![]() ![]() You don’t have play like a robot, just play along with the click. So as you wrap up writing songs and you’re moving into a demo phase (maybe you’re laying down the scratch vocals and guitar), fire open your DAW, select a tempo that feels comfortable, create a click track, and then lay down those parts to the grid. Your recordings start to sound a lot tighter and more professional. And honestly once you get the hang of it, you stop noticing the click. Playing to a click takes practice, but only because we aren’t as good as we think. But rest assured the click is perfect, you were just pushing the tempo (because that’s what we do when we get to loud fun parts!) You’ll swear that the click is slowing down at times. The reason? You’re not as good at keeping time in your head as you thought. If I can be candid for a moment, if you’re brand new to using click tracks, you might stink at it. Clearly it’s not impossible to do this without a click, but it makes things harder and sloppier. If you write and record to a click, then each time you overdub you can always count yourself in perfectly and find your place in the vibe and tempo of the song. The reality is, most of us will record one thing at at time: scratch guitar, drums, bass, guitar, vocals, etc. And for some of you it would also require cloning yourself. To do this would require more microphones, cables, stands, and preamps. ![]() The alternative to this would be to record the entire band all at once, live. If you aren’t familiar with what overdubbing is, it’s most likely what you’re doing right now. Let’s be honest, the biggest reason click tracks are helpful is because without them, overdubbing becomes nearly impossible. If you didn’t record your initial track to a click you are on your own, hoping you didn’t put your bass line or organ track even slightly out of time (which becomes more noticeable as the song progresses). That’s because you can now take advantage of your DAW’s grid mode or snap tools. As you record more and more parts, you can freely move measures, riffs, and whole verses of a song around all without losing the vibe of the song and with an almost flawless edit. ![]() When record your demo parts to a click track, arranging becomes a snap. Oh sure you will ebb and flow in tempo even when playing to a click, but at least you can focus on your instrument and let someone else (someTHING else keep time). You don’t have the confidence of the tempo that a click would give you so you push and pull trying to keep up. You’re having to listen to so hard and try to keep up with the drums or the other instruments that you become mechanical and stiff. The opposite is true when you record without a click. When you know exactly when the next bar is about to hit you are confident, so you can focus more on the vibe and performance than the timing. Why is that cool? So you can vibe freely in between. You know when the quarter notes are, or the eighth notes, or at least the down beats of each measure are. The point of a click or metronome is to act as a guide or a framework. The most common complaint I hear about click tracks is that they make music sound robotic, static, and it removes any opportunity for vibe and flow. metronomes) in the studio: they steal the soul and vibe of your song. Let’s just cut to the chase and address the biggest misconception about click tracks (i.e. Via Paco Flickr Click Tracks Give You Vibe So take a little tip from me: get smart and start using click tracks when you’re demoing songs. That’s what this entire Songwriting Month is all about. Not only that, but I want you to get more done in less time and have more fun doing it. Let me say up front that I want you to make a lot of great music this year.
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