ORIGINAL: mildew

ORIGINAL: Ogis


I doubt anyone will take you seriously. If I were you, I'd move on to other topics, you are starting to dig yourself a hole...

if you did not take my opinion seriously, you would not bother to keep fanning the flames.

i posted a link above to some music i recently produced. im the only person in the thread so far with enough balls to back up my opinions with a link to my playing.


m

Good on you, I bailed on it, it was painful, but I believe you. Here's one I went through three drummers til I found one who could play with a click. It was a replacement track for a drum machine.
www.caveffect.com/Guilty2.mp3

Hmm. Sarcasm or not?

Oh, I'm NEVER sarcastic!

;)

btw mildew I haven't recorded anything in a long time other than DAW stuff. I don't have anything I was percussion on, on my PC. Yet that's neither here nor there. You said that drummers aren't musicians at all. You also said the only drummers that are any good, are drummers that play sometimes on the side. I am saying that shows your ignorance. That's like saying someone that sings in the shower twice a year is the best vocalist. It's just a very ignorant thing to say. BTW, ignorant means you don't know any better. I'm not calling you stupid, I'm calling you ignorant. It's not a flame if it's a fact. I do not flame people.

This is one of the best "internet tough-guy" situations I've ever seen. You guys are hilarious.

And by the way, mildew... my dad can beat up your dad. Seriously.

you're right on about that Steve. you can tell a studio cat because they trained to
laser-lock .. you can turn off the click after the count-in and they don't budge. it's
not an accident. what i find amusing is when they tell you the drift was intentional ..
as if the piece called for it ... ;-)
jeff

ORIGINAL: Ogis

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

All good musicians have a natural feel and an internal clock.
A metronome is " throwing you off" ???

Well, an other translation to that is, you can't, or don't like to, follow strict time.
It's totally up to you to deciede if you want to aquire that skill or not.

The "should be" is defined by your choices.
I know drummers that enjoy working with a click and they happen to be the best, funkiest drummers I've ever worked with.
However, the ones I'm talking about are 15 to 20 yrs. older than you.

Then again, when I was in hight school the drummer for my band then was also a drummer in the school orchestra and had come up from grade school orchestra and had took lessons from a somewhat famous
player at that time. ( mid '60s ) ..........
......he always practiced at home with a metronome. The teacher I'm talking about used a metronome in the lessons off and on and was very very strict about learning what strict time was all about.

It's something you work "with" ... and when you get strong and accurate enough, you can dance around it like a wild man dancing around a bon fire and never loose site of the core time ... the real clock.

Once you "get it" you get it and keep it, in my opinion.

That highscool drummer is still a friend of mine and was world class then as still is.
He doesn't play regularly, but he can still sit down at a kit and play any style with great accuracy and amazing variety of feeling.

It's about experience, and that's not necessarily meaning age.

ORIGINAL: jmarkham
...you can turn off the click after the count-in and they don't budge. ..

I mixed live sound for a number of local bands years ago. There are 2 excellent drummers I can remember that had perfect tempo. On songs that it fit, I would set a chase scene with the stage lighting to the tempo of the band. The lights and band would be in perfect sync at the end of the song! One of them even drank while gigging, yet even after several drinks he still had perfect tempo! Both of them learned drums with a metronome. And both of them could really groove.

Just one my many excellent drummer experiences...

<X>
guitarist/bassist

ORIGINAL: mildew

ORIGINAL: MKS



Drumming doesn't make YOU dumb. Your fingers are doing a good job by themselves.

Again, you must only play crappy music.

here is a song i recently produced - all instruments played by me, song written and sung by db grant.

http://rapidshare.de/files/34431131/4follower.mp3.html


m

You kind of proved my point. Not saying your music is that bad, but you can't judge a drummers skills from what you played on that track. You could play that with one hand & one leg.

Plus, your guitar solo is real pitchy. I wouldn't have picked that track to showcase your musical ability.

All good musicians have a natural feel and an internal clock.
A metronome is " throwing you off" ???

......he always practiced at home with a metronome. The teacher I'm talking about used a metronome in the lessons off and on and was very very strict about learning what strict time was all about.

Steve- good posts..as usual ;)
talking about the metronome again..
MKS (who mentioned on page 2 the 1/8 click if 1/4 doesn't seem to work)..and everyone -
IMHO one of the harder/best things to practice for getting a "natural" feel (playing around time or exactly on time- first of all you got to have decent timing for the hits themselves) but still play in a constant tempo and constrain yourself to one or a small range of BPM changes is the opposite of "more click"/ more sub divisions like 1/8 or 1/16 -

practice in each session with less and less of beats that have a click on them..you'll need one of those nicer metronomes for that or a drum machine/sequencer..
so, starting with a 1/4 metronome and getting used to a certain tempo gradually try leaving just the 1 and 3.. beats 2 and 4..or any other combination (like 1..2.._.._)
until you just leave the FIRST beat of each measure! this would give you a nice gap of 2-3 or even 4 seconds if you practice on the slower grooves/bpm's !

the trick is of course to fall exactly on that single ONE of those next measures.. after some practice you can really do it..for some it won't be so comfortable..(and here we go back to the talent thing;)

even try longer periods (2 measures) of no metronome besides beat 1..it's a nice feeling to play on those large gaps and then falling exactly on a beat that you were expecting to appear then you know you really "feel" that tempo.. you're locked..metronome or not

We want our drummers to play to a click track and our drum machines to quantize to a "human feel".... what's wrong with that picture?

ORIGINAL: mildew
here is a song i recently produced - all instruments played by me, song written and sung by db grant.
http://rapidshare.de/files/34431131/4follower.mp3.html

Normally I would stick to constructive critisism.
Normally I wouldn't enter the frey of a troll's dream like this one.
Normally I wouldn't bash another's efforts.

But you've asked for it door knob.

And I feel like having a little fun tonight.

Yeah, I listened. (normally I would take the time to make the positive comments this song might deserve... but not tonight)

And yeah... I can tell you played to a click. Really it sounds like to worshipped the click. Even though the overall feel of the song is hurt badly by the fact that you are FOLLOWING the click. Playing behind, not on purpose though, at least I hope not as it's making the song plod.

Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you about overplaying being a bad thing... but man, you should have just used good drum samples for this track. This is pretty much a drum machine loop with the occasional slightly late note. There is the occasioan small fill which you rush each time...

... wait... seems to me that you rush it exacltly the same way each time too... with the same spash, and sloshy hat pattern after... hrmmm...

You need to get a new head on that snare and tune it. Also set up your overheads or effects to avoid the hollow sound. (oops... I was getting constructive there for a second).

Also, on the roto-toms... take the towels off them, brighten them up with a nice outboard high shelf on the way in, gate them so they are able to be audible without ruining your mix and compress them so they sound like you are hitting them with a stick instead of a marimba mallet. You might be able to make them sound like toms then.

You need to have your guitar intonation checked... or buy a tuner, or get your ears checked.

You either used a pickup on the acoustic, or effected it to sound like you did. Why? Why?

If you are not going to ever take the chorus off the vocal in the song, then at least use some of the stereo field for it so it doesn't sound like that. Same thing with the delay.

Ease up on the click... too much too much.

It is hard for me not to say good things about the song, as I think it deserved some. So I will say that.

Oh and yes. I play drums. And to a click, and you can hear me on the first three songs on this page and the one called Washing Machine... oh, and I am playing keys on much of these too:
http://noisevault.com/studio/samples.html

ORIGINAL: mildew
Accents, ghost notes, application of rudiments etc are the LAST thing a producer wants to hear from a recording drummer. Good tone, simple playing, metronomic and funky at the same time - thats "hit record" drumming.

Accents, ghost notes, application of rudiments = "stop showing off, play for the SONG" - silly drummers..

Tell that to this guy:
http://noisevault.com/studio/dan.html

I can pretty much guarantee if you've turned on the radio, you've heard him. So he might know something about making hit records.

ORIGINAL: bunkaroo

Apparently you're not paying attention. Clicks are a reference. You still play ahead of the beat, behind the beat, etc as needed. Your statement says to me that both are lacking somewhat and need to meet somehwere in the middle.

Bingo... everyone is taking "clicks" too seriously. They are invaluable tools. I've played for 35 years with two awesome drummers and never once asked them to play to a click track no more than they ever asked me to play only major scales. We inject our drummers in between the guy on the left that is dragging and the guy on the right that is speeding up and expect them to bring all this together into a "groove" at the perfect volume of course. We crank our amps up effortlessly then they have to exert more energy. Can't tell you the number of times I've turned around to see the drummer the first (sometimes the only one) to break a sweat. It ain't no wonder they speed up and slow down occasionally considering their exerting 10 times the physical energy of anyone in the combo. BTW we want you to keep that up for 4 hours plus the encore. Make sure the drums are in tune and don't let that snare rattle.

Wanna' rush... try reading a drum score sometime. The drummers I know can play to a click track and read music... they just choose not to.

My intent was to back off the drum bashers bunkaroo with some dry humor.

Tell that to this guy:
http://noisevault.com/studio/dan.html

wow..very nice..Dan is great thanks cAPS,good to see you here again- good demos you got there..cheers!

BTW- anyone tried playing with less clicks as i described above?

ORIGINAL: Nick P

Is this horse dead yet?

Now that the consensus shows that being able to play to a click is important to all musicians, maybe we should debate if tuning musical instruments, and tuning them to each other is important at all...

ORIGINAL: mwd

ORIGINAL: bunkaroo

Apparently you're not paying attention. Clicks are a reference. You still play ahead of the beat, behind the beat, etc as needed. Your statement says to me that both are lacking somewhat and need to meet somehwere in the middle.

Bingo... everyone is taking "clicks" too seriously. They are invaluable tools. I've played for 35 years with two awesome drummers and never once asked them to play to a click track no more than they ever asked me to play only major scales. We inject our drummers in between the guy on the left that is dragging and the guy on the right that is speeding up and expect them to bring all this together into a "groove" at the perfect volume of course. We crank our amps up effortlessly then they have to exert more energy. Can't tell you the number of times I've turned around to see the drummer the first (sometimes the only one) to break a sweat. It ain't no wonder they speed up and slow down occasionally considering their exerting 10 times the physical energy of anyone in the combo. BTW we want you to keep that up for 4 hours plus the encore. Make sure the drums are in tune and don't let that snare rattle.

Wanna' rush... try reading a drum score sometime. The drummers I know can play to a click track and read music... they just choose not to.

My intent was to back off the drum bashers bunkaroo with some dry humor.

Gotcha-sorry if I seemed combative.