Can Clicks kill the life in a recording ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter grimtraveller
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OK, I will amend my statement to say "Everyone that I have personally talked to that was doing disco and R&B in the 70's was playing to a click". I was set straight on a few occasions, because I thought the same as you: That almost no one was using a metronome until the 80's when drum machines took over the world. I was accused of over-romanticizing the time period.
 
miroslav said:
How do you mean "it doesn't work"...?

When I work with my drummer....I first lay down a scratch guitar/vocal tracks to a click.
Then he plays his drums to the guitar/vocal & click track.
After that, I record all the keeper tracks while listening to his drums and the scratch/vocal tracks, plus the click.
When I record a couple of keeper guitar/bass/piano ...I delete the scratch guitar, bu still keep the scratch vocal, plus the click.
The click stays all the way through....how loud I play it in the headphones VS the drum track is personal taste, but usually asfter the drums are down, I turn the click very low and panned off to one side, as I still use the click for the count-in and if there are maybe breaks int he song, etc....but at that point I'm moslty litening to the drum track.


That's as simple as it gets....works every time.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I do. I have the studio, play drums and write most of the songs. I get the melody sorted and use my limited guitar skills to put down a scratch track to a MIDI drum track, then put the real drums over that. Guitarist/bassist get a copy and work out their parts, then overdub before vocalist comes in and does what he's told! :thumbs up:

Works for us.
 
Farview said:
I was set straight on a few occasions, because I thought the same as you: That almost no one was using a metronome until the 80's when drum machines took over the world. I was accused of over-romanticizing the time period.
Click to expand...
I don't think you were over romanticizing the period. There are quite a few examples {you mentined the Floyd on "Money", I mentioned them in 1968's "Saucerful of secrets"} of artists using something as some kind of metronomic device, I mean, Kraftwerk were around before disco, On Donna Summer's "I feel love", the rhythm is entirely made up of a metronomic synth. The thing is, these examples are way in the minority compared to straight drums or percussion and often fell more into the realm of experimentation.
But popular music has long benefitted from isolated experiments or accidents flicking on a light in someone's head and going on to become the standard or well used. Examples include the compressor, the mellotron, the synthesizer, close miking drums, distorting the electric guitar, indeed, the drum machine. I guess in retrospect, sometimes their stories can be made to seem quite romantic but they didn't start that way.
Greg_L once made a point about a drummer's pride in their kit and that going a long way towards explaining why so many would frown on using say, a suitcase as a kick drum. The same went for a lot of them using clicks. For some in the disco era, coming out of the funk period where groovability within timekeeping was a source of pride, having to use a click would have been almost insulting. Others were prepared to give it a go.
It's not a case of "oh it was so much better back then," rather, all kinds of things used to happen which have led us to here and now.
 
grimtraveller said:
I don't think you were over romanticizing the period. There are quite a few examples {you mentined the Floyd on "Money", I mentioned them in 1968's "Saucerful of secrets"} of artists using something as some kind of metronomic device, I mean, Kraftwerk were around before disco, On Donna Summer's "I feel love", the rhythm is entirely made up of a metronomic synth. The thing is, these examples are way in the minority compared to straight drums or percussion and often fell more into the realm of experimentation.
But popular music has long benefitted from isolated experiments or accidents flicking on a light in someone's head and going on to become the standard or well used. Examples include the compressor, the mellotron, the synthesizer, close miking drums, distorting the electric guitar, indeed, the drum machine. I guess in retrospect, sometimes their stories can be made to seem quite romantic but they didn't start that way.
Greg_L once made a point about a drummer's pride in their kit and that going a long way towards explaining why so many would frown on using say, a suitcase as a kick drum. The same went for a lot of them using clicks. For some in the disco era, coming out of the funk period where groovability within timekeeping was a source of pride, having to use a click would have been almost insulting. Others were prepared to give it a go.
It's not a case of "oh it was so much better back then," rather, all kinds of things used to happen which have led us to here and now.
Click to expand...
The last guy that set me straight produced Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, The notations, etc... All of the productions he had anything to do with were done to a click.

Not sure many producers of the era would give a rat's ass about insulting a drummer. The 70's were the mid-point between the producers simply replacing the band with studio musicians (because the band wasn't 'qualified' to play in the studio) and the softer, gentler "let's make them all feel good about themselves , so we can coax a good performance out of them" era. Personally, I prefer the later.
 
I've had time troubles before but it really wasn't speeding up or slowing down. It was inconsistency. Remember, tempo is the speed, but time is the space between hits. That space has to be consistent or the "time" suffers. Don't be in a hurry to blame the drummer. Everyone has time problems and if you can't come up with a way to communicate (like leaning back to slow down or leaning forward to speed up while looking at the drummer) then you have bigger problems than "feel" Now to you question. No. A click doesn't make a track sound anything. People saying that don't like playing to a click because they have bad "time" themselves and can't do it. Live players will always sound live. The trick is NOT to hear the click. If you can hear it, you are off it. There's more to say but that's the long and short of it. Players have feel even with a click. And if your drummer has bad time, wouldn't a click fix it? If they have bad time feel no longer matters. Right? Tell your drummer to set up a drum machine with the percussion set on the & of 2 and the & of 4. Then play along with it. Do that for about two hours and your time will now be tight. Food Luck,
Rod Norman
Drummer and Engineer

grimtraveller said:
Do you think there is any truth in the assertion that many make, that using a click in recording kills the life or feeling of that recording ? What about in live performance ?
Is it sterile or robotic to have absolute perfect timing with none of the speeding up or slowing down a drummer may bring ?
For those that don't use clicks, are there circumstances in which you feel they would be good for you ?
And for those that use them regularly, can you see any occasions where not using one would be a good thing ?
Does a band recording together need to use a click ?
Click to expand...
 
My live rig playing drums was the fallowing and it worked flawless:

mp.3 player ---> Art Clean Box Pro ---->My Headphones (click and guitars in mono)
---->PA (all the synth string stuff)

Simple and always worked, cheap to have backups as well. The art summed both the click and guitars to the center in the headphones and that was nice as otherwise it would have been in one ear.

I used the vic firth cans so I also had the benefit of not killing my ears to death.


Playing to a click is so nice I don't think I could go not doing it and I really don't think I could ever play with a drummer who couldn't play to a click at least in the studio. The drummer is the time keeper so if the rest of the band doesn't fallow him or he is inconsistent, then maybe it's time to reconsider members.

All the pros I have met so far say they do it as a norm in the studio and a lot say they do it live.
 
Guitargodgt said:
Playing to a click is so nice I don't think I could go not doing it and I really don't think I could ever play with a drummer who couldn't play to a click at least in the studio.
Click to expand...
Have you done recording without a click and what was it like for you ?
 
grimtraveller said:
Have you done recording without a click and what was it like for you ?
Click to expand...

I will jump in and jack the question.

I just recently jammed with some friends, writing a song for a buddy who lives 800 miles away. The track was not played with a click. We were just putting the tune together.

Now, after that session, I need to record my drums for the final product. I had to spend hours to place the jam session in time so that it is possible for others to play with. The members of the band will be recording in various locations. There is no way that this project would work if I don't put it to a consistent tempo. We should have used one for the writing session, but how annoying would a constant click be when trying to work out a song?

There are times where I feel a click isn't necessary. But those are not projects that will need editing or overdub. Not every song needs to be in perfect time. In my experience in the rock genre I work with most, it is imperative.
 
Its a myth that the use of a click will make a song sound sterile or robotic. Musicians make music sound robotic.

All musicians, of various levels of ability, can benefit from having a common reference to where the "1" and beats are in any tempo and time signature.

Good musicians and bands can push and/or pull the feel of a song TOGETHER because they share a common reference point. You all benefit from knowing where the beat is to play behind it a bit.

Recording has long been about capturing the music at highest level of perfection in all areas. Having all band members play consistent to the tempo is an example of this.

However, it can be an artistic choice to increase the tempo in a song for example, and having the click reference increase too during the speed up can keep all the players together.
 
It eliminates so many issues, if you use one. Tempo changes can be preset in your DAW. It requires a little prep to set up, but well worth it down the line.
 
SeaRay123 said:
Its a myth that the use of a click will make a song sound sterile or robotic.
Click to expand...
Is it always a myth ? Many people mention the perfect robotic nature of many modern songs and the robotic nature of much electronica.
I don't disagree with
SeaRay123 said:
Musicians make music sound robotic
Click to expand...
in principle but is it truly always a myth ? In every single instance ?
My definitive stand on clicks is that every singer and musician should learn to record with one and every singer and musician should learn to record without one.
 
If someone uses a click track to lock everything to it in perfect timming....quantize the crap out of it....
...it's not the fault of the "click", it's the person.

So yeah....it's a myth that a click track makes everything sound robotic. People make it sound robotic because they don't know how to play WITH a click rather than TO the click.
 
For me, it depends on the ability of the drummer in the session. If the drummer is good enough to be able to play "around" the constant click to push & pull the pocket as the song requires, then I use a straight click. But that's a rare occurrence these days, so 90% of the time I end up creating tempo maps which shift the time up and down slightly from section to section, once again, dependent on what the song requires.
 
If a drummer doesn't use click, I simply don't record him ... It's absolutely neccesary, because once you put the rest of instruments upon it, they will have to fit he's Groove correctly. A good drummer will record with a click, and yet he will put he's feeling and Groove into the song. And by the way if a song has BPM variations, every DAW has the possibility to adjust the tempo dynamically.
 
Only kind of neccesary when you don't record live or want to play samples/sequences along with it.
But it should not kill the the life in a recording. Sometimes it's constricting though.
 
ianopie said:
If a drummer doesn't use click, I simply don't record him ... It's absolutely neccesary,
Click to expand...

No . . . it is not absolutely necessary. Having a drummer use a click certainly makes life easier, but it is not too big a deal to layer stuff around a non-click drum track.
 
gecko zzed said:
No . . . it is not absolutely necessary. Having a drummer use a click certainly makes life easier, but it is not too big a deal to layer stuff around a non-click drum track.
Click to expand...

Yeah....it's not hte end of the world to record without a click, and if the drummer can play tight, it won't be a show-stopper....but like you say, it certaily makes life easier, especially with lots of single tracks following.
For a band group thing...if they want to run without a click, it's their choice....I would suggest otherwise, but no need to refuse the recording.
 
The only time it's really necessary is when there are parts of the song that have no drums. Something needs to keep time through those parts while the tracks are being layered.

But having a click does make things easier and more consistent.
 
Nothing is ever 100% absolute but so many albums that are considered so full of feeling and sound live are recorded to clicks or even edited and pieced together. Fresh in my mind is Nevermind because I just watched a doc on it with Butch Vig talking about how he suggested the band play to a click and how it made all the difference.
Put me in the camp that feels a click has no negative impact on the feel or groove of a song. It only adds to it.
 
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