ORIGINAL: zungle

Guess there's no "I" in drummer.

Ain't no "we" either...

While a drummers job is to keep tempo, it's also their job to set the rhythmic FEEL, or groove.

A lone click has no heart, feel, or groove.

A drummer has to practice playing to click enough to be able to introduce a songs feel to the cold perfect timing of the click, while keeping that feel alive. Without that practice, a drummer tends to concentrate on the click too much and not only the timing varies, but the groove varies -- in all the wrong places.


I've worked with a drummer like this and I've found that it's actually a positive feature of his and I just have to alter the recording approach to fit him (With practice he has gotten much better with just a click). The reason it's positive because he can play absolutely brilliantly, groovy, and with great feel live. This is because his musical energy comes from playing with other people. He can very easily feel what everyone else is doing and where eveyone is going and compensate yet keep eveyone on track and in the groove. But he can't feel that non-human click.

So in recording with that particular drummer, I pick the key rhythm instrument (bass, guitar, keys) and play along with him in headphones while he is recording the drums. Get a good headphone mix with a strong click, the rhythm instrument, and drum bleed if needed, and he is good to go.


As a drumming practice, I suggest playing to just a click for 1/2 hour at a specific tempo. With no songs in mind! Just create beats to the chosen tempo until they groove. After making a beat groove for a few minutes change the beat. After a while it will be obvious how much of a tool the click can be. The coolest thing is that one can make 120 BPM feel fast, slow, laid back, rushed, funky, hyper, etc. while with all those feels being perfectly in time. When this is discovered the click becomes a friend.

Hope that helps...

Because drummers are the worst musicians in a band.

Okay, thats messed up. I am a drummer of 10 years (and I'm only 25)... I took lessons for 6 years, and like to think I'm not too bad.

Let me explain something to you. Drummers have a NATURAL feel for rhythm. When you put a metrodome (I know I spelled that wrong) to us, you throw us off. Simple as that. We have our own feel, within our head. As soon as we start to feel someting outside our own natural rhythm, we get thrown off. Its not a simple 4 count on a hi hat, its in us. If you have a drummer that cant keep time, you dont have a drummer. Simple as that. A true drummer sould be able to do, off beats, funk, fills, etc, with out any help. What throws us off the most (within a band), is a screw up on part of the bass. drums and bass are the backbone of rhythm in a song. Do not, I repeat do not say we have no talent. How about this, try doing paradoodles, whilch is tapping R = right, L = Left.. RLRRLRLL, LRLLRLRR.. And see how fast you can do it to time

oops, hit the quote button, sorry.

However, playing to a click can help improve timing, and train how to get that feel with better rhythm. My high school music theory teacher listened to a recording of my band once and told me I was rushing my drum fills. He was right. I needed to correct that, regardless of how it felt to me, it sounded slightly rushed. So, both are necessary.

Could it be the KIND of click that throws many drummers? I can play guitar, bass or keys to a quarter-note click pretty easily, but when I set that up for a highly skilled and experienced drummer I worked with, he quickly told me to mix up the beat (I think we ended up using some hip-hop ACID loop). Maybe the standard click is too easily hidden by the drummers' own playing, which is why he wanted something a little bit busier. Perhaps drummers with less recording experience wouldn't know to ask for this, making it look like they simply can't play to a fixed beat.

Most instruments can play with a click because when they're of just a little they can almost stop playing and let the beat catch up or vise versa. If a drummer does that, it all goes to pieces and if they are really feeling a groove the natural ting to do is rush the beat just like the other instruments. The bass player is the one who should be holding the time together due to his part being more natural for just rythmn. If we could all play together as one like we're suppose to, this question wouldn't be asked.

ORIGINAL: saturdaysaint

Could it be the KIND of click that throws many drummers? I can play guitar, bass or keys to a quarter-note click pretty easily, but when I set that up for a highly skilled and experienced drummer I worked with, he quickly told me to mix up the beat (I think we ended up using some hip-hop ACID loop). Maybe the standard click is too easily hidden by the drummers' own playing, which is why he wanted something a little bit busier. Perhaps drummer's with less recording experience wouldn't know to ask for this, making it look like they simply can't play to a fixed beat.

Hello,

You are correct. The problem is if you feed the drummer a 1/4 or 1/8 note click he can't hear it (his own hits occur on those beats). He can only hear the click when he gets off which is no help. We would feed a 16th note click so the drummer had a chance of hearing something in between his own playing. But the 16th note click wasn't fool proof and the drummer (even the top pros I worked with) would start to get off. When that happened the engineer would just fade the click out of the drummer's cans since the tempo was already set. We would feed the click only to the drummer and the rest of the musicians (guitar, bass, keys) followed the drummer. Even with a click, a drummer's "human" feel comes through. The ACID solution is a very good idea. But the only reason that I would feed a click to the drummer was if I intended to comp from different takes. But that was back in the tape days. Today as long as the drummer is in the ballpark (tempo-wise) with timestretching you could fit any part of a take to any part of another take. So I don't see why you need to feed the drummer a click in the digital age. If the reason is because the drummer's timing is poor, then you should replace the drummer or MIDI in the back beat and let the drummer play the fills.

ORIGINAL: Geokauf

ORIGINAL: saturdaysaint

Could it be the KIND of click that throws many drummers? I can play guitar, bass or keys to a quarter-note click pretty easily, but when I set that up for a highly skilled and experienced drummer I worked with, he quickly told me to mix up the beat (I think we ended up using some hip-hop ACID loop). Maybe the standard click is too easily hidden by the drummers' own playing, which is why he wanted something a little bit busier. Perhaps drummer's with less recording experience wouldn't know to ask for this, making it look like they simply can't play to a fixed beat.

Hello,

You are correct. The problem is if you feed the drummer a 1/4 or 1/8 note click he can't hear it (his own hits occur on those beats). He can only hear the click when he gets off which is no help. We would feed a 16th note click so the drummer had a chance of hearing something in between his own playing. But the 16th note click wasn't fool proof and the drummer (even the top pros I worked with) would start to get off. When that happened the engineer would just fade the click out of the drummer's cans since the tempo was already set. We would feed the click only to the drummer and the rest of the musicians (guitar, bass, keys) followed the drummer. Even with a click, a drummer's "human" feel comes through. The ACID solution is a very good idea. But the only reason that I would feed a click to the drummer was if I intended to comp from different takes. But that was back in the tape days. Today as long as the drummer is in the ballpark (tempo-wise) with timestretching you could fit any part of a take to any part of another take. So I don't see why you need to feed the drummer a click in the digital age. If the reason is because the drummer's timing is poor, then you should replace the drummer or MIDI in the back beat and let the drummer play the fills.

Thats what I was tring to say.

Thing is with us drumers, if we are worth a damn, we sould be able to feel it on our own. You put the click, what happens is, we try so hard to hear the click, we get off just tring to hear it. Regardless if it's q, half, sixthenth, etc, timing. You try so hard to hear the click, you miss your own feel, which is what makes us what we are. best thing we can ask for as drumers, is a booth with some headphones, that allows us to hear ourself, as well as the band. You start tring to make us hear a metradone too, you are just asking for headaches. (Again, sorry my spelling)

Well, I personally believe that a drummer (a good one at that) should be able to keep a steady beat with a click on the background, why? Cause if your band plays with sampled material that comes in only on certain parts of the song then you're mucked. On the other hand, it also depends on the style of music. If we're talking about jazz drumming than there's no way a jazz drummer would want to record with a click because that would just ruin his/her groove. So I agree, in a case like that, a click would not do good. Now, for styles like metal, pop, rap, etc. you do need to keep time because, more than likely, in those styles you have to play live with samples. You might get away with it in the studio but not live.