Click Track Help Needed.

Mustang

The Edge
Sep 15, 2006
441
0
16
Tremont, IL
www.eternity-x.com
Hello all,
I really hope someone here can give me some information .
The band I work for (Eternity X) are working on click tracks so things come out best they can in the studio and live.
However we have heard that the Rolland V Kits have a setup that you just play and it makes the click tracks for you.
Can anyone tell me if this is true? If not some recommendations on what you use would be great.

Thanks
 
I haven't heard of that before. We're in the studio now and we used ACID with a cowbell sample (it has to be able to cut through) as our clicktrack. Worked out brilliantly and made things so much easier.
 
Well a dude at guitar center said that we need the Buy Roland SPD-S Sampling Percussion Pad. From what I can tell it would allow Josh (our drummer) to just tapp out the beats on the pad and record them to Midi at the click of a button. Since it's rather pricey I am currently seeking a unit that will do the same thing for less money . I think I may have found one in the Alesis SR-16 Stereo Drum Machine . But I need to do some more research to be sure. However if anyone has any idea please let me know.

Thanks!
 
Yeah, no surprise that a guy from guitar center tells you to buy something. I used a demo of acid which was free to get all the clicks together.

Go into the Andy Sneap board on ultimate metal (it's near the bottom of the list on UM) and ask your questions in there. Most of the engineers there will probably be more than glad to give their input. :headbang:
 
Hey Jeremy

saw this thread late, so I'm sure you already got the sitaution handled by now... but here is my two cents, hopefuly it helps a bit.

Matt had a Roldan TD-10 Kit (which he just sold to a guy in NY) - to be honest, we never heard of anything like that on the actual V-Drum program modual that he had, of course there very well could have been something like that set up on it that could have been pre-programmed, but he/we never really dived into the manual that far to know for sure. It wouldn't surprise me if you could do somehthing liek you mentioned though, you could do nearly eveything else on those V-drums except call home and microwave Mac & Cheese.

What we have done on our past two albums, is we have used a click track that was set up in a Cakewalk program on one of the studio computers, which could be set at a certain tempo or customized for tempo changes, depending on the song. We would have it play and track it to tape along with the drums, making it easier to go back and punch anything questionable, and it also made for a useful reference point as well. It's a bit primative and can be cumbersome on the songs that demand several custom tempo/meter changes, but it really get's the job done.

There are several options outside of this, even buying a fairly affordable drum machine, and setting up a cowbell, bongo or other percusion instrument with tempo adjustments is also a very cost effective way to go (This is what I do at home when writing outside of the recording studio)

We would normally program the click track during the pre-prodcution phase, and rehearse to it several times before actually recording an album, so that Matt and the rest of the band had the songs down as tight as possible. I can honestly say, What took weeks to record on the first two albums before using a click track, only took several days on the last two recordings, so it definalty saves time and money in the studio (especially on a tight budget) when utilized properly, so hopefully you find something that works.