Dani Pace said:
Thanks for the replys. I'm still not quite sure what to do, I keep dropping hints but he just aint catching them. I've already got a reputation as an asshole so I guess I'm just going to have to live up to it and tell him like it is. Even tracks with me on drums sound better than his, and my only experience as a drummer was way back in the 60s with a country band, (that should tell you how off he gets.) BTW he plays left handed (third one I've worked with) and plays faster as a song progresses, not that being a lefty has anything to do with it. I don't understand it but he says clicks and loops throw him off, I don't know how but that's what he says. If I didn't want to keep him as a friend it would be easy to tell him to take his sloppy playing elsewhere.
Yeah, that's a tough call. It just depends on which ultimately is more important to you, the friendship or the music. I disagree with the earlier poster who said if the friendship is solid it will survive his getting booted, I highly doubt that.
You could track everything with him, then re-track it with someone else later. But that's kind of underhanded and really just puts off the day of judgement for later, it will still happen.
You stop recording for a while, let the trail go cold so to speak. Then when you restart use someone else. That's time consuming though, and no help if you really want to keep going now.
You could bring in a bunch of different drummers, so it's not so personal as him against one other person.
Or you could just say you want to track the drums yourself.
Another option would be to make the issue of playing with loops a big deal. Since he clearly doesn't like that and isn't good at it, you would at least be at some sort of point of agreement as to why you might want to go in a different direction as far as drummers.
But ultimately, I suspect it ain't going to be pretty.