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A bass player and myself choose an RD style and lay down bass and guitars. Our drummer then try to lay down a drumtrack to substitute RD tracks. Our drummer has a hard time getting his tracks tight and in tempo. Is there a trick to do this or won't it work at all?

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practice..
that's the trick. Have your drummer practice with a metronome or click track until he doesn't need to anymore.
Have him try recording with a click track or metronome blasting in his head.
We normally use very loud headphones for the drummer..so he can hear the click over himself.

A lot of drummers resist, but once they do it a couple times they see the difference it makes

How we do it-
-Create one measure of drum click by using event list to insert C#2 channel 10 (sidestick) on the 1-1-0, 2-1-0, 3-1-0, and 4-1-0 of the first measure.
(I use the sidestick because it cuts thru in headphones) -
-use 127 for velocity when creating the notes
-hilight the whole bar and copy it.
-Paste it, using the 'repitions' checkbox to set the number of nars to match the song.
-Assign the VSC DXi to the track, right click the track and auto convert it to audio on a blank tarck.
-turn off the midi track and hilight the new audio track.
-go into DX FX area and put PGPeakLimit on the track so you can make it as loud as you need to by pushing one slider up.

You should have a click in perfect sync with RD and one thats loud enough to make the drummers ears bleed, which in my experience is the correct volume to get them to even notice it, let alone pay attention to it!


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*Click Track from RealBand (Metronome) in the headphones + drummer who can play along with the Metronome perfectly.

The one thing that most people find out about the hard way when they start getting into recording is how they have not been keeping time. Some make excuses about music needing to "breath" and all that malarky, what is needed is to keep time.



--Mac

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Rharv, I think you're using a Midi drumtrack, but as we already have done our recordings with realdrums, is there a way I can get a form of click track from the RDs? Our drummer has been complaining that the bass and guitars are somewhat behind or before the beat of the RDs.?

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Any RealBand or BIAB generated song that has not been subjected to the Tempo Mapping such as done with ACW or manually in order to fit the bars to a live performance that wanders in time can invoke a Click Track instantly by using the built in Metronome feature. Note that there are checkboxes to have the Metronome click on Record or Playback or both.

--Mac

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Yes Mac, but what if the only auto generated track is RealDrums and all the other tracks have been recorded live. For a guitarist it's okay to use RD as a metronome but for another drummer I think RD as metronome will be confusing. If only a metronome tick could be generated from the RD track then I think our drummer would have a reliable clock and then he could wander in and out of sync with this "master clock".

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He's been trying to tell you. If you generated a realdrum track, it used the same clock as midi and metronome.
And no, I was not talking about MIDI drums. I was taking about realdrums, like you asked about.

The realdrum generator uses the tempo in the tempo clock to generate the drums, and it's the same exact clock that midi uses. It will stay in sync, unless you have changed the tempo in the tempo window...

If so, just double click the ACW window and you can re-write the tempo map from there, just tell ACW to redo the bars when it asks (pay attention, it comes up right away). If it doesn't do it automagically correct, you then hit play inside the ACW and tap the F8 key on the first beat of every measure to manually do it.

I like iusing the method I mentioned over using the metronome, because I seem to be able to push the volume more when it's an audio track (before getting distortion), and then I don't having the processor running a synth to hear the click. I could just pull the click sound from an external source I suppose, and save an audio track...


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You might also have more success if you use 8th notes as a click track for a drummer...or using two different sounds, one on the downbeat and one on the backbeat...

Also, if the drummer has never played with a click, its going to be really really hard for him....

Also, the real drums, are not "perfect" in time....which Is personally what I like about them....some feels are pushed some are laid back....just the way it should be....this may also cause a problem for your drummer...

have some sympathy for him....8)...poor bloke....8).

He is trying to play to a click track, against two instruments overdubbed against a drum part that has "timing personality" all over it...8)...and he may have no experience playing with a click.


To be honest, if you are going to use real drums, and go to the trouble of micing them and mixing them...I suggest, humbly, that the best way to go is to use Real Drums and BIAB as a writing and rehearsal tool, then cut the song live with the drummer...just use a metronome before starting each take, let the drummer hear it for a few bars then turn it off, then hit record and go, so each take at least is approximately in the ball park.....(everyone gets a bit faster and faster as the day goes on...8)....).

You will get a better song this way....


cheers and good luck

Wiz

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I can't speak for RD loops, but it's pretty common as pointed out above, that with loops, the drummer used in the recording doesn't always play exactly on the beat, either pushing or pulling it as the style requires.

This is true with Beta Monkey drum loops.

Stratocaster, this sounds more like a problem with the style chosen with the RD tracks and what your guitarists 'felt' as they recorded, versus what was 'felt' by the studio RD drummer.

Lastly, there is the option I have shared with you before in the past. There's a certain drummer that can be found on-line named Lorenz Schimpf, who will lay down live drum tracks, very well recorded for a VERY reasonable price. He'll need the song with a click track and drums removed.

-Scott

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Hi Rharv!

I've been trying and trying to make a Midi track in sync with my RD track, but can't make it work. As you probably know I'm not very familiar with Midi and mainly use PT as a multitrack taperecorder. My drum track is RD RockEven 8 it lasts for just under 200 Bars, with count-in, and the tempo is 200. Do you think you could generate a Midi Track for me that I could try out. Then I can convert it my self to wave.
Strat!

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I kinda doubt the tempo is 200 while using the rock even 8 pattern
It would probably not sound right at that tempo, but I suppose its possible.
can you post the drum track somewhere, or maybe email it?
PM me for my email address...
I'm sure I can get a click to just about any drum track.


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I sent you a PM with a link to the click track. Be sure to import it at the beginning of the song so it lines up

Hit rewind before importing the wave file.


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is it possible to upload this draft take? It can be .seq or mp3. I would like to download and listen it.

Last edited by Luiz Dias; 05/19/09 06:49 PM.

regards, from Brazil
Luiz Dias
Watch the videos of me playing the percussion/conga drums with a great band!
--> http://uk.youtube.com/user/footkeys
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This project was successfully completed using Realband. At least according to his email responses.

I simply imported his wav file into Realband, then used the ACW to set the bars and tempo map.
I did have to redo it once because his buddies hardware DAW required a certain bitrate for the audio click track.

He was having problems originally because the song had a tempo that varied a bit. I believe this was because the sections were generated at different times (possibly using different machines or soundcards) The first minute or so was at one tempo and the rest was at a slightly faster tempo (measured in hundredths of a second). So it varied from 199.9X to 200.0X BPM... but the ACW handled it perfectly.
Couple this with the fact that the song tempo was at 100 and he wanted the click to actually be at 200 (double time in ACW).

Time learning all the capabilities of the ACW is well spent.


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rharv

so we can look forward to your utube vid on everything we wanted to know about the ACWZ but were afraid to RTFM


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I can assure you that the click tracks (very kindly) produced by Rharve was working wonderfully. Following Rharves directions I tried to produce one myself (using PTW) but no success. Now I'm waiting for RealBand to see if I'll do better. Even if our drummer seems to follow the click track nicely it seems I'll have to rerecord some of my guitars. I guess this is because it's impossible to get the drums/guitars exactly in sync with the click track, so some places they'll just differ too much??

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Somebdoy isn't counting if things don't fit the click...

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You're probably right, so I guess I shouldn't revert to the real drummer but let rerecord all the instruments play against the click track as best they can all through the process?

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We generally set the drummer and bass to a click and everyone else plays along with their tracks..


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