Reminder to new musicians: learn how to play to a click track… but don’t necessarily use one to play and record with!

I see a lot of “play to click track!!!” posts and comments here, and figured instead of being a lost comment among them, it’d be worth having a counterpoint (of sorts) as its own post. So FWIW…

Yes, learn to play and record to a click! But also, don't necessarily play or record to a click!

Some songs have dynamics and transitions in the tempos that are better to be performed by feel. And depending what it is, it shouldn’t necessarily be heard as being on the nose of a strict bpm… Techno and rap and dance music, yes, but not necessarily rock, metal, singer/songwriter, etc. As evidence, I submit the entire Beatles catalogue, Motown, Led Zep, Dylan… name almost every classic recording from the 50’s to 70’s, and there were no click tracks used. Hell, the entire rhythm track of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was recorded in one take without a click. Granted, those drummers likely grew up practicing to metronomes, and people like Ringo and John Bonham just had great timing and feel, which made them part of the classic recordings that we still listen to. But still, they didn’t play or record to click tracks, and you don’t absolutely need to, either.

It’s a personal sore spot for me. Back in 2015 our band had rehearsed a bunch of songs for a new album, and we were about to go into a studio in a few weeks when one of our members said oh, we should record to a click track in the studio. I agreed at the time but have kicked myself ever since. Problem is, we hadn’t been practicing to a click track, and our drummer was not used to it. So we ended up wasting time in the studio, and worse, I’ve never been entirely happy with how that album turned out, because the drumming does not sound nearly as confident and dynamic as it did during our rehearsal recordings. Oh, it’s in time, alright, but flaccid compared to rehearsal recordings. Some of the songs just do not have the rhythmic punch and flow that they did in rehearsals. Plus, there were rehearsal moments in some of the songs where we, as a band who had become very tight on these songs, made really nice transitional slow downs and pauses and pickups from breaks that felt natural and had a nice flow to them… and almost none of that is represented on the studio recording. And how could it be, when we had programmed strict tempos for every measure of the songs?

Of course, that was a situational thing with some factors… Had we started practicing to a click sooner, and if the drummer had more experience doing that, it would have turned out better. So again, yes, learn to be able to play and record to a click! But don’t necessarily do it for any particular project or performance. In the particular time and circumstances of recording that album, the correct answer in retrospect was to not use a click.

A lot comes down to what type of songs you’re doing... If a song has any kind of tempo shifts, slow downs, dramatic pauses, etc., then I would not record them with a click, unless you’re super sure about how long those transitional elements should be. I find those things particularly hard to program, and best played and felt in the moment. We’re talking half-seconds here, usually, but maybe that pause near the end of the song before it kicks back in just gives a much better sense of drama and anticipation being 2.1 seconds long. But since you programmed it with a click at 1.7 seconds, well, that’s how it’s always going to be and you’ll never play the take where the drummer held it another .4 seconds, which would have had the real magic.