Question Band practice with a metronome?

[boombox]

How many of you guys regularly or occasionally have full band or rhythm section practice with a metronome? I had a practice last night with the rhythm section of my new band playing a bunch of cover tunes with a metronome and I it was not there easiest thing in the world. But when everyone is on it feels great!

Please share your experience and thoughts below.

Thanks
-bb

 

[oli@bass]

We did that when preparing for our last CD. Made us way tighter!

 

[mynan]

I voted "yes" because I think it's the best way, but it really depends on the drummer. If your drummer can't stay with it, you're sunk...which is probably why there are a lot of drummers out there that absolutely hate playing to a metronome.

 

[bizmarckie]

Back in California, my church would practice and play live with a click track... It was actually kind of comforting after the first few times, everyone had a reference to stay on the same page! (There was one drummer who couldn't quite stay on top of it though... )

 

[Psycho Ward]

The way I've always done it was to have only the drummer heard the click.

 

[Kruse]

The way I've always done it was to have only the drummer heard the click.

+1

That's how we practice for the last couple of months. It took some time for our drummer to get used to it. But now rehearsals are great. I love it if a song always has the same tempo.

What do I vote now if only our drummer hears the click? No, right?

 

[maddog]

Consider it a tool to work rehearsals with.

Just like practicing scales.

you don't do it all the time but you will get something out of doing it every so often.

 

[Aussie Mark]

I've never practiced with a metronome (I have an in-built one in my head), but the show band I play with currently uses sequenced keys and horns, so the drummer plays to a click.

 

[Grand Wazoo]

Metronome is only good for practicing to yourself, put it in a band contest and you are asking for trouble. The drummer cannot possibly follow it unless he is wired to it and the rhythm section can only follow the drummer, if they follow the metronome they will mess things up, and so will you as the bass player. Not a good idea in my book

 

[bizmarckie]

The trick for me was to keep it at a level where I could reference it, but not let it overpower the drums. It was actually really nice to have, it gave me a little confidence boost Another good thing we had was that the click was started/stopped by the drummer with a trigger, so if it was heading for a trainwreck, he could stop the click without skipping a beat.

 

[Sonnyonbass]

Our drummer always plays with click during shows. For our last shows every one had click on thir in -ears and I must say it really forces you to play in tempo and not lean to much on the drummer. (that is what most people tend to do)
There is something (if I recall correctly) as adaptive click. the drummer plays with click, but it is not a set tempo. You can set the parameters up front to say between 118 and 124 BPM. SO you can still rush or slow down a bit.
Of course for this you need to trigger the kick and snare so the sampler or laptop from which you are running this program from knows the tempo from the drummer that he is playing at that exact moment.
We are probably going to use this is the future.
Using click live depends on music type and sort of band. It does not belong in a 3 piece blues formation for instance (my opinion) but can be handy/usefull for full blown rock/pop bands with lots of laptops and samplers onstage.
Because if you start a 8 bar sample and the drummer doesn't play in time yer *****
Of course if you use Ableton Live and Adaptive click and time stretching these things are a lot of fun to play with. (but maybe not for the casual hobbyist )

mmmmm long story but I could go on and on about this haha

 

[Basscake]

Depending on the drummer.
The drummer of my current band loathes the click. So a "no" here.

I did it in the past and I think it was a good thing to do from time to time. Its kind of eyeopening. If you're working with sequences its unavoidable.

But: I find it counterpruductiv if the whole band gets to hear the click. The drummer with headphones is alright. For me as a bassplayer the point of reference is the drummer, even if he is slightly ahead or behind the click here and there. Usually it occours in a musical way given its a decent drummer...
If the rest oft the band stays on the click the clashes are way more anoying then slight tempo changes of the whole band as a unit

Also in recording situations. If I play a section without drums I play to the clicktrack of course. But as soon as there is a drumgrove: Metronome, off please...

A wise man once said to me:

Metronomes are like crutches.
If you can't walk without them then use them as long as you need. But its better if you don't need them.

 

[pepperman]

Last band I was in, the drummer had what is called a Groove Guide. Basically a sensor on the snare leads to a readout telling you what tempo you're playing. Keep it between the ditches and you're golden!

 

[Kirby]

I say this is great for rehearsals. I have had several rhythm section only rehearsals before with a click going and it always has helped. Breaking down songs into individual elements has always been a positive to me. It makes the collective stronger.

Live, I tend to agree with one of the above comments about how the drummer feels. I played with a popular 80's artist who insisted the drummer have a click in his in ears. I had no problem with this and neither did the drummer. I have also played with a drummer who used a Beat Bug (I think it was called this) attached to his snare so he could monitor his tempo and that worked well for him.

I have heard other drummers who cannot stand this though. I tend to think the reason they are so opposed is that they may be afraid to find out how off of the click they really are.

 

[RobertB]

Brandt,

Check out this example of practicing (recording live, in this case) to a metronome - the song called "Real" in the upper play list. These are some friends of mine, and frequently practicing with a metronome (or very sparse drum machine track) enabled them to effortlessly do this type of thing. The first few measures of the tune is just the drum machine loop, then the band, including the drummer) comes in and plays on top of it throughout the song. This would be easy if the loop were a full-on drum track, of course, but it's really just as sparse as a click - it's basically just a cool sounding event repeating on the one.

And that's a Sabre ... I posted about these guys in another thread - it just so happens that this particular song is a great example of what you're talking about here. Very cool!

 

[boombox]

Rob that is pretty cool man.

The reason that I opened this thread was to see what experienced players thought about using a click. The new band that I am in plays a lot of dance tunes and playing in time is crucial when people down south are “jitter-buggin”! Our rehearsal was for us to go over a few of these tunes with a metronome so we could find the part that our timing fluctuated on and make them tighter. All in all we were not too bad.

Thanks for the responses guys!

 

[strummer]

It really depends on what drummer I'm playing with. Some of them use click, some don't. I really can't tell the difference though, as I've never played with the whole band hearing the click.

Edit: And yes, the drummers rehearsing with click usually means live with a click too, which I really love! I mean, playing 25% faster just because there's an audience might have worked for the Ramonse, but in reality there is nothing grooving harder than a song played at the right tempo.

 

[ModuMan]

As said before, depends on the drummer. And even then I would say drummer-only.

But, IMHO, if the drummer has good time on his own then don't bother. Music is meant to ebb and flow a little bit and this happens naturally to at least a small degree when playing as a group. Unless the drummer totally falls off the beat I say just play together!

 

[Smallmouth_Bass]

I have considered giving it a try. How do you guys set up a click to jam with? Is it just a regular metronome with headphones (or through the P.A.) or is it more elaborate than that?

 

[Aussie Mark]

I have considered giving it a try. How do you guys set up a click to jam with? Is it just a regular metronome with headphones (or through the P.A.) or is it more elaborate than that?

The sequences our show band uses have click on the left channel and keys/horns on the right. The stereo out from the laptop runs to a headphone amp, and that signal is split so that the left channel goes to the drummers headphones and the right channel goes to the PA as a mono signal. The drummer has the click in his ears, but the rest of us (and the audience) only hear the keys/horns through our foldback