Studio Drummer – More Nuances Of Time

*NOW WE’RE GETTING INTO THE NUANCES OF PLAYING WITH A CLICK TRACK!*

 

The essential key here is to record yourself so you can hear your execution with the click track and study it.  If you’re serious about being a session player then you probably already have some means of being able to do this.  These days it’s a very easy barrier to overcome.  You don’t need great sonics. That doesn’t matter.  You just want to be able to hear and study the beat placement. 

 

You obviously have a computer or you wouldn’t be reading this so get what you need.  You can get free recording programs on the net that are very user friendly and very decent USB microphones that are quite inexpensive.  Now you’re set.  You can work out with a click track and listen back and study your areas of weakness.  You’ll then start on your own journey of the sorting out and working out of different areas that personally give you problems.  That is something that is an ongoing process that truly never ends.

 

I don’t want to go too far into all the permutations and situations that arise in this area but I do want to mention this often reoccurring situation because you’ll eventually run into it and it will test you to the limits of your abilities, I guarantee it.

 

I was doing a big budget label record and I mention this only because it can happen as much on big budget projects as smaller ones.  This songwriter was a truly great songwriter, a great singer and yet a medium to good guitar player.  We all got to the session and as usually the case we hadn’t heard the music or the artist before.  We’re at the point of tracking the songs and sure enough all the scratch tracks are way out of time with the click.  Painfully out of time.

 

Singer songwriter guitar players tend to rush.  When they’re recording scratch guitars just meant to be references for the rhythm section to play to they often rush even more because these tracks are not meant to be kept. 

 

SO…

 

We, the rhythm section, are now required to play our butts off with the utmost of artistic expression and pocket groove playing to scratch tracks that are rushing like crazy.  The guitar and the click are literally landing in different places.

 

(In case you think this is a freak situation this happens constantly.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been confronted with this. It’s practically the norm.)

 

You might ask, what do you do in this situation?   You go deep and draw from your experience and your skills.  Obviously the producer and the artist want you to be bang on the click track.  And yet the scratch tracks are also essential in the recording process.

 

As it went down we were required to perform with great feel and accuracy to the click track all the while being distracted and pulled by out of time scratch tracks. This was the case for the entire record.  I’m happy to say though the outcome resulted in one of the best records I’ve ever been on.

The issue we were dealing with constantly is invisible in the final product.  It’s invisible because we know our individual crafts and how to recover and save situations yet still retain the artistry.

 

This gives you an example of how adept you’ll be required to be with handling click tracks and all the many variables that can arise.