it's all relevent

FTR I worked with a band once & when I was learning the stuff I made observations about certain songs & asked the front man about it. The song I thought was DEFINATELY PROGRAMMED turned out to be a rather stale sounding drummer & the track I thought was DEFINATELY PLAYED turned out to be a bloody well programmed drum part

jamacian I say to you.....go figure
 
Drums HAVE to be done first....no ands, if or buts about. That's the only way......it's not a song if the drums aren't done first. Really....:D
 
Sometimes I'll add percussion back in after the song is finished, because when the other instruments are piled on, it might need it.

Like I said, I program the drums, but sometimes I program things that a drummer simply couldn't do. I have a song right now in which there's a drum roll across the toms while a symbol is going. A real drummer would wonder how it was done.


I can still remember being in a music store once, and my friend was playing drums. For fun, I picked up a stick and started hitting the cowbell.

A bunch of guys came running around the corner, wondering how in the heck a drummer could be making all that sound at once. I still remember the look in their eyes before they comprehended that it was a third arm making that sound. It was classic. They had this intense look of jealousy and astonishment which quickly turned to an, "Oh, it's another guy" look.
 
click-track *shudder*

even if you can push and pull your playing with the click and make it sound great and fool everybody into thinking it's a natural rhythm... wouldn't the fact that *you* know your song has been carried by a soulless, monotonous, unyielding, unhuman, unfeeling click running at a rate as consistent and as sure as death itself just dampen any love you have for the track? just wondering :)

For what it's worth we've a drum, bass, guitars and keys set up and we record a song after we've been playing it for a good number of weeks or months, so we really know how it goes and think it's worth recording. We then record every part live on a 24 tracker in a studio (no click!) but with all the emphasis on making the sound and performance of the drums as good as possible, as that's the only thing we won't be re-recording at home later. By everyone playing live at the same time, the drummer knows exactly what he needs to do. We then typically do re-record every part (apart from the drums) one by one at home unless there was an inspired live take we want to keep, as the performance level tends to increase dramatically for some reason! We then add some spicy extra tracks and maybe some percussion but they're designed to fit in with the existing drums so the drummer doesn't wish he played something else at the time! Also we plan not to go overboard on the extra tracks as we know we won't be able to re-create them live, but we ermm still do.
 
Cazzbar said:
even if you can push and pull your playing with the click and make it sound great and fool everybody into thinking it's a natural rhythm... wouldn't the fact that *you* know your song has been carried by a soulless, monotonous, unyielding, unhuman, unfeeling click running at a rate as consistent and as sure as death itself just dampen any love you have for the track? just wondering :)
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I'm glad you put a smiley at the end of that. I thought you were serious at first. Now I can't say it's the most ignorant post I ever read.
 
Cazzbar said:
click-track *shudder*
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Puuuulllleeeeez. :rolleyes: :p ;)

Sometimes you want the tempo to breathe, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you and your drummer are breathing at different tempos at different times.

Just because you are programming drums or using a click track doesn't mean you can't set some tempo variations in your music, if you know where you want it to happen.
 
slidey said:
whether a drum part is programmed or played it remains part of the song

I have on occasion (& drums is my 1st instrument) gone with just the initial drum loops I've programmed & not recorded my planned drum part because it didn't need it

so once again programmed or played, it's all relevent



jamacian I say to you.....go figure
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Actually wiseguy the original poster was talking about a drummer and if he could have a drummer PLAY the part after the song was mostly laid down. It wasn't that hard of a post to follow, very short. And for the record it makes no difference, a drum machine IS a click track. If you record to a click you will have no real issue with making the electronic track line up later. The ISSUE here is if a drummer can play to a click after the song is laid down. So what I said was right and for the record what you said was complete and total bullshit.
 
RAMI said:
I'm glad you put a smiley at the end of that. I thought you were serious at first. Now I can't say it's the most ignorant post I ever read.
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Ditto. A click doesn't make music soulless, a crappy soulless song conception makes a song soulless. I can go either way but songs, especially hard rock songs, done tight to a click just kick so much more ass it's not even funny.
 
RAMI said:
I'm glad you put a smiley at the end of that. I thought you were serious at first. Now I can't say it's the most ignorant post I ever read.
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I was clearly playing devil's advocate as up until recently i've always built my studio songs around a click but recently i just wanted to record the whole band playing live and was far happier with the overall feel. We kept the drum and bass and redubbed everything else. To me this was a good mix of a live feel with studio quality.

In the last 20 years i've immersed myself in the live performances of my favourite artists, but to me their studio recordings are too predictable. Maybe listened once or twice.

Is my personal fatigue with studio songs down to the use of a click? Maybe, maybe not.

But why would anyone (who's not into robotik music) want to use a click? What are they afraid of? Playing naturally? If you're a one man band who plays all the parts and want real drums i guess you need a starting point to work with, but that maybe a necessary evil. Live bands where the drummer is clearly listening to a click sends me to sleep as well. And you may be able to program in different tempos, whoopee do. If something which isn't alive is influencing how you play then you're taking the most important thing away from your music. Your use of the word ignorant implies there's rule books being ignored by me. Good.
 
jamacian said:
Ditto. A click doesn't make music soulless, a crappy soulless song conception makes a song soulless. I can go either way but songs, especially hard rock songs, done tight to a click just kick so much more ass it's not even funny.
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I agree it might kick ass more, but a live band playing well without a click can sometimes be magical. That's what i'm looking for.
 
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