Help me get the groove

[abt]

There was a bit of a chat going on over here http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/f-o-h/877373-drum-editing-needed-2.html about drum editing and nudging things around so they groove better as opposed to editing the daylights out of them.

I’ve been experimenting with tracking guitars to click vs drums and click vs just drums. I’m starting to thing just tracking to just the drums gives a better result.

If you’re working with real drums, assuming you have the opportunity to do so, you ‘d edit the drums before tracking guitars. At least that’s what I’ve done on the rare occasions that I’ve used them.

So what I’m thinking is if you have to program drums you should do as much humanising as you can before you start tracking. Usually I leave them pretty much quantised as written and do the humanising latter.

Or is what I’m saying all crap and you’d just prefer to track to the click only.

 

[Sloan]

He'll you could even humanize your click if you wanted to, but yeah it makes sense to me to humanize before tracking the rest.

 

[JeffTD]

I'm really careful about the volume of the click track. Find out what works for the player - I always have the other instruments going (guitars/bass track with drums running) and usually have the click track a bit underneath so it's clearly audible but isn't taking over. This tends to be really important with vocalists; I'll start with the click track low and then bring it up until it's audible but not in the forefront.

 

[abt]

He'll you could even humanize your click if you wanted to, but yeah it makes sense to me to humanize before tracking the rest.

Never though of humanizing a click before other than speeding up the tempo here and there.

I'm really careful about the volume of the click track. Find out what works for the player - I always have the other instruments going (guitars/bass track with drums running) and usually have the click track a bit underneath so it's clearly audible but isn't taking over. This tends to be really important with vocalists; I'll start with the click track low and then bring it up until it's audible but not in the forefront.

My old process for all real instruments was record a guide guitar to click, record drums, then bass, then guitars. All that went out the window at some point, most probably when I stopped recording real drums (no space plus I'm terrible). I'm noticing now that if I turn off the click and bass and just leave the drums it sounds better and more natural. Now I'm thinking get the drums all edited and humanised before touching anything else and don't touch them after that, which is not what I've been doing. I've been leaving the drums pretty much quantized to the click while tracking then humanizing them latter.

 

[abt]

Did I just repeat my original post? God I'm crap.

 

[FrankTheSmith]

I've heard of people changing the click to an 8th note accented shaker. Feels like playing with an instrument instead of CLICK click click click CLICK click click click.....

 

[Mago]

You can also try tracking to a groovy real played drum loop, that fits the mood and groove of the song.

 

[juarez]

When you guys are programming clicks for stuff in odd time signatures, do you bother with accents? I've always found it easier on everyone if the click has no accent.

 

[bryan_kilco]

When you guys are programming clicks for stuff in odd time signatures, do you bother with accents? I've always found it easier on everyone if the click has no accent.

Sometimes I prefer no accent, but if it's something like 3/4 I like having the accent. I guess it's just personal preference, but it lets me know that I didn't somehow get off by a single beat while I'm tracking.

Or if it's a really weird time sig, I'll chop it up a bit. Do whatever makes it feel "right" with the rhythm/groove.

 

[B36arin]

I never use accented clicks, I myself hate playing to an accented click and most of the people I work don't like it either.

If you're after human feel and "groove" you need musicians who are able to pull it off. But if you have that you can get away with a lot less editing than you think... Last weekend I recorded two songs with a band where the drums were recorded to a click(not edited) and all other instruments were recorded to the drums. You can hear some imperfections here and there, but it worked out well and really suits the band imo. I started mixing one of the tracks, and I'm probably keeping all the real drums without adding any samples. The way a good drummer accentuates his hits can easily be lost if you sample replace too much.

At this moment in time I like to make stuff quite raw. I like it when the band's sound really comes through as opposed to me editing and sample replacing everything, it adds a human touch which can be identified. If it's a good band it'll turn out better imo, and thankfully I'm not having to polish a lot of turds at the moment I really feel that a big key to a lasting career in record production is finding a balance between editing and not editing. There are times when editing is inevitable, but it's so easy to automatically edit everything - you have to know when to keep your hands off the tracks and preserve what the musicians have actually played.