RANT: Over-precisionification of music

[noisewreck]

WARNING! THIS IS A RANT!

I've read a lot of threads here regarding recording to a click track. Usually these are peppered with posts stating that "if you can't play to a click you shouldn't be recording" blah, blah, blah.

I'd like to know who was the first genius who decided that recording to a click was a good idea.

While I greatly appreciate the value of practicing with a metronome, I've done this for countless hours throughout the years, come performance time, the metronome is off.

Why do we employ it during recording?

It just seems to me that we are living in an era of precision. Play to a click, hard quantize everything (then quantize to a swing to "humanize" it ), play everything evenly (same loudness), compress dynamics (gotta have that shit under control you see)... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sometime ago I read an interview with BT where he was complaining that MIDI (meaning hardware MIDI connections not plugin) is not precise. While I can understand that it's not precise enough for his needs, where he does all that fine-grained stuttering and such to 128th notes, not to mention his granular shananigans (which sound GREAT!), why are we so hell bent on looking for machine like precision in ALL performances?

What's going on with us? What's next? Cybernetic implants for quantizing our brain functions? AD converters for our optic nerves? Vocal implants enabling us to go from basso profondo to coloratura soprano in one swoop?

While most electronic genre's are decidedly "computery" and many of the IDM choppage would not be possible with the sample accurate precision that we get from the DAWs, I have issues with the over-precisionification of other, more "human" genres such as jazz, heavy metal, etc.

RANT OVER.

Discuss if you wish.

 

[ez_willis]

Why do we employ it during recording?

Because songs that have a floating tempo sound amateurish, and generally like crap, unless it's classical.

Performance isn't as critical, IMO, but still, critical.

 

[Greg_L]

WARNING! THIS IS A RANT!

I've read a lot of threads here regarding recording to a click track. Usually these are peppered with posts stating that "if you can't play to a click you shouldn't be recording" blah, blah, blah.

I'd like to know who was the first genius who decided that recording to a click was a good idea.

While I greatly appreciate the value of practicing with a metronome, I've done this for countless hours throughout the years, come performance time, the metronome is off.

Why do we employ it during recording?

It just seems to me that we are living in an era of precision. Play to a click, hard quantize everything (then quantize to a swing to "humanize" it ), play everything evenly (same loudness), compress dynamics (gotta have that shit under control you see)... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sometime ago I read an interview with BT where he was complaining that MIDI (meaning hardware MIDI connections not plugin) is not precise. While I can understand that it's not precise enough for his needs, where he does all that fine-grained stuttering and such to 128th notes, not to mention his granular shananigans (which sound GREAT!), why are we so hell bent on looking for machine like precision in ALL performances?

What's going on with us? What's next? Cybernetic implants for quantizing our brain functions? AD converters for our optic nerves? Vocal implants enabling us to go from basso profondo to coloratura soprano in one swoop?

While most electronic genre's are decidedly "computery" and many of the IDM choppage would not be possible with the sample accurate precision that we get from the DAWs, I have issues with the over-precisionification of other, more "human" genres such as jazz, heavy metal, etc.

RANT OVER.

Discuss if you wish.

Lol. Nice. I think the whole "record to a click" thing is mainly for solo people trying to do everything themselves. I don't see whay a normal competent band would need to record to a click.

 

[brendandwyer]

Lol. Nice. I think the whole "record to a click" thing is mainly for solo people trying to do everything themselves. I don't see whay a normal competent band would need to record to a click.

i agree. my feeling is a minimum 3 piece ensemble should be able to perform a song in a steady tempo. If a solo guy or a duo need a click to hold it together thats fine.

last time i checked, dynamics were integral to a performance.

 

[noisewreck]

Because songs that have a floating tempo sound amateurish, and generally like crap, unless it's classical.

Performance isn't as critical, IMO, but still, critical.

I think you've got it backwards. If someone can't keep a steady tempo... scratch that... If someone doesn't have full command over their tempo (including the ability to vary it at will as the musical piece at hand demands) then they ARE an amature. A metronome is going to just make them sound like a mechanical amature.

 

[xstatic]

Live you can get away with a lot more. It happens in one pass, PA, lights, visual communication between band members etc... All those things serve to help minimize the perceived effects of timing changes. On an album however when 2 weeks later someone may have to lay a track down, the timing of everything is much more critical to having things sound really tight. At this point in time the musician laying the tracks does not have the benefit of a visual cue to get the timing right. Some would argue that a good musician would be able to match those timing inconsistencies. I would argue that good musicians should not have to worry about matching someone else's mistakes. They may be able to save the track by matching the timing inconsistencies, but they should not have to. I use click tracks with many of my projects and with some I don't. It all depends on the situation. The biggest advantage I see of having a click track is that it allows to more easily and accurately assess the timing of the tracks you lay right away rather than finding out two weeks later that something just is not going to work. At the same time though, I don't let a few strays form the click track ruin a great take either. We just have to be more careful in deciding whether it is truly livable and worth keeping, but at least that bridge gets crossed at the proper time. It is also important to remember that with tempo mapping you can vary your click track with different parts of a song. If you are tracking a band all live I prefer to leave the click track out of the equation.

 

[danny.guitar]

Usually these are peppered with posts stating that "if you can't play to a click you shouldn't be recording" blah, blah, blah.

I'd have to argue that with, "If you can't keep time without a click track then maybe you shouldn't be recording".

I personally don't use click tracks because it's mostly just me playing everything.

If the musicians have decent timing and aren't all over the place it should be pretty easy for someone else to add another track over it if they have any sense of rhythm and timing.

 

[Supercreep]

I think you've got it backwards. If someone can't keep a steady tempo... scratch that... If someone doesn't have full command over their tempo (including the ability to vary it at will as the musical piece at hand demands) then they ARE an amature. A metronome is going to just make them sound like a mechanical amature.

I've played with scores of people and I've only met two in my entire life with timing I could never find a flaw in.

Two.

Click tracks are helpful to keep a compass heading. One can play to the beat, in the pocket, pull the beat - have all kinds of elasticity to time and still play within the framework of the click track.

It's easy to erase a click track. It's hard to fix a fucked up drum track.

Those are good enough reasons for me, and since I record one instrument at a time, it works well enough.


I guess that makes me an "amature", but I'll take that appelation over "the guy with the fucked up drum tracks" any day.

 

[boingoman]

.

I'd like to know who was the first genius who decided that recording to a click was a good idea.


Discuss if you wish.

I think it was one of those guys who wrote music for movies. Like 60 years ago. And it was because he was, get this,

...a professional who cared about his final product.

 

[Supercreep]

The biggest advantage I see of having a click track is that it allows to more easily and accurately assess the timing of the tracks you lay right away rather than finding out two weeks later that something just is not going to work.

...................+1

 

[boingoman]

I think you've got it backwards. If someone can't keep a steady tempo... scratch that... If someone doesn't have full command over their tempo (including the ability to vary it at will as the musical piece at hand demands) then they ARE an amature. A metronome is going to just make them sound like a mechanical amature.

So so wrong........

 

[noisewreck]

I think it was one of those guys who wrote music for movies. Like 60 years ago. And it was because he was, get this,

...a professional who cared about his final product.

I can understand that. When you need to time musical events to picture, you don't have much leeway.

So so wrong........

Please expand on that. So far, I've read some good arguments for using a click track, although I have issues with the premise, but OK... So, I'd like to hear your thoughts. We're all here to learn from each other

 

[TerraMortim]

WARNING! THIS IS A RANT!

I've read a lot of threads here regarding recording to a click track. Usually these are peppered with posts stating that "if you can't play to a click you shouldn't be recording" blah, blah, blah.

I'd like to know who was the first genius who decided that recording to a click was a good idea.

While I greatly appreciate the value of practicing with a metronome, I've done this for countless hours throughout the years, come performance time, the metronome is off.

Why do we employ it during recording?

It just seems to me that we are living in an era of precision. Play to a click, hard quantize everything (then quantize to a swing to "humanize" it ), play everything evenly (same loudness), compress dynamics (gotta have that shit under control you see)... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sometime ago I read an interview with BT where he was complaining that MIDI (meaning hardware MIDI connections not plugin) is not precise. While I can understand that it's not precise enough for his needs, where he does all that fine-grained stuttering and such to 128th notes, not to mention his granular shananigans (which sound GREAT!), why are we so hell bent on looking for machine like precision in ALL performances?

What's going on with us? What's next? Cybernetic implants for quantizing our brain functions? AD converters for our optic nerves? Vocal implants enabling us to go from basso profondo to coloratura soprano in one swoop?

While most electronic genre's are decidedly "computery" and many of the IDM choppage would not be possible with the sample accurate precision that we get from the DAWs, I have issues with the over-precisionification of other, more "human" genres such as jazz, heavy metal, etc.

RANT OVER.

Discuss if you wish.

For people who do music like me, i.e. electronic mixed with lots of live instrumentation: It's ESSENTIAL. I don't require absolute precision in the way of BT. I always thought BT was a little too obsessed with the minute. It simply would take so much more time to try to either edit the waveforms to be in perfect time with the sequences, or to modify the sequences to quantize to the audio. It's simply the best way for this. Not all music should be to a click, but not all music is just based on the rock format of live off the floor to capture all of the initial tracks.

I do, however agree with your sentiments! I think that when it's not required to play to a perfect grid, it shouldn't be. The natural wavering of tempo by a good player will add to the emotion of the performance. Only, as long as the person is actually a good player, that can control their tempo in an intelligent way so as to bring forth different moods.

I think a lot of it comes from DAWS coming to such a forefront in recording. If the tempo wavers like crazy, it's harder to create a tempo map so that the bars will line up properly. It's not impossible, it just takes more time than it would be to simply throw a click track through the "cans".

What I always do is judge how competant a player is to not only just play the part but to use proper tempo control in order to make the song effective. If it's not such a great player, I will almost always throw a click down, as the wavering in tempo is likely to either be to a rediculous ammount, or simply almost impossible to work with later on, in order to get a good finished product. If the player is pretty awesome then I'll usually not worry so much about a click, unless absolute presission is required.

I dunno if very much jazz is recorded with a click. Maybe not very good jazz. Jazz is kind of supposed to be spontaneous and as much live off the floor as possible. It has to have that natural interaction between the players, which does involve tempo control, among many other things . . . a click would just ruin the groove between the players. Jazz players just have such amazing sense of timing that it might sound as if it was played with a click track (listen to some old recordings from the 30s and 40s..throw them into a DAW software and see how well they line up to the beat..it'll astound you!!!) A click would be the worst idea to impose on a talented jazz act, they've got to groove on their own frequency, so to speak.

As far as metal, I think the reason why it's good to record with a click some times, especially the faster the music is, is simply that metal has to be absolute precision or it just falls apart, or sounds like hardcore punk (which isn't a bad thing, really). When you look at bands such as krisiun and dying fetus, and nile, it would be almost impossible to pull those recordings off without a click...all of the effects have to be so precise, even down to a sample level or it turns to a mushy blur of white noise, and the playing doesn't have hardly a margin at all for error. If one note is the slightest bit off, it loses the momentum. When you're playing so many notes in such short intervals, precision is absolutely crucial. On the other end with lots of stuff like funeral doom, it's so damned slow that it would be hard for everyone to hit their detuned bass strings and kettle drums with snares on them at the same time.

 

[TerraMortim]

I think you've got it backwards. If someone can't keep a steady tempo... scratch that... If someone doesn't have full command over their tempo (including the ability to vary it at will as the musical piece at hand demands) then they ARE an amature. A metronome is going to just make them sound like a mechanical amature.

no it won't. When you play to a click you don't absolutely put every beat exactly on the click, that's why we ususally only have quarter notes as a division. There are some people that only have one click on the first beat of each bar, even. Personally, I'll usually plot out a drum beat instead of a click, as it's more realistic of what a live player would feed off in more traditional situations. A click really is just to make sure they are still playing within reasonable distance to the upbeats and downbeats. A good player that plays with a click can still work within that click and make it human enough. When I play to a click I normally just listen to the 1 and the 3, only listening to the full 4 clicks if I have to do some sycipation.

really, a good player can play under virtually any circumstance, with a click, without one, while drunk, or with a cactus shoved firmly up his rectum and red hot branding irons pressed against his nipples, and make it sound human, and emotional.

 

[eyeteeth]

Music can ebb and flow with the emotion of the music. A good musician can sense this, and play it accordingly with or without a click. On occasion, I've programmed click track WITH tempo variances to achieve this... a click doesn't HAVE to be stuck on one tempo.

Plenty of the music we've come to love probably has variances in tempo, but it's don't correctly, when needed, and subtly to the point that most people will never notice... because it sounds good.

That being said... working with groups in the studio... The ones who really need a click. I.E. One measure is fast, the next it slows, then the fills always speed up, etc. Couldn't play to one if their life depended on it. The Groups that are able to play to a click... don't usually need one.

So whaddya do? It's kinda like going to the bank for a loan... they won't give it to ya until ya can prove ya don't need it.

 

[XLR]

Using a click doesn't necessarily make the playing sound mechanical. The playing doesn't even have to stay aligned with the click on every beat. The click just keeps the overall tempo consistent. You can still push things or play behind the beat. It sure makes editing easier.

 

[Zed10R]

Click tracks are helpful to keep a compass heading. One can play to the beat, in the pocket, pull the beat - have all kinds of elasticity to time and still play within the framework of the click track.


I guess that makes me an "amature", but I'll take that appelation over "the guy with the fucked up drum tracks" any day.

That right there should have ended this debate.

Another thing to consider is the complexity of the music itself and how many layers you plan on mixing together. The more complex the music...the more layers you have...the more useful a click is. And just becasue you have a click doesn't mean you have to play all robotically. It just helps you play the same thing exactly the same way...7 or 8 times. Or more. But I would hope you have your phrasing and "feel" all worked out before hand so you DON'T sound all robotic...unless you want too and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

 

[NegadivOne]

I think you guys are forgetting an important aspect of this arguement. Sure, recording with a click is a lot easier for everyone involved to lay down their parts over earlier tracks. That's true. But for me the biggest reason why I like clicks is because (unless you a playing very acoustic, organic music) a song with a wandering tempo sounds like ass. I personally wouldnt want to listen to cd's that didn't have a steady tempo, it would bug me and make me feel like they didnt even care enough about the finished product to get a really good take.

But, I agree, the human element is vital to making music sound good. A good drummer playing to a click track will never sound robotic though.

 

[boingoman]

Please expand on that. So far, I've read some good arguments for using a click track, although I have issues with the premise, but OK... So, I'd like to hear your thoughts. We're all here to learn from each other

I read Supercreep's post after I posted that, he kind of summed it up pretty well. I'll add a couple of things.

A click track is a tool. As with any tool, it's potential lies in the hands of the user. And a professional will use a tool when it's appropriate. I definitely hear what you are saying in your rant, but the history of timekeepers in music is long, and started way before music was recorded. It's not new, or a trend, or anything. But what you are talking about goes beyond that, for sure.

Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Nat Cole, maniacal timekeepers. If you fell off their beat, you were fukt. Mozart. Beethoven. I don't imagine they let their ensembles direct their own tempo, even though they were the best musicians around. Those jazz recordings TM mentioned, I pretty much promise there was someone keeping time and saying "Do it again" if it was off.

If music sucks and has no feeling, it's because it sucks and has no feeling.

 

[noisewreck]

I think you guys are forgetting an important aspect of this arguement. Sure, recording with a click is a lot easier for everyone involved to lay down their parts over earlier tracks. That's true. But for me the biggest reason why I like clicks is because (unless you a playing very acoustic, organic music) a song with a wandering tempo sounds like ass. I personally wouldnt want to listen to cd's that didn't have a steady tempo, it would bug me and make me feel like they didnt even care enough about the finished product to get a really good take.

But, I agree, the human element is vital to making music sound good. A good drummer playing to a click track will never sound robotic though.

Soooo, you're saying that if there was no click the tempo would be all over the place? See, I have a hard time accepting that. Just listen to Il Giardino Armonico's recording of Bach's Brandenburg concerti. Baroque music is all about steady motor tempo/pulse... ya think they recorded to a click? They don't even have a conductor!

Personally I have a tendency to rush. I've always had the issue. So when I perform, I always need to keep telling myself "pull back, pull back", which works. And I have no issues playing to a click. But I think that each musician needs to be able to know what their tendency is and be aware of it while performing and be able to control it.

I can see the value of playing to a click when people need to overdub stuff weeks or months later, but I just simply can't buy the argument that if there is no click then tempi will wander all over the place. If they do, then practice more, listen to yourself, and get your damn act together!