The Police: 'Roxanne'

[The Elf]

Just because we can show examples where not using a click has worked fine (subjectively speaking, at least) doesn't mean that using a click is always wrong.

There are bands who I've felt the need to introduce to the click, and there are others who I've talked out of it. The trick is to knowing what will work in any given circumstance.

[Shambolic Charm]

Probably wrong place to ask but is there anyone here feels the over polishing of modern music production is something of a curse?

[Barry Garlow]

I feel that its absolutely a curse, but that's just me. For me, i want to hear people making music and every time we introduce another layer of 'production' polish we push the humans further away from the cone of that speaker.

[Barry Garlow]

Just because we can show examples where not using a click has worked fine (subjectively speaking, at least) doesn't mean that using a click is always wrong.

I don't think its "wrong", there's no right or wrong. I just think that people have been told for ages by the high priests of 'how we must record' from the lecterns of recording correctness, that they should use a click. Drummers are told they must be able to play to a click. I don't agree. I think that the temporal movements in music are as important as the melodic and harmonic movements. We sense these and they effect us. The tempo is key to the emotional message.

So not wrong as such, i just don't like them and the idea that everything has to be played to a click and beat-matched etc, and that if you can't or don't want to do that then you are in some way lacking or unprofessional, is cock.

If its a proper artistic decision to go machine then fine.

[chris...]

I just think that people have been told for ages by the high priests of 'how we must record' from the lecterns of recording correctness, that they should use a click.

If those high priests meant "always" play to a click, then they were wrong. As Elf says, with and without both have their uses.

Drummers are told they must be able to play to a click.

I think that's generally good advice. They should learn such that they can, where need be. But of course, not always do so.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet a large sum that Stewart Copeland can play with a click, and totally nail things. And also probably fool most people into not realising a click was used.

May be worth adding, that as well as his tempo variations (see the graph), another interesting thing is exactly where he places the beat. Some drummers are known for the feel created by playing very slightly behind. However SC is almost always a little ahead (quite deliberately).

[punkomatic78]

Ref the original post, it's amazing how those indiscretions become part of the soundscape, and it's interesting to hear it critiqued. The arse/piano/giggling intro is part of the charm for me, and it's mistakes/ad-libs like that which help make a particular performance unique. No matter how good a covers band plays Roxanne, they couldn't successfully recreate that bit without inducing a full on cringe fest. Beatles records are littered with larking about, and the various undisguisable sounds of 60s technology - eg the tambourine track on Taxman, where there is audible hiss and background noise coming in and out with fader rides.

I feel it's a bit of a loss that because current technology allows "perfection", there is now much less tolerance for the imperfections that we know and love on older recordings. Although, with the likes of Steven Slate and many others bending over backwards to return sonic flaws to our DAWs, will the next step be a wave of plugins to introduce the sound of chattering, swanny whistles and other hijinks to the mix at random points?

The other side of the coin is - and I don't know if others have experienced this - a good number of bands I record, when it comes to the mix, want to keep in the hilarious out-takes, and at that point I tend to see it as fairly crucial that I steer them away from that. There's definitely something musically pleasing and distinctive about Sting's arse piano that makes it a higher class of mistake.

[hollowsun]

I worked with a drummer who, with the advent of the LinnDrum, practised for hours every day to get as tight as a gnat's chuffer with a click track and he became really good at playing amazingly metronomically. We did an album which was sent to Mute Records and Daniel Miller asked me which drum machine was used because the drums didn't have the crunchy 8-bit quality of either the Linn or Fairlight but were as tight as a sequenced Page R or Linn pattern.

But he also had the ability to play around the click ... pushing, pulling, etc.. It was metronomically on the button but with just that right hint of 'feel' or 'groove', call it what you will. I hasten to add that he also bought a LinnDrum and TR808 and Simmons to cover all eventualities but he could play like a bastard to a click track (when and where appropriate).

But otherwise, I am with Barry - the more 'produced' a track becomes, whilst it can appeal and is (maybe) appropriate in some circumstances, it can suck the life out the thing. Although oftentimes, of course, it's turd polishing.

[The Elf]

Drummers are told they must be able to play to a click.

I think that's generally good advice. They should learn such that they can, where need be. But of course, not always do so.

Spot on. IME the best players are the ones that can. The worst are the ones who hide behind words like 'feel'...

[chris...]

it can suck the life out the thing.

Again, the "can" is important

[Barry Garlow]

Drummers are told they must be able to play to a click.

I think that's generally good advice. They should learn such that they can, where need be. But of course, not always do so.

Spot on. IME the best players are the ones that can. The worst are the ones who hide behind words like 'feel'...

Now its getting all better and best. Topper Headon, Jet Black, vitual machines and very good at it. Charlie Watts, Levon Helm, loads of feel and great at that.

What i'm saying is that the idea that its a pre-requisite is rubbish. Maybe if someone wants to be a first-call session drummer with do-anything-anytime versatility then yes, that will be a skill that's required.

But what i hear too much of is this idea that a drummer's skill is measured against a machine. It annoys me, it puts pressure on young players and it will take them years to realise that they are alright, that its alright to just play and enjoy.

But i also think that the music (in most, not all cases) needs to move around to be properly human.

Ever wondered why those old albums are so popular, so magical? What it is that makes them special? Much of it is the fact that there's a human FEEL to the tempo.

[RegressiveRock]

A tempo-deviation chart of 'So Lonely', from the same album...

Meh!

Reg

Great clip!

Reg

[BJG145]

I think there's a bit of confusion here...

1) Any decent drummer should be able to keep time with a click IMHO. If they can't keep time with a click, how can they keep time with anything else? Like a djembe, or a piano, etc etc.

2) Playing with a click doesn't mean you have to play on the beat. You push, pull, make it as groovy as you like. It's just a reference point seen in rhythmic 'peripheral vision'.

3) Using a click track in recording doesn't mean you can't vary the tempo. You can use tempo maps to make any speed changes you like. You can record drums freestyle and then generate a tempo map from that.

All obvious stuff, but I reckon there's quite a lot of click-aversion going round among people who basically just can't keep time. It's no different from practising with a metronome...an essential skill for any percussionist who wants to play with a group.

[Barry Garlow]

...people who basically just can't keep time.

There's the voice of the church of machine time. It ruined our music and i will not support it!

Here's a question... Does a classical conductor have a click in ear for a live performance? (assuming the orchestra aren't syncing to a load of graphics and/or a backing track)

Time is relative. The idea that a person can't be a good drummer if they cant or wont play to a click is crazy imo. There are drummers and percussionists all over the world for millenia who have been creating fantastic moving music without pesky machine time.

[Shambolic Charm]

Perhaps for those who believe the click track can do all, it would be an idea to illustrate the 'feel' being talked about. Thing is when a band plays together, as the exciting bits build up everyone gets a little more emphatic and a little bit faster, that's because they start to feel that way and express it as such. If a sad bit comes along, things may slow down a little. These things are happening not because the click track has been programmed this way but because it feels right at that moment, therefore the emotions are emphasised in the music. This doesn't happen when a machine is dictating the pace. Machines don't do emotion.
By all means practice with a click track (I use a metronome app) but don't let the machine govern everything. Sorry this is a bit pedantic but I just wonder if some people get it and worry that the emotion is being squeezed out of music by our servitude to the machine.

[Mixedup]

And here's a chart for Roxanne itself...



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Exalted Wombat]

Here's a question... Does a classical conductor have a click in ear for a live performance? (assuming the orchestra aren't syncing to a load of graphics and/or a backing track)

When a good conductor or performer gives the impression of flexibility, he's often in touch with a consistent musical pulse. Look up what "rubato" means.

Time is relative. The idea that a person can't be a good drummer if they cant or wont play to a click is crazy imo. There are drummers and percussionists all over the world for millenia who have been creating fantastic moving music without pesky machine time.

"Can't" is incompetence. One of the tools a drummer needs is an ability to keep strict time, when doing so is appropriate.

[CS70]

+1 for Barry, Shambolic Charm and others. Doing clicks is good when recording and overdubbing separately because it makes things easier (to align, to communicate, to replace and edit), but playing live (or recording as a band).. it's all about getting the right tempo for the specific moment and place in the song, support the emotional buildup (or builddown) and the feel that as a band you want to project in that moment. That means that there's a good range of BPM variation from the average which is not only possible, but _better_ than playing in perfect time.

That's a completely different thing than losing control on the tempo.

The catch is that is darn difficult to do all this properly: the drummer (and the bass player) must *feel* the song and know it intimately inside out, understand the bits which are supposed to do what, even read-and-understand-the-lyrics - in order to find out when it's not just ok, but *better* to accelerate a little, when to slow a little or to keep as steady as you can. Sometimes the arrangement and the structure of the song will make it clear, sometimes not - and the better the drummer, the more he/she'll look into that stuff to find out what fits.

I personally spend an inordinate amount of time with my drummer on just these things - and the hardest is exactly for songs which - if you don't know the lyrics, the meaning or the arrangement well, it's just a simple progression.

A cue that you are there is when your drummer can actually refer to the lyrics of the song .. then you start having a chance. 'course if the drummer has no clue, the lesser evil is to have a click.

[BJG145]

If a band is able to play a fantastic take, as a group, where they're all in tune with the subtle tempo shifts that the song demands, that's great. But unfortunately it's all too rare - and if you ever tried working on a recording with people who are utterly incapable of following a click or holding a steady tempo, you'd appreciate that this is a useful skill!

[CS70]

If a band is able to play a fantastic take, as a group, where they're all in tune with the subtle tempo shifts that the song demands, that's great. But unfortunately it's all too rare - and if you ever tried working on a recording with people who are utterly incapable of following a click or holding a steady tempo, you'd appreciate that this is a useful skill!

I've been so lucky that I never did, but of course I agree.

If they are so unskilled however, why are doing a recording?

[Hugh Robjohns]

If they are so unskilled however, why are doing a recording?

A question I wish was asked much more often!

H

[RegressiveRock]

If a band is able to play a fantastic take, as a group, where they're all in tune with the subtle tempo shifts that the song demands, that's great. But unfortunately it's all too rare - and if you ever tried working on a recording with people who are utterly incapable of following a click or holding a steady tempo, you'd appreciate that this is a useful skill!

I've been so lucky that I never did, but of course I agree.

If they are so unskilled however, why are doing a recording?

Even modern greats like Dave Grohl have been asked to use a click that has benefotted the final track: See the documentary Sound City. In fact, putting people under time constraints can produce interesting results.

However, mostly, as you might have gathered, I lament a time when bands were forced by technology to do things mostly in the moment. The sounds is, mostly, better: farts, fluffs, bum-notes and all.

You can limit, compress, quantise and click the living shite out of what you do, but it is the basic material and peformance that makes it good or bad. The collective "heave" of a band when they really go for a change in a song can be something to grab your soul. I know few performers of any level of Fecks-Factor who could take a metronome on stage and get people to rock out with them.

Production has long passed the danger point when gloss, sheen and technical trickery sometimes feels like all that is left of what the great producers and engineers do, even when fashion dictates that they do so.

Now let me get back to manually de-essing this vocal track will you!

Reg

[Frank Rideau]

I'm pretty sure Stewart Copeland could not play to a click. Have you ever seen The Police live? Thing were going pretty wild on the tempo side. Not that he could not, but because he was a real hyperactive pain in the arse on the drums. Stewart Copeland playing to a click is not Stewart Copeland.

On the other hand, I know drummer that can play to the click so good... and are fookin boring.

Competence is more than that. Please.

[Barry Garlow]

...Look up what "rubato" means.

This is what wikipedia says... semms a fair description.

Tempo rubato (Italian for: stolen time) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Rubato is an expressive shaping of music that is a part of phrasing.

"Can't" is incompetence. One of the tools a drummer needs is an ability to keep strict time, when doing so is appropriate.

I don't agree. I can see what you're saying though, in the context of a requirement for a drummer to be able to play with a click because of all the perceived (often post) production benefits of playing to machine time.

But to say that an inability to do that is incometence? Nah, not imo. A drummer who can't do that can do something else that can make a sublime artistic contribution and backbone to a piece.

Someone said up above something like ~if a drummer can't play to a click then they can't keep time~

Surely if a drummer can keep time then they don't need a claick. A click is for people who can't, isn't it?

My old drumming buddy can if he has to and has. In fact he's done some lovely jobs replacing the drums from some things that i've recorded in the past with drum machines. But why would we want to do that? There's always a sterility to the finished work, to my ears anyway.

Its a personal and artistic preference i suppose... at the end of the day.

But my advice to young musicians is that's all it is. The job of the drummer in a band, to me, is to provide along with the other musicans, great music and to me, that includes a temporal element.

[Exalted Wombat]

"Can't" is incompetence. One of the tools a drummer needs is an ability to keep strict time, when doing so is appropriate.

I don't agree. I can see what you're saying though, in the context of a requirement for a drummer to be able to play with a click because of all the perceived (often post) production benefits of playing to machine time.

But to say that an inability to do that is incometence? Nah, not imo. A drummer who can't do that can do something else that can make a sublime artistic contribution and backbone to a piece.

I very much doubt if a drummer who CAN'T keep with a click, after a bit of practice, is much of a drummer in other respects. Attitude can get in the way, of course!

"Natural genius" is often over-rated against "learning how to play your instrument".

[hollowsun]

A click is for people who can't, isn't it?

I think these days it's for the convenience of editing and quantising (which kind of defeats the object having a 'proper' drummer in anyway). That and maybe because people are now so used to metronomic, quantised 'beatz' and drum machines especially in dance music where real drumming is an offence.

I think a drummer should, ideally, be able to play tightly to (and around) a click WHEN IT'S NEEDED - another tool in the armoury ... much like I think an artist should be able to sketch well/be a good draughtsman regardless of what they choose to do with that ability. Picasso was, apparently, an excellent sketchist but he chose Cubism.