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Broke my Strat · . Joined: 11 Jun 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Florida

Does anyone here NOT use a click track when recording by yourself? For some reason, they always throw me off when I'm recording something I wrote without one. If only audacity had a metronome instead...

James · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:15 pm Post subject:

They're the same thing?

Change the tone of the click to something less abrasive. If you can play to them but not put in a good performance, try doing a guide guitar track to them, then using that to play along to and deleting it after.

If you have gaps in your songs that means you need something to keep it together, just do the guide guitar thing and play a simple part just to keep time in the gap.

You could just do the guide thing without using a click at all, as long as it's consistent it will sound fine.
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Aug · Best Poster 2010 Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 1335

using click tracks makes me nuts. I prefer to lay down the dirty guitar/vox, then lay the drums, remove the dirty tracks, and start from there.

Broke my Strat · . Joined: 11 Jun 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Florida

I should have specified - I'm talking about those multi toned click tracks that throw off every bit of rythem you've got. Come to think about it, I should throw down some money and buy decent software. With a free setup like audacity, you get exactly what you pay for.

James · Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:19 am Post subject:

Download a free VST click plugin.

Every software click I've ever seen lets you set the level of the accent relative to the rest of the clicks.
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filtercap · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject:

I always set up a simple fake-drumz loop first. No matter how good or cheesy the canned drum sounds are, I can follow those much more easily than a click, even a multi-velocity click. Drums of any sort are more audible than clicks to me when they have other sounds (such as my live noise) layered over them.

I do a scratch rhythm guitar next. At that point, I'd probably be best off tossing the drum loop track, playing live drums along with the guitar track, and making that the arbiter of "feel" for the rest of the project. I have better luck drumming along with a guitar than with a click. That's probably because I've played guitar far longer than drums. I do want to be able to drum along with a click to get the skillz, but if I have a click and a guitar together, I find myself listening to and drumming along with the guitar track rather than the click.

I like Audacity, but I haven't tried recording a song in Audacity alone, so I don't know what your drum loop options might be, other than hooking up a separate drum machine.

Doog · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject:

I either programme drums, or lay down live drums first. If it's a "stoppystarty" kinda song, I'll record to a click. Otherwise, I'll do it all without.
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More Cowbell · . Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 6206 Location: Jefferson, GA

YEAH do what bob and doog says, I had a hard time with the plain click track, then just used a snare or a kick drum beat as a click, so it was like playing with a damned good drummer.

Alot of the time I'll sit down to record a song and end up have a good take, and use that take and build around it, even if it is off time a little, who cares unless your gonna sell it to someone or your wanting to impress someone...then it doesn't really matter.

Who cares its teh internetz.

Sloan · Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:53 am Post subject:

i just now started using a click and i love it. it does take a while to get used to it, but i set it to 1/4 time so it's the same click every time. it makes everything feel more solid and I can tell it's helping improve my "drumming".
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aen · Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject:

I've always recorded guitar to a click, or drumloop, but last fucking night I had the worst goddamn click fucking track experience EVAR.

So John records his guitar to a click, cool.

I record the "noise/wash/texture" drums, not really listening to anything but the guitar, cool

Johns vocals, cool

"Rock drums" with the other elements AND A CLICK? TERRIBLE AGONY!

I'm so against it now. Humans have natural tempo shift, and between his and mine, recorded seperately, it sounded like a truck full of bouncy balls for the first 23426 takes. p Lus drums are fucking loud, so most of the time I couldnt hear the goddamn click without breaking up my headphones or eardrums.

We're going back to scratch tracking the whole song, so we move together, and THEN overdubbing individual parts.
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Ian · . Joined: 03 Feb 2007 Posts: 554 Location: What do?

aen · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject:

Dude, I've been recording for 6 years. I know what my options are.
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Ian · . Joined: 03 Feb 2007 Posts: 554 Location: What do?

You aren't the center of the world. Or this thread.
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giginthesky · . Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 5 Location: berlin, n.j.

unless i'm throwing something down just to remember it, i always record with a click. it's funny... when i type using this size font, click looks like dick.

Ian · . Joined: 03 Feb 2007 Posts: 554 Location: What do?

suck my click BlTCH!
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dots · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:41 pm Post subject:

when i do little demos of just guitar for bandmates to hear, i'll put on a click track. we usually try to avoid them in the studio, though, so long as the drummer has good meter. a couple bpm variation here or there is okay. . . makes the song breathe more naturally.
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Mike · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:12 am Post subject:

aen · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject:

Im glad someone else made a snarky comment.

Dots- about the "breathing"

I never had any idea how much my current band's songs shift tempo, untill it was me vs. the click. It's very hard fo the guitaist to understand why I want to track things together now....
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vivadeluxxe · . Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 1288 Location: Manchester

Most decent audio recording software has something called a Mastertrack which allows you to map the tempo of a song over the entire track...
If you wanted a more human feel when recording to a click you can adjust the tempo fractionally so it goes up or down...

If I'm doing a programmed drum track and I want to humanize it a bit, I speed the track up gradually towards the end, you wouldn't really notice it, but it helps give the impression of a real drummer...
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Ninja Mike 808 · . Joined: 14 Jan 2008 Posts: 1643 Location: DFW

We kinda covered the topic of click tracks today in Audio Engineering 3... Don't ask why we covered it in 3, we covered it in 1 and 2, and I suppose people still don't get it, but...

Pro Tools has a variety of different click sounds and options you can go through. Apparently you can also download or buy some plug in that has an instrument like quality to it. As far as a click track goes, how ever, I'd talk to the band about it. For example, if the drummer says he doesn't wanna play to a click, then that's cool, if he wants to play to the guitarist, then great. I'll ask the guitarist how he feels, and if he's ok with a click, then I record a scratch track of him, but perfectly on rhythm. Give that to the drummer, and maybe argue about the click more... As long as there is some rhythm that is no beat, then there is no need for a click, since the click is just a reference point anyways... Some people hate it, some people fiend for it. I fiend for dope music, so as long as it comes out good, then I'm cool.