Metronome use

[eddieboston2]

I made a metronome app for the PC. Just a simple little thing, but it lets you do multiple rhythms simultaneously, which can be fun.

[rsadasiv]

Interesting perspective:

 

10 Click Track Myths

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

A Metronome is not precise enough to predict the exact placement of a musical note.

Practise with a Chuck Norris.

[Michael Blue]

I recently decided it would be a good experience to contact a local Indie artist I know and offer to record/produce her next CD for her - for free - for some experience and exposure. So far, we're both fairly happy with the results, but it's real early yet, and she has been VERY gracious of my learning curve with Cubase, etc. She did make a comment relating the experience to being on an experimental drug so I need to make certain I'm as professional as possible and try to minimize the "side effects" as much as possible.

 

At any rate, her other 2 CDs were done at more professional "real" studios, but the basically just hit record and let her get her groove on. There are a few songs with multiple tracks and a couple effects, but it's all very "folky", which is just how she likes it, so it's fine.

 

With this one, I'm attempting to make up for the lack of a "Pro" studio with the ability to work more freely, "without the clock running", and with the ability to add instrumentation, with another musician (me) "on hand" while recording. I'm also tracking additional parts between sessions, and so far she's been pretty supportive - we have a real kindred spirit so the music seems to be flowing in a similar vein pretty easily so far.

 

All that to say this; when we first start on a new song, I have her do the guitar/piano/whatever track to a metronome (the one in Cubase), then add vocals with the first track and the click both running...This way, adding tracks is simplified from a timing standpoint, and if we do decide to sequence anything before adding it, it can be done a lot more easily. She didn't seem to be used to using a click, but she took to it very quickly, and it doesn;t sound robotic, tentative or forced at all...She's a real pro.

 

Anyways, I thought "my" project was going to be the first out of my "new" project studio, but it looks like hers is going to be first to the finish line, but the experience is more than worth it - I'm being stretched (as a musician and "producer") in each session, and learning a lot about the new software and my new gear a lot more quickly than I would have just recording my stuff.

 

As a brief (I promise) side-note; I'm a drummer at church most Sundays, and two of the teams I'm on simply refuse to find another drummer - even if I'm unavailable - mostly because they claim I have "perfect time". Now, I'm NOT a drummer, per se, but I do consider myself a "musician", and when drumming, I try to flow with the group without standing out, and this seems to be a welcome change to most drummers they've experienced - even some who are a lot more "technically" advanced than I am.

 

I think timing is as important as an understanding of pitch and musical theory...Maybe more. The ability to follow a click is a simple, basic one, and it's a pity there are drummers out there making a living without it.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

A metronome machine is for practising, and you play in precise time when you do not hear the click of the metronome, this of course only when you play a note on the quarter, and in recording where it is unavoidable, e.g. click machines are in use in order to get the right lenght of time for the cue

[niaz333]

hi
how are you guys. I mean you can play a tempo on a MET and i can call it most of the time right on, if not within 2-3 BPM's....The way he got like that is by playing with a met EVERY TIME i picked up my sticks. than you are enjoyful for this.

thanks

[rsadasiv]

hi how are you guys. I mean you can play a tempo on a MET and i can call it most of the time right on, if not within 2-3 BPM's....The way he got like that is by playing with a met EVERY TIME i picked up my sticks. than you are enjoyful for this. thanks

 

 

Totally irrelevant. You need to know where the beat is, not what the number is. If the bpm is set to 120 and you are playing at 121 bpm you will be off by an additional 16 ms on every beat, so by the end of the first measure the combination will be totally unlistenable.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

... and if you play at 240 BPM when the metronome is set to 120, then you are off by 0.250 second

[OAFCORE]

Totally irrelevant. You need to know where the beat is, not what the number is. If the bpm is set to 120 and you are playing at 121 bpm you will be off by an additional 16 ms on every beat, so by the end of the first measure the combination will be totally unlistenable.

 

 

I think he was quoting me talking about my drummer...

 

I would agree that the beat is what's important, but you don't get to the point where you can call a BPM without being able to play to a click and feel the beat....

[LucianoFigallo]

That is really important for practicing and learning. If you are a newbie my advice is to play with a metronome in almost all the stages of practicing and "introduce" the perfect tempo into your brain and your soul...then it would be easy to play without a metronome really on time

[Mikeo]

or a click track. Do you use it, when practicing, when recording? I think it would be rather important, no?

 

 

yes I do.

I may just sit down with my acoustic and write, but usuually when I record a tune. I have a drum machine that I midi. I also have a Korg metrodone, that I think bit the dust last night, I'll get another one as the are like 30 bucks or so.

 

Now with recording I use the midi and drum machine. and then go back and put other intruments in, and kinda build the tune to see where it goes from there.

 

The basic song is there with me and my acoustic, but I probably will not use it.

 

new acoustic tracks will get recorded as well as a new vocal track.

[IanAlderman]

I've played for awhile and this whole time, it's been without a metronome. I hadn't played with a drummer for a long time so when I did get into a band, I wanted to quit because it was hard to keep time. A majority of my guitar playing time happens without a metronome, however I'd love to get one or a drum machine. There's something that can constantly improve with regards to playing. I remember when it came time to record, and using a metronome for the first time really helped me out. The recording though, on guitars sounded a little slow, a little robotic to me though and lost a majority of the raw feel the songs originally had. I think there is a time and place for metronome use.

[doc7string]

This is funny, cause the guys I

[Marko]

I am from the burgh, and my band at the time (80's) was quite active in the local scene. What is the band that you are referring to?

 

 

They

[MrKnobs]

I record a lot of drummers.

 

One thing I've noticed consistently is that drummers that keep bad time don't play well with click tracks, and drummers that are steady don't need them. Worse, drummers that are steady often tend to play stiffly with a click.

 

It's the same sort of bad idea as having a vocalist who sings out of tune sing 24 tracks of the same song with the idea of comping them together into one great track. What you get instead is the vocalist missing the pitches in the exact same places on all 24 tries, except now the guy or gal's voice is shot.

 

Rhythm sections are supposed to groove and tempo is supposed to breathe. Click tracks are for practice, songwriting, and rehearsal, not for recording (with certain exceptions I'm about to mention). For at least 9 drummers out of ten, recording to a click is going to make them uncomfortable, stiff, and careful, and is going to guarantee a mediocre recording at best.

 

You don't want CAREFUL in a high energy recording. You can HEAR careful, and it does not sound good.

 

Having said that, there are times when you must or should use a click.

 

Songwriting is a good time, though probably your click should be a drum machine or drum loop, because, let's face it, clicks get boring pretty quickly.

 

Another place where you might want to use a click is a track where the drummer, for whatever reason, can't be in at the beginning of the tracking but will be added later. As bad as it is for a good drummer to follow a click, it's much worse for a good drummer to try to play to an existing track that was recorded without a click. Guitarists and keyboardists, most of them, are going to drift from tempo if a click isn't used, and a drummer who is not used to following a beat isn't going to guess where these anomalies are and is going to be very irritated after he or she has listened to the erratic track many times trying to memorize where the tempo changes are.

 

So, if you must start recording a song that is going to have drums but you can't wait for the drummer to be present, do use a click.

 

This also applies to a complex project conducted over the Internet, where various groups of musicians in different cities are working in parallel. One tries not to get into such projects, but they're becoming increasingly common. I, for one, am not going to turn down the money from those gigs, I'm going to try to make them work.

 

Another place click tracks can be useful is when you have string sections playing from a score. Without exception, in this situation the string players have always asked me to minimize or even mute the other tracks and let them play to the click. How well this works depends on how well the string arranger did his work.

 

I'm dying to put up a link to a recent recording I did where a superb pianist started the recording to a click, with a vocalist singing a guide track. Next step was sending those scratch tracks to a string arranger (who is so busy you can expect to wait up to a year for his arrangements) and simultaneously having a percussionist come in and work to the click.

 

I'd like to put up the step by step results of this showing the keyboardists amazing ability to "float" over the click track letting the music breathe, then the drummer's adaptation to that, then finally the string section arriving and playing over just the click with all the other faders down.

 

One press on the scene automation to reveal all the other tracks and amazingly it all fits like a glove. None of these players (with the exception of the vocalist and the pianist) have ever met each other, let alone sat in the same room and played together.

 

I will do that if you guys are interested, but not just yet as some copyright issues are pending.

 

In summary:

 

• If you have a drummer who can't keep time, don't try to fix him with a click track, get a better drummer

• Tempo needs to breathe, it's a living thing and has strong emotional effect on the listener. Are you going to program all these tempo changes into your click?

• Music, good music, is magic and generally comes from a collaboration of good musicians, the result being greater than the sum of the parts. As much as possible, try to get all the musicians playing together, and let the song gel organically. It sounds so much better than a piecemeal construction based around a click.

• When you must use a click, realize that the vast majority of players, even good, experienced players, won't perform as well as they would without that click. Exciting music is restrained recklessness, pushing hard with energy and emotion, right on the edge of disaster at times. The best music is not safe. Try using a drum loop or pattern instead of a metronome click to give some more excitement to the players.

• Better yet, get out of the way of a good band and just let them jam. If you don't like the natural variations in the tempo (isn't the chorus supposed to speed up a little? ) then instead of forcing the stiffness on the groove, you could enforce it later with Beat Detective or the like, i.e. use your software to enforce your anal retentive tempo desires after the real artists have left the building.

Just my 50 cents or so.

 

 

Terry D.