A first for me

[PhilR]

This weekends bamd was kinda refreshing for me. They rarely rehearse but all the songs are composed in Guitar Pro and just sent back and forth until finished and the drummer learns his parts from those files. So by the time he comes to record he's already used to playing along to a click and I just have to load the MIDI tracks into Cubase.

 

[K Odell]

people you`re hiting a sore spot here.a friend of mine who owns a small studio asked me to record a guitars for a band i played in 12 years ago."Why not?"i said,i usually do not have an oportunity to record metal(i work on state tv station so my focus has been mostly on pop,folk,classical and choir music),it will be good and i hoped at the time pleasant experience,i will help a friend of mine and gain some experience.He recorded drums and bass.drums were recorded mostly without click
bass followed the drums somehow but when guitars came into picture to be recorded oh dear mother of God what a mess.
the guy who is shall i say alfa and omega of the band(bass player)told me a few days before we started recording that he rehearsed with the band for a year and that they were kicking ass.i believed him although i knew him from the time we used to play together,and he always had strange standards regarding rhythm(he manges while playing to tap his feet in one ,swing his head in second and play bass in third tempo???),tightness in playing,and concept more is less was realy strangely interpretaded by him.so alfa and omega was really pleased how the drums turned out so i had to leave them as they were.Next problem i`ve had was the guitar sound.We had Marshall JCM 2000 and some suspicious looking Gibson Les Paul Studio with EMG`s but the sound just wasn`t right.it was too boomy my guess is that room was just too small
and not well treated acoustically + that same room is used as a practice place for a lot of bands,so there was no way to keep that box in same place.i have tried to make markers on floor where the box used to be but next day they would not be there.i suggested them to try some other options like POD,VOX Tonelab or VAMP(i actually got a decent tone out of the last one and they said that its perfect,but they said it now but not then)but i shall quote guitarist"common man you want me to record my guitar through some plastic boxes,that is so not metal."i agreed with him and then tried to explain to him that we`ll probably end up with diffrent sound on every song and that in this situation is better to record this way.no he wouldnt listen(he guessed that he will look bad in front of his friends if he recorded a single note through some amp modeler).i hoped that he was so stuborn `cause he is good player but hell no.i will post some screenshots later to see the agony of mine.there was no way to do a punch in because drums were not played to click,and i would get a glitch everytime i did it so i had to do a mute automation.anyway a year later and we managed to record one rhythm guitar and most of the solos and i`m not even thinking of recording second one,i will take a di track through some amp modeling software and fake the second rhythm guitar(i guess that you dont normaly do this but any suugestions on this one?)i know that i will look bad and probably be the scape goat at the end but i started to eat this shit and i will finish it to the end.the situation now is that i`m recording two solos because the second guitarist is too busy.i should have done this much later.

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WWWWHHHHHHHOOOOOOOAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[coneyis]

I've been following this thread pretty closely and I agree 100% that recording to a click makes bands sound tighter/more professional and of course all the other benefits that come with it. If a song is one tempo all the way through I will insist on it but what if the song has varying tempos throughout? I'm interested to hear what everyone's approach is on that. Do most of you guys sit for hours mapping out the tempos??? Or is there another approach thats worthwhile?

 

[joeymusicguy]

this is the problem when doing smaller bands or local acts.

first and foremost, you have to set up the recording scenario where you are in charge. the band has its place, and the engineer / producer has his. if the band is unwilling to accept the advice of the engineer / producer, then the band should be at home recording themselves since they have it so "figured out". once you get this out of the way, things usually go pretty smoooth just dont forget you need to let the band step in and take prescedence every once in a while when it comes to production and certain aspects of it (like when comparing ideas for a part in a song and who's idea will stay).

on top of all this, you gotta have requirements for your workflow. if you find yourself needing songs to be tracked to a click track, then you must make a requirement that the band cannot come to record unless they are able to do so. this saves everyone's ass.

I went to a friends studio to help out, (for free) and the drummer who they warned me was stubborn and couldn't play to a click track. so there are parts where the guitar was playing alone so i suggested that when those parts are playing that he do it old school and hit the hi hat to keep time, he said no cause he follows the guitar player ( who himself can't play to a click track). so everytime they were to play together they would be off timing of each other.I tried explaining to them that there has to be some sort of timing source when the drums cut out and come back in. but these guys were not trying hearing me. the singer was the only one who understood and was trying so hard to get those guys to understand (poor guy). so it got to the point that the drummer was trying to blame me for why they couldn't keep time by suggesting that record his drums.....then match the click track to his drums afterwards. after four hours on one song keep in my we were just tracking drums and a scratch guitar track. i finally told my friend that I'm sorry i cant help him and that I had to go. so i left. I love recording bands, so this was a first time for me cutting my losses, but if i didn't leave i would have lost all my love for music and recording.

 

[greyskull]

I've been following this thread pretty closely and I agree 100% that recording to a click makes bands sound tighter/more professional and of course all the other benefits that come with it. If a song is one tempo all the way through I will insist on it but what if the song has varying tempos throughout? I'm interested to hear what everyone's approach is on that. Do most of you guys sit for hours mapping out the tempos??? Or is there another approach thats worthwhile?

doesnt take hours... bu yes.. insert tempo changes

 

[joeymusicguy]

I've been following this thread pretty closely and I agree 100% that recording to a click makes bands sound tighter/more professional and of course all the other benefits that come with it. If a song is one tempo all the way through I will insist on it but what if the song has varying tempos throughout? I'm interested to hear what everyone's approach is on that. Do most of you guys sit for hours mapping out the tempos??? Or is there another approach thats worthwhile?

you map the tempo's.

i spend a lot of time on tempo, after watching metallica's behind the black album and hearing the differences in the songs at different tempo's. sad but true sounded like a completely different song on the demo compared to the record.

if you're doing work that has even a slight chance of making it onto the radio or tv, you have find the right tempo for the song, its so important. there's really not a science to it, its just discovering what makes the songs "feel" best. and sleep on it. you can get used to fast tempo's that will sound irregular on fresh ears.

i work with this band from dayton called lets get it, and we spend a whole day on this song and got it slammin. we all went to sleep and then when we woke up the next day we listened to the song and it seriously sounded like it was in hyper speed.

 

[joeymusicguy]

Plenty of music has been made without clicks too, I think the problem lies in substandard musicians. My drummer can play as tight as cubendo's gui can show to the click, but when he goes off of it, I'll turn it off and just play to his feel of the song. It's never a clusterfuck or way out of time, its just non-finite push-pull to flow with the changes in the song. Good musicians should be able to do either, I mean we've done non click stop starts for years in rehersals, you gotta be able to lock in with each other though. Musicianship and chemistry I think are far more important.

Unfortunately for studio producers/recorders/engineers that means more work But I record him through midi anyways.

i am a click track nazi, i live and die by it. but the funny thing is, my most successful work wasn't recorded to a click at all, haha.

 

[t-rave]

when recording my own music i usually lay down a basic guitar track to a click and then just pump that to the drummer's headphones and let him record by himself..it works great because the drummer can rehearse to the track on his own for a while and nail the stuff in a few takes..

also punching in and editing is infinitely easier...

 

[Glenn Fricker]

One thing I forgot to mention: I'll bend over backwards to make sure the band has tempo maps to practice to ahead of time. Usually they're much more receptive this way.

"Here's a CD, now get to it!"


I'd certainly never ask the to play to a click in-studio if they haven't rehearsed to one.

 

[coneyis]

I just need to bite the bullet and figure out how to use the tempo mapping feature for varying tempos. I've been using Logic 8 for the past few months and have been really happy with it so far. I'm sure it won't be too hard to pick up.

 

[Machinated]

press g in the arrange window and get the pencil tool out and draw what you need. easy stuff.

 

[PhilR]

One of the strangest stories of "odd studio procedures" I heard was one band who had laid down a track live with no click. The studio owner then tempo-mapped this to create a click track which was used to re-record the drums!

 

[joeymusicguy]

One of the strangest stories of "odd studio procedures" I heard was one band who had laid down a track live with no click. The studio owner then tempo-mapped this to create a click track which was used to re-record the drums!

i do this all the time

 

[seditz740novaprospect]

i do this all the time

i do this as well


studio magic 101 fix everything once the band leaves

 

[Metaltastic]

One of the strangest stories of "odd studio procedures" I heard was one band who had laid down a track live with no click. The studio owner then tempo-mapped this to create a click track which was used to re-record the drums!

Re-record with someone else (like a session player) you mean?

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I've been following this thread pretty closely and I agree 100% that recording to a click makes bands sound tighter/more professional and of course all the other benefits that come with it. If a song is one tempo all the way through I will insist on it but what if the song has varying tempos throughout? I'm interested to hear what everyone's approach is on that. Do most of you guys sit for hours mapping out the tempos??? Or is there another approach thats worthwhile?

Yeah I insert tempo changes. Doesn't take hours.

 

[colonel kurtz]

i do this all the time

.

 

[Sloan]

i fucking suck ass at setting up tempos and shit. haet it!!!

 

[joeymusicguy]

Re-record with someone else (like a session player) you mean?

no, get a natural click from the band performance.

you'd be suprised that some bands have this really cool way of slightly changing the tempo in and out of fills or in and out of choruses.

sometimes its really useful, something you wouldnt normally think of but sounds awesome

 

[joeymusicguy]

i do this as well


studio magic 101 fix everything once the band leaves

not really what i meant, lol

i was talking about generating a click from the band's own natural bpm