what made it "click" for you?

  • Thread starter Thread starter brother rat
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brother rat

brother rat

All mics sound the same.
All of my projects seem to be missing that certain "something". Even when they are as good as I can them, there's still something that they seem to lack. They just don't "pop" for me.

What was it for you that made your projects start to "click"? When you started getting the sound that you were after. That made all of your other techniques and tricks congeal into something that you're proud of and happy with.

Was it in the performance? The tracking? The mixing?
Mic placement? Mic selection?
Reverb? Compression?
Pure experience and hours in the studio?
Something else?
 
Way back before the day (and that's a long time age) it seems that it was the upgrade to really decent pair of monitors that helped bring everything else up to par for me.
 
Recognize your gear and skill limitations and be smart enough to work around them. Then practice.

If you're dumb and/or have bad ears, you'll never be good at this.
 
Greg_L said:
If you're dumb and/or have bad ears, you'll never be good at this.
Click to expand...

I am dumb and almost deaf in one ear!
But I'm not aiming to make this my profession. No matter how bad my projects are, I still enjoy it.
 
I hate to say this, but switching gear helped me a lot. I would like to think that gear shouldn't matter as much as talent, but when I bought a focusrite mic pre-amp and my UAD plugs, I saw a huge difference in the quality of my mixes. Hmm, maybe that just goes to show that talent isn't that much of a factor in my mixes... :o :o :laughings:

Oh, there is one other thing that helped. Several times people ahve posted their tracks up for others to mix, Greg being one and RAMI another. It was an eye opener to listen to their individual tracks and how well everything was played. I went back and listened to some of my tracks solo'd and knew I had work to do.
 
Way back before the day (and that's a long time age) it seems that it was the upgrade to really decent pair of monitors that helped bring everything else up to par for me.
Click to expand...
Monitoring without question -- Understanding proper gain staging (which was almost automatic for us analog oldies) -- Understanding that for "depth" and "space" there is no substitute for "depth" and "space" --
 
You don't say what kind of music you're doing, but don't use a click track unles you absolutely have to. Click tracks generally kill style, individualism, personal interpretation and feeling in your music which renders a project cold and sterile, technically correct, but cold and sterile.

Also, my guess is that you're a bit tense when you're recording - thinking about the recording kit and not putting yourself into your music. When you hit the record button, walk away from the mic or the the guitar or whatever for a moment. Realx, chill, and then go back to the mic or whatever, forget the recording, and play for you not the DAW.
 
Peter B said:
...but don't use a click track unless you absolutely have to. Click tracks generally kill style, individualism, personal interpretation and feeling in your music which renders a project cold and sterile, technically correct, but cold and sterile.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this.
If anything, when working alone and doing many individual tracks...without a click, you will almost never get that tight/polished sound of a really good bunch of musicians playing together in the studio.
Loose or sloppy timing has nothing to do with style, individualism and personal interpretation...though again, if you have a bunch of musicians playing together at the same time in the studio, and they are pretty tight, then you can forgo the click and allow the entire band to "drift tightly together".

For me...major improvements came with better monitoring, better studio space, better gear...and experience.
When all those things come together, it's obvious that everything sounds better.
 
I probably have no right to throw my two cents in since I'm still learning and have ways to go, but taking the time to adapt to and actually learn the different pieces of gear helped.
I don't know about that guy ^, but a click track did help and made my songs at least sound like songs instead of random awkward field recordings. Though I guess for some it could take out emotion.

What has helped the most though, was gain staging and the right mics/preamps/stuff.
A friend of mine has some nice mics and goodies that made recording easier. I haven't recorded it, but just in monitoring I can tell a huge difference.
Recording a $60 guitar on a $200 mic, seems to sound much better than recording a $200 on a $60 mic. Those aren't crazy prices but you get the idea :o
 
Peter B said:
You don't say what kind of music you're doing, but don't use a click track unles you absolutely have to. Click tracks generally kill style, individualism, personal interpretation and feeling in your music which renders a project cold and sterile, technically correct, but cold and sterile.
.
Click to expand...

Dumbest post this week.
 
Yeah when I'm constructing good tracks and I'm playing everything, I use a click. Very important. When playing with bands, never a click, but when I'm constructing songs part by part, a click is a necessity.

My mixes got major improvements at different stages. One was when I finally bought monitors. The next was when I discovered high-pass filters. The next was when I got a UAD card and started using the EMT 140 verb. I still have issues with my low-mids/bass region, so maybe something else will come along to improve those?
 
Yep, OK, points taken but perhaps I should have made more of my .....absolutely have to.....

Click tracks are essential sometimes for sure, and I use them when I'm recording, say, all the parts of a formally scored ensemble piece, trio, quartet or whatever. Very necessary to time everything track to track, and it comes out technically correct, just the way it should - fine.

But you can't pull the tempo about with a click track as you'll always want to do if you're playing a head sheet and then improvising and for me this always makes the best music, it's warm and personal.

That's all I was trying to say...........in my dumb sort of way.
 
Peter B said:
Yep, OK, points taken but perhaps I should have made more of my .....absolutely have to.....

Click tracks are essential sometimes for sure, and I use them when I'm recording, say, all the parts of a formally scored ensemble piece, trio, quartet or whatever. Very necessary to time everything track to track, and it comes out technically correct, just the way it should - fine.

But you can't pull the tempo about with a click track as you'll always want to do if you're playing a head sheet and then improvising and for me this always makes the best music, it's warm and personal.

That's all I was trying to say...........in my dumb sort of way.
Click to expand...

That's all fine and all, but professional bands, engineers, and producers use click tracks all the time. They use them live to. Those fancy in-ear monitors that bands wear usually have some sort of tick-tock going on inside of them. Playing with a click doesn't mean you have to lock on and stay there. You can dance around the click. It's just a guide. Anyone worth a shit can play to a click or around a click and not sweat it either way.
 
While I do prefer not having a click when playing with different people, to say that music becomes sterile with it is bullshit. You can dance the click...push it, drag it, what have you. If you can play with a click well, that's what gets you gigs.

Now, when you're practicing, a metronome is a must, no exceptions. The only reason a band can play without a click well is if they have killer timing anyway, and you get that by practicing at home with one.
 
Well, my daddy always said to me.......When you find yourself in a hole son, stop diggin' so I guess I'd better do that.

The only thing is........professional bands?.......engineers and producers? ........use them live too? ........fancy ear monitors that bands wear? ................I thought this was a place to learn about Home Recording.
 
Peter B said:
Well, my daddy always said to me.......When you find yourself in a hole son, stop diggin' so I guess I'd better do that.

The only thing is........professional bands?.......engineers and producers? ........use them live too? ........fancy ear monitors that bands wear? ................I thought this was a place to learn about Home Recording.
Click to expand...

It is, and I'd recommend everyone use a click track. Especially if you're a one-man-band, like most of us are.
 
Yes, it is home recording, and that underscores the point about using clicks even more. How many home/newbs are THAT pro that they can hold a solid beat through a 4-5 minute song...on multiple tracks?

Yeah, I get all that "human feel" argument, but as others have stated, it is VERY possibly to dance around a click beat...a little ahead a little behind, while still having the click for your reference timing.
You wanna play a solo guitar w/vocal...fine, just go with the flow, but start layering multiple tracks, especially in an up-tempo or real slow piece...and unintended, random drift will kill the feel much worse than following a click...IMHO.

I always go back to my early years of classical piano training...it was ALL about the time signatures and tempo...often learned with a metronome to assure you were not being sloppy.
I know a lot of musicians like to make the "human feel" argument...but too often it's because they just have a hard time even following a steady reference like a click. :)
 
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