Let me just say now that I love you all before posting this ? in case this starts a war.
First I'll say my point: I personally have this rule. IF YOU CAN'T PLAY TO A CLICK TRACK, YOU CAN'T PLAY!
MY explanation:
Music is a time based system of Rhythms and melodies (a few others involved but that is the main two).
I believe it was "invented" when the first beat was made someone discovered "HEY, that sounds pretty cool and it's making me want to move my hips"
It's a
pulse that appeals to your mind and it creates an emotion in your body which makes it move. The same when you eat something sour and your face contracts into that cringe look involuntarily.
That's why it's stupid to tell someone that their music sucks because one type of music/pulse that makes your body move, might not create the same emotion or pulse that stimulates the human mind and makes
another human body move. Same as some people love eating tomatoes and some people cannot stand the smell of it.
Certain things create different emotions in other people.
Like your parents saying "How can you listen to this crap?" and I'm sure you'll tell your kids the same.
With that said, Click tracks do not make you anymore unnatural, robotic and lifeless than those
personal transportation devices.
If you still don't believe in click tracks and classify musicians in an orchestra to be real musicians because there's so much more feel and the symphonies create emotions when you close your eyes, then you'd be hypocritical because a conductor sets the tempo and keeps everyone in time.
Yes the "tempo-setter" is still human but it's one tempo that everyone follows. If you cannot follow a robotic unchanging click, then how do you expect to follow a drummer that fluctuates during songs?
What Happens when the song changes to two bars of 19/16ths into 1 bar of 11/8ths into 2 bars of 4/4 1 bar of 2/4 and carry on in 4/4? Do you just feel it or actually count?
You are ALWAYS keeping a time of some sort when playing because every note you hit, belong somewhere in the grid, and when playing with other musicians you need to be TIGHT as it just sounds more desirable to the listener. Most bands even play to a click track live (and yes they're the ones that have massive crowds at fests).
I'm not 100% sure but from the experience of my ear, and what it can make out, Guthrie Govan's Album
Erotic Cakes sounds like it's following a tempo grid in studio and it still has enough feel to make you ejaculate prematurely.
There are some really great albums that have been done without a click but I'm positive that most of the modern day albums that you guys love, have been fixed, edited and quantised to the grid.
I personally (not arrogantly) do not allow/prefer not to work with any band to record/planning to record in my studio that cannot play to a click, as it not only makes for REALLY poor performances, untight playing and missed ques, it shows the level of professionalism and the amount of work I'll need to do afterwards.
Yes it does mean I'll lose some clients but I choose to look at those bands as expendable from a business point of view as the ones that cannot play to a click often make me,
and them, look bad once the final product is done.
And I know that from experience.
peace ?
