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Guess I'll chime in a little bit here: I don't necessarily agree about points made earlier, that there has to be a click or something similar. It just needs to be something that's rythmic. It can be a bass loop, a drum loop, a cowbell...whatever. It's all about proper monitoring, and musicianship. As long as the person(s) holding the groove down can hear the loop/click/whatever that dictates the tempo, and he/she/they are skilled musicians, they should be able to keep that rythm without drifting. And the other musicians just follow along.
I like this thread, gives some good ideas. But I just don't like excuses. Keeping time, and learning about rythm takes time and lots of practise. Something many people need to focus more on, guitarist, singers, drummers, etc...
In my experience the two biggest factors in terms of keeping time is 1. proper levels - things start to drift if instruments/vocals that are not "time keeping"/playing on the beat overpowers the time keeping instrument(s) in volumen. And 2. poor musicianship -> learn to have rock solid rythmic timing in everything you play and NO MATTER WHAT INSTRUMENT YOU PLAY
I like the idea of in-ear with cans over them. I've done that in the past drumming: molded in-ear's with 15db filters and closed pro studio monitoring headphones on max volume. Best of both worlds: you hear the click/beat, you hear the other musicians, you feel the click (because it's playing so loud) AND you don't ruin your ears, cause you got in-ears underneath. (and if they're proper cans, they seal off the music well enough to not get obtrusively into overhead mic's etc. (Just be carefull not to ruin the headphones)--
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:Ok, just another bunch of pennys to add:
In the nineties I did some tours with a band that used backing tracks
plus live playing. The small setting was a trio and we simply handed
over a CD to the DJ and performed on the dance floor or stage with
wireless mics and wireless guitar (me). The big setup of this project
was more like a rock band with two guitars, two vocalists, a keyboard
player and a drummer. One 8 channel ADAT tape machine was used for
backing tracks and we delivered to the live engineer several separate
stems like backing choir stereo feed, bass channel, percussion stuff,
epic stereo synth pad beds, hard percussion stuff etc etc. The point
of interest here is that one of the eight tracks had a click that only
the drummer had in his headphones. This drummer is very good, top
class professional session guy, and he first used -20 dB silicon
in-ear protections and upon those the cans with very loud volume. He
played perfectly well with that and the deal was that everyone else
was to follow the drums. Worked out fine for that music. But of course
there wasn't much space for improvisation or working up a collective
groove feel ;-))
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:06 PM, mark francombe <mark@markfrancombe.com> wrote:
> Ill just add my 2 pennys here.
>
> I had 10 years with a band where we almost always had a backing tape with
> various elements, and we needed a way to play to them. I also discussed this
> with many, many bands (often because they couldn't "get it" how we could
> play to a backing track and all be in synch.)
>
> We tried click tracks in the monitors and personal mixing methods, but it
> ONLY came together when we used a stereo tape, the left side was a Musically
> nice percussion element, often a drum-machine version of the drummers
> high-hat pattern and the right hand side contained the musical (or loop)
> element. (obviously NOT mixed left and right in the FOH)
>
> On stage the perc side was louder, specificaly to the drummer, (the musical
> side was often really deep cellos or industrial loops that would fully
> distort most crappy club monitors, and needed them for vocals. But out front
> the perc side was totally muted... If however the punters at the front
> should hear it, it blended in quite nicely.
>
> Im sure that a drummer with REALLY GREAT in ear monitors could do well, but
> its dangerous, the tinny plink of a typical metronome sound would KILL a
> drummers hearing after a few shows, and the volume and MUSH of most venues
> stage sound, would cause it to become annoying and irrelevant.
>
> If you design the "click" so it fits with the music and play it, then you
> find tat you naturally play WITH it, rather than TO IT. Trying to PLAY TO an
> annoying Plink plonk plonk plonk plink plonk plonk plonk is un-natural and
> just causes drift IMHO... playing to a musical and rhythmic percussion part
> is the way to go...
>
> (now listen to Cranes and see how many songs start with drums.. ha ha!!
> Yep.. most of them !!!)
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Mark Francombe
> www.markfrancombe.com
> www.ordoabkhao.com
> http://vimeo.com/user825094
> http://www.looop.no
> twitter @markfrancombe
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/24478662@N00/
>
De Bedste Hilsner / Best Regards