Award Sounds

Click Away - Musical Creativity 5

I find click tracks useful when I use them as a metronome and solely as that. They help me keep time. The problem that I find is that they're boring, so I don't respond to them very well. I can play accurately enough along with clicktracks, but the end result to me is never as interesting from a creative viewpoint as what I get when playing with other musicians.

So I take a similar theme when recording even the most basic of tracks. I do away with the standard "tock, tick, tick, tick" clicktrack and instead use something with rhythm to start me off. The majority of the time whatever I use as a timing source doesn't end up in the final mix. It's there to breathe some life into the recording and to remind me that music isn't meant to be rigid.

For the attached file, I recorded 2 guitars with X-Y mics; one rhythm, the other melody. The drum loop was running all the time throughout recording. For this mp3, I've faded the drums in and out to give you an idea of the difference it makes. That was the loop that was running, but now there are the two guitars in place, I think the drum loop is wrong and I'd want some more acoustic if any percussion at all. Imagine getting that feel and rhythm with the standard clicktrack?

By the way, if you find the strings are rattling a bit too much in the recording, it was mainly because I was using a brass pick. I liked the brighter sound for a change and I have to admit I haven't used picks other than my standard Jazz IIIs for years now. Think I may have plucked a bit harder than usual as well. No eq applied (save for the preamp's HPF), minimal reverb applied and a few db of compression on the output bus. 

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.