Farview
Well-known member
When I was drumming in a band, we had backing tracks, so every song was played to a click. I actually prefer it.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
That sounds more like a very plausible justification of not using a metronome ! In fact, if your overall point is understood, I think you might leave a number of people thinking "then why use a click if you're recording with a drummer ?"
JG96
Active member
Lol I never would have noticed but its defiantly there. My bandmates are real haters of the click track as we prefer to track live. For our next album there are some time restraints with the drummer. No pun intended. And Overdubs might be the only way to go. To me the thought of overdubbing without a click is very scary.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
A band I work with has just gotten a real drummer after four years of Acid Pro drums. It was a convenient expedient for those years but there's something about the real drummer that's so much nicer to listen to. Some of it is the sound of the drums, but a lot is the natural interaction between the players. I will say that the guys playing to the looped drums really improved their timing.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Farview
Well-known member
To keep the drummer in tempo. The metronome is just there to keep the tempo from changing. The feel still needs to come from the band playing with/against each other. A real groove has a steady tempo, the click provides the steady tempo, the drummer plays to it and the band grooves around the drummer.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
This is what so many click haters never get. They don't understand how you can "groove" when you have a steady click going....and they think "groove" really means NOT having any kind of steady tempo.
Illsidgus
Desiccated Member
While the idea of a click track isn't new to me, the concept of professional musicians who have spent a lot of time in the studio recording using click tracks is new to me. That is something that I never considered. That is what I like about this place, I am always learning something new.
Farview
Well-known member
That has been the case for a very long time. All those old 70's disco songs were done to clicks. There are other examples, but that is the most obvious. Money, by Pink Floyd was played to the loop of cash registers as a metronome. (until the 4/4 part)
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Five years before that, they did a loop of a Nick Mason drum part on "Saucerful of secrets" and played the middle section to that. It's a freeform piece, one of the earliest avant garde pieces of rock, nascent progressive rock, at that. But the rock steady timing and the fact that you hear it very clearly do not detract from the piece at all. Indeed, it forms the centrepiece of that particular section.
Armistice
Son of Yoda
If anyone's ever seen Steven Wilson play, then his syncing of video to the music can only be done by time mapping, so I suspect his various drummers are playing to a click of some sort..
B
Btyre2013
New member
apparently chic didn't use click tracks! have you heard how in time and tight they sounded? I'm talking about the original chic not the modern version
Farview
Well-known member
Clicks don't make the band in time with each other or play tighter, they keep the tempo constant.
Do you really think that Le Freak is exactly 120 bpm from start to finish by accident? There was some sort of metronome involved.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
There wasn't. These are Nile Rogers own words;
from this Sound on Sound interview.
I also recall, in the vague mists of time, possibly before I got into recording, reading or hearing one of the Bee Gees saying that in the disco era, a drummer's quality was often gauged by their ability to remain at 120BPM throughout a song. They often didn't play to metronomes but to test them, they'd time them; "how many beats did that cat play in that minute ? !"
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
A couple of quotes from people that engineered during the disco era, for balance;
So it obviously worked both ways.
JG96
Active member
When a song is 120 BPM you can just use an analog clock as the metronome. 
Farview
Well-known member
Yes, and Eddie Van Halen used a variac on his marshall that was modded by that guy, and a lot of other stories that didnt happen, that made those guy seem like gods that no one could touch. I can't tell you how many stories like that I've found out were complete hogwash designed to either bolster their legend or throw people off when trying to copy them.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I'm not really interested in what Eddie did or didn't do.
And I'm also dubious about many of the stories that 'celebs' tell.
But face it, the overwhelming majority of recordings done that involved drums or percussion up until the start of the 80s didn't involve click tracks or metronomes {though for balance, I demonstrated that Pink Floyd did as early as 1968}. Orchestras had conductors. Latin percussionists had super timing. Jazz drummers deliberately played about with the tempo. Even lowly pop/rock bands like the Beatles had many of their early records being the result of edits of two or three takes. Why ? Because they were so tight that the various takes hardly differed in tempo so they were easy to line up.
All I was doing was responding to your comment about all disco tracks being recorded with clicks. And to be fair and to show balance, I also included quotes that showed some were.
Clicks as a standard tool of recording is a relatively modern thing. But for a heck of a lot of musicians, recording without metronomic assisstance is also a matter of pride, rather like a carpenter that uses a manual saw rather than an electric one.
If Nile Rogers says Chic never used clicks back in the day, I've no reason to disbelieve him.
I wasn't there.
B
Btyre2013
New member
absolute rubbish! bob clearmount says otherwise in interviews about mixing chic in the late 70s, the man would not lie.