RANT: Over-precisionification of music

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noisewreck said:
They don't even have a conductor!
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Erm..according to a fan site, one of the founders of the groups is a famous conductor, and has served the group as conductor and soloist.

Really, I still think you have two different topics going on here. The use of a click track/conductor/timekeeper is long-established and accepted by even the most stringent professionals. In fact, they tend to use them more often and more willingly than amateurs.

The other topic is shitty music. Which is just shitty music.
 
boingoman said:
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.
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Ahhh, but you're talking about human time keepers! Sure, a "conductor" of a sort becomes necessary when you have more than say 10 people performing, not only for time keeping, but also for cohesiveness in conveying musical ideas, phrasing, etc. In your examples a "conductor" is far more than just a time keeper, and that same "timekeeper" isn't going to keep monotone, robotic time, but will introduce fluctuations if necessary for conveying the mood of the particular phrase.

My issue is with mechanical timekeeping devices.
 
boingoman said:
Erm..according to a fan site, one of the founders of the groups is a famous conductor, and has served the group as conductor and soloist.
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Sorry, what I meant by my comment was that they don't have a conductor in the traditional sence, i.e. one that stands on the podium and waves his hands. It is true that they have a musical director who leads the performances. Given that, I wanted to emphasize the fact that:

1. they rely on their ability to listen one another and perform as an ensemble.
2. they keep damn good tempo w/o any click track.
3. are able to play fast, yet stay relaxed, with a great sense of pulse, beat, rhythm.
4. to the point where you just wanna get up and dance :D
 
Plus, I want to expand this argument not just to click tracks, but other requirements for precision.

I hear a bunch of complaints regarding drummers that they can't hit their drums exactly the same way every time... My responce to that is ... "uh... get a sampler and program all hits at exatly 100 velocity."

What's wrong with a dynamic drum performance? Personally I love well performed drum solos where the drummer doesn't "beat the drums" "keep time" "be the foundation" and all that... but actually plays the kit like a musical instrument as it should be treated. He actually plays melodies with his kit, is dynamic, has wonderful phrasing...
 
metch

My opinion never means shit.

But i think that some types of songs call more for tight performance than others. Also, i dont think that a metch makes things mechanical. You can push or pull. Its probably safe to say that different music has different requirements, or at least that different performances WILL effect the overall feel. The goal would be then to know what feel will be best for what you wish to convey. I have slowed tracks down to give a slightly slurred feel and it made the songs feel right. Did they feel precise like a metch would? No. Was it precise for the feel i was going for? Absolutely.

One thing that might be said is that each era of music has its own qualities. Lots of chorus on guitar in 80s tunes, alot of phasing or wah on 70s tunes and so on. This modern era we are in right now is producing alot of computer-like smoothness in recordings. Not everyone of course, but its being explored fully by many. I personally dont really care if music is precise or off a little. If i dig the song and the performance i dont care if its tight to a mechanical feel or loose and varied. To each his own.
 
Practicing with a metronome is essential, no doubt about it. However, you shouldn't always practice with a metronome. If you rely on it for the pulse, then you're crutched when you don't have one. I always set the metronome, play through the song with it on, then turn it off and play it until I can keep a steady pulse. If I need to work a section out, I'll set the metronome slower and use work with the metronome until I can get the difficult part up to tempo, then turn the metronome off and play through the piece again.

That said, recording to a click track only works when the song doesn't have a tendency to push and pull the tempo, which most rock songs don't. A good drummer shouldn't need a click. However, sometimes it isn't a bad idea to keep one going, since a recording is really the ultimate, precise version of a song, much like a plastic mold is the epitome of the part that will be made from it.
 
noisewreck said:
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.
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I don't have anything backwards, my friend. A click track/metronome will negate the tendency to play way too fast when the adrenaline of a show is pumping.

It also gives all the members of a band a rock solid foundation, instead of having the guitar player/singer telling the drummer to speed up while the bass player is telling the drummer to slow down.

I've toured with some pro players that prefer the click, and some that don't. Whatever works for ya.
 
Being precise is the entire point of playing.

WTF wants to sound sloppy on everything they do???

It's the same at work. Any jackass can throw a piece of pipe against the wall.

It takes a mechanic to properly plot the path to minimize waste and run things plumb, level, and square, and do it all in a safe manner that doesn't harm yourself or anybody else; all while making $$$ for your employer.

Don't bring that "it don't matter" attitude to my gig 'cause I'll run your ass off.
 
ez_willis said:
I don't have anything backwards, my friend. A click track/metronome will negate the tendency to play way too fast when the adrenaline of a show is pumping.
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That's the point, if a drummer starts playing too fast, then he doesn't have control. A little tempo boost when things get rocking actually improves the song, but being able to control that change in tempo is what differentiates a pro from an amateur.

Although, the words pro and amateur shouldn't be used, because pro means they make their living off it, it doesn't necessarily mean they are better even though this is usually the case.



Back on topic....

I think there's a huge huge huge difference between editing a performance to make it perfect and practice until it's as good as it can possibly be. The attitude of a performer has changed drastically since the ease of editing a recording has increased, and not for the better.
 
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IronFlippy said:
That's the point, if a drummer starts playing too fast, then he doesn't have control. A little tempo boost when things get rocking actually improves the song, but being able to control that change in tempo is what differentiates a pro from an amateur.
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'Nuff said. You said it better then I'd ever hope to. :)
 
I have to say keeping time is harder than most of you realize. Put on a click track, start playing, have someone mute it and turn it back on in a few measures. See how far off you are.

There are very few people that can keep perfect time.
 
IronFlippy said:
That's the point, if a drummer starts playing too fast, then he doesn't have control. A little tempo boost when things get rocking actually improves the song, but being able to control that change in tempo is what differentiates a pro from an amateur..
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Well how do you explain pro's that use a click live?

Adrenaline will mess with your inner clock.
 
This whole topic is absurd.

Some people prefer a click live. Some don't. WTF does it even matter?
 
noisewreck said:
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 :rolleyes: ), 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.
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I use a click because I like to, and don't give a fuck what you do or think! :)
 
....

If you own a home studio that you use for other musicians, then you should use a click most of the time. Most "home studio" level musicians think that they play "on tempo" but don't. Most amature musicians can't keep time, especially drummers. I've played "We don't need a click!" too many times. The band usually thinks they sound awful.

Also, not playing in time is hard on your average person. As musicians we know time should flow, but normal people have a hard time accepting it. Otherwise we'd hear alot more "live" recordings on the radio, but we won't.

Accept it, deal with it,use it when the band sucks, and move on.
 
I will make a click, or the whole drums in Ez-Drummer...then play to it. I suck ass, so that is a ton of spontenaity in my stuff. If I didn't use anything, a 2 minute song would start at 100BPM, and end up at 150... :eek:
 
Even after playing for a number of years, I still speed up a bit when I play live... its not a huge difference in bpm, which I think is somehow the worst thing you can do when you are going in to do overdubs.

When you have an entire group playing and they can keep time fairly well, then yeah, it may not be necessary. But when I am recording every last track overdubbed for my own stuff, it is definitely necessary, and if you create a simple drumbeat that emulates the rhythm of the song you are recording, then it doesn't sound too sterile after you pull out the click/drum track used for timekeeping.

At least that's been my experience... Im sure some have recorded some awful-sounding material because it was to a click, but I am not so egotistical that I'll say I don't need one... and I think I have fairly decent time :)
 
i'm absolute feces with timing. i really need to just quit music altogether.
 
eh...you have to admit that click tracks do have their place

i.e., i've got a solo album that i'm working on right now, but since i don't play drums...this means that i had to write my songs, program a tempo track, recorded a scratch guitar track to the click, and now i have a drummer who's going to record to the scratch track with the click

although i would've preferred to NOT have to program the click, it seems to me a necessary evil in cases like this
 
You rock guys don't know anything about the deepest tortures of precisionification. Go take some conservatory classes and you'll see that it's the classical guys who truly suffer.

Click tracks are nothing.
 
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