Mar 01, 2006 02:22 pm Tap your foot... works like a charm . : )
Actually, practicing percussion helped tighten my guitar timing quite a bit .
timing
Posted on Mar 01, 2006 02:08 pm
meltdown5
Faze 2 Studios
Member Since: Aug 15, 2005
ive been having issue's with getting all my tracks on time. what do all of you guys do? it seems like even to a metronome its easy to get off when recording thinks separatly. maybe im just stupid, but it really is the biggest problem i have with my recording.
any tricks of the trade?
-melt
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Mar 01, 2006 02:22 pm Tap your foot... works like a charm . : )
Actually, practicing percussion helped tighten my guitar timing quite a bit .
Mar 01, 2006 03:29 pm are you talkin' about the tracks not lining up after you record them? or are ya just strugglin' to keep up with the click?
Mar 01, 2006 03:55 pm metronome, i can usually just get one track on time and then record the rest off of that one so its not too much of a pain
Mar 01, 2006 03:58 pm I ran in to the same problem. I thought that I'd completely lost the ability to keep up with rhythm. Turns out I was dealing with latency and didn't even know it.
Every sound card will have a slight delay between the time you produce the sound and the time it gets committed to disk. There is also a slight delay upon playback between the time that the sound is read from disk till the time its played through your monitoring device. Even if this latency is low enough for you not to really notice, it does kind of accumulate when you record yourself playing along with a recorded track. Then its exaggerated a bit more when you record yourself playing along with that...and so on.
Try doing this: In your multitrack software, try finding a spot where the track that you just played has an accent at the same time as the track you're playing along with. Zoom in on that exact spot, and drag one WAV or the other so that they match up.
I've had guitar solos that I've listened back to and wondered if I was listening to the right song when playing it. Since solos are one of the last things I record on a song, it turned out that this accumulation of slightly latent tracks added up to a very akward sounding solo. I scooted it over just a bit and voila!
Mar 01, 2006 05:33 pm "Every sound card will have a slight delay between the time you produce the sound and the time it gets committed to disk. There is also a slight delay upon playback between the time that the sound is read from disk till the time its played through your monitoring device."
most recording sound cards/software should be able to deal with that automatically with buffering... ie. there will be a slight delay when you hit play or record but if you play in sync with the music it will be recorded in sync...
if it's a rythem issue (being a drummer) I practice playing to the radio... it takes practice... often (especially with bassists) I just cut the wave form at each note and move it to the right spot :)
Mar 01, 2006 06:07 pm Tadpui... this sounds a bit like the same issue Olddog was refering to a while back, reguarding that 'fine-tuning' between the guitar tracks .(I think it was OD's thread ??) He was saying how there was a very minute time difference between them, which was causing a slight phase issue between the tracks . Bumping the track over ever so slightly realigned the phase, thus reestablishing the full sound of the tracks .
I'm not sure if I missed this wonderful latency because my tracks were too few, or whatever... I just never noticed it to any extent that would throw off the timing of my playing the next tracks . That said, it was stated that is was a miniscule difference, so maybe I just overlooked it ?
I thought meltdown5 was was refering to something comepletely different, and was quite serious about the toe-tappin' . : )
Mar 01, 2006 10:41 pm yeah, i think im jsut unable to play to a metronome. or im probably setting the metronome wrong. Becuase I can't read music, and jsut guess on tempo and stuff, until it seems right. but maybe im doing it wrong.
the probem is, ill be playing to the metronome, then notice im off a little, ill slow up so it catches up, and later ill be to fast/slow with it. so the mix is all over the place.... im hopeless.
Mar 01, 2006 10:54 pm The percusion thing works as stated above. A metronome is great, but I usually try and get a goodl drum and bass track down in scratch form and that helps imensly.
Mar 01, 2006 11:12 pm Yeah I prefer to to throw a simple kick & snare track down looped to using a click or metronome. I've never really had a problem playing to a click track but its easier to get into the song with something heavier backing you. :)
It does take practice playing to a metronome to get comfortable with it and tappin' your foot along with the music does help. When I first started playing again I couldn't even sing and play at the same time, and I'd lose the rythm at times, so you just have to practice practice practice, it will come. ;)
Dan
Mar 01, 2006 11:18 pm what Noize2u says above ^ and Dan too ^
i use FL studio to make a quick drum track to follow. I hate the metronome, it always seems so out of place when thinking of music. Drum tracks seem much more fluid with the song.
I read once: for fast music, use less of a click track, like kick on every 1, instead of 1 & 3. For slow songs, use a more driving click track. It seems to help.
Also, i never actually listen for the click, I always let it float in the back of my brain, and just groove to the music. If I think about it at all I'll be drifting as well. (you notice I didn't say 'I get off')
Anyway, I've found that doing two hand percussion (like drumming, one hand snare, other hihat, and foot kick) is very good for training your brain to nail the beat. It seems that if you have to really strive to keep it on time, then when playing guitar (or whatever else) it's easier by comparison, therefore, you get better at timing.
Also, you don't need the kit to practice drumming. Just do it at a table, or such to the radio.
Hopefully that makes sense, and maybe can help.
Mar 06, 2006 09:03 am I've used a "counting" scratch track before, also, which seems to be a little easier to hear than a "doik doik doik DINK" metronome, besides, you can make little comments like: "the guitar starts in 2 beats, dummy. Get ready!"...
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