click track sounds?

[guitar junkie]

just wondering what works the best?

do you just use the normal click?

myself i find that the playing has more energy when i use a sample of a Snare drum, or even a kick drum....

while a guy here in town told me he tracks rock groups with a cowbell for a click track, swears it cuts through the mix loud enough in the cans that they cannot whine about not hearing the click ;Di

[brandondrury]

This really depends on the player.

The biggest impact (for drummers anyway) that I've found in the click track department is double timing the click. It doesn't work everytime, but it alllows the drummer to "feel" better. Plus, they can hear the click on th 1/8th notes so the chance of actually hearing a click is greatly improved. If set to 1/4 notes, the odds are strong that their bass drum or snare drum will be struck at the same time. This makes it hard to hear the clck at all.

As for tones, I like the default Pro Tools click quite a bit. At least, I think it's the default Pro Tools click. It's got that "woody" tone. You can hear the high end, but you can also hear a little meat in the bottom.

A click track usually isn't a sound that takes that much work to get right. I've tried various sounds and no one has really mentioned being "inspired" but that always just depends on the person. The biggest thing for me is finding a tone that is less likely to bleed through the headphones. Because of this, I like the clicks to have some low end to them and maybe a little less "crack".

Brandon

[guitar junkie]

that is why i have had good luck using a snare sample.

[flhctroll]

I always use a click but would like to try the blip type sound that I hear quite a bit on peoples studio footage. Not sure where to get that or what is called.

[brandondrury]

With Cubase SX3 (and probably others) you can trigger and midi note. I recorded drums a few weeks ago using a woodblock sound off my cheesy Roland XP-10 keyboard. It worked great.

Brandon

[In10city]

The Paris recording software comes with a click sound but after a while it starts to feel like I'm cleaning my ears with an icepick. I've found that if I do some EQ butchering on the click track it makes it easier to listen to while I'm rehearsing (and eventually recording) the songs. I guess we could sample another sound and use for this purpose...

[brandondrury]

The hardest part is getting the headphone mix right. It's usually note easy getting a great mix in the drummers headphones when he's pounding the crap out of a drumset.

So you run into issues with getting the drummer to actually hear his own drums in a way he is used to, getting the click to be audible, getting the click to cut through the mix, and still having enough of the band or background tracks to hear where the drummer is. This is quite a job.

I think they make the default click sounds really abrasive to help them cut through. Drummers do seam to be happiest with isolation headphones of some type. Wagener had a set that was pretty much amazing. I don't remember the brand, but they were around $150.

Here's a great thread on buliding your own isolation headphones cheaply.

Brandon

[snoopy]

I like the clave or wood block sound.........being a drummer type guy. 1/8 note seems be better for fast stuff and keeps you from rushing..........