Click Track Help Needed!

[Mustang]

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

 

[Azrael LenGraden]

You would probably get a better response searching/posting at the V-drums forum http://www.vdrums.com/forum/
than you would posting here.

 

[halcyonwayband@aol.com]

We just went through this process. How did they record the album, and what did they use for a click track there? What we did is a stereo mixdown from our album tracks like this:

Left: click only, and a signal to the drummer that the song starts "now"
Right: all of the ear candy that the audience needs to hear, like keys and stuff.

We have the files burned to an Ipod and have the stereo signal split to a small mixer that Ernie controls. Left goes to one channel, Right to the other. Then the click and ear candy are sent to his headphones, and the ear candy only is sent to front of house, mono, via a send on the channel.

If you haven't got a click in your recordings, best thing I can tell you to do is get a drum machine, set up a click in that, and figure out what tempo each song/section is, record it to Pro Tools or whatever, and cut & paste until you have a usable tempo map. You can do it in Pro Tools as well, but it will probably be less direct to figure out unless you're in the process of recording.

 

[Mustang]

We want clicks before hitting the studio. What a click track is is a set pattern for each time changes that the drummer will play to while in the studio.

Thanks

 

[Cheiron]

Use a drum machine. Or use a metronome and record it =DD

 

[halcyonwayband@aol.com]

We want clicks before hitting the studio. What a click track is is a set pattern for each time changes that the drummer will play to while in the studio.

Thanks

To get our click into the DAW in the studio, we used a Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine, set a side stick on 8th notes, and went accordingly. If your songs change tempos, the only way to do it is to use some kind of DAW, and cut & paste the different tempos.

Or you can do it at the studio in pro tools, but you'll need to know exactly how many measures of each tempo to set up a tempo map.

 

[Bryan316]

Mustang, my brother and I are currently using Fruity Loops to create artificial drum tracks. It's an invaluable tool for plotting out riffs and song structures and seeing if certain drum patterns feel appropriate or not.

We'll work on a song, we'll get it close to done, then I sit down and recreate my drummer's work as closely as I can. Afterwards, I email it to him, and he tells me whether I'm accurate enough for him. Or sometimes he just edits it himself, and bounces it back to me. Then I export the patterns as a WAV file, and directly import it to our recorder.

Only flaw with the program is piecing together odd time signature changes or tempo changes. In the Third Edition of Fruity Loops (we're using 3.51) once you start a file, its meter and tempo are fixed. Can't change it mid-song. So I just program out each section, then cut and paste it all together really quick, and then we've got it done.

We've got four of our songs all set with fake drum tracks. We can record to them, and then give my drummer a CD of the song, with the fake drum tracks mixed low in volume. Then he can drum all he wants and come up with his fills and changes and improvements. When we're ready to record him, he'll have plenty of time to practice, and then can drum along to the actual guitars and bass and vocals, just with the fake drums gone. Either that or keep it low in the mix to act as a click track for him.

Look into getting a copy of this program. It's a powerful tool.