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No doubt that VC, Dw and jeff have / had great time and more importantly an even better feel. But to say they have/ had perfect metronomic time.........


I use liveBPM app to track my time in real time during rehearsals with my band and tracked some of VC live performances with Sting (oslo '94), jeff's with toto and some other and JR with Rufus too. You can tell when they not playing along a clicktrack rushing fills etc, some songs more than others.

In the latest Batteur issue (french drum magazine) david paich explains that jeff seldomly used a click while on stage with toto. One of the exceptions is Africa..... (Check toto live in paris)

Note: liveBPM is accurate. It's a great tool to become more aware of your time.

Rene wrote:No doubt that VC, Dw and jeff have / had great time and more importantly an even better feel. But to say they have/ had perfect metronomic time.........


I use liveBPM app to track my time in real time during rehearsals with my band and tracked some of VC live performances with Sting (oslo '94), jeff's with toto and some other and JR with Rufus too. You can tell when they not playing along a clicktrack rushing fills etc, some songs more than others.

In the latest Batteur issue (french drum magazine) david paich explains that jeff seldomly used a click while on stage with toto. One of the exceptions is Africa..... (Check toto live in paris)

Note: liveBPM is accurate. It's a great tool to become more aware of your time.

Oh wow, that's even better than the click because you can self-assess your playing without being constrained by the metronome. Will definitely check it out! Thanks!

When I'm practicing with a click I'm working at progressive steps toward nothing... quarter notes, then halves, then whole notes etc.... an overall arc instead if each note's placement. I think i've just given up on trying towards that for now.

I sure would like to see some of the drum heroes analyzed on a grid though. Or even just playing that tempo game that has been floatnig around facebook the past few weeks:
http://www.concerthotels.com/got-rhythm

GoAndPractice wrote: I sure would like to see some of the drum heroes analyzed on a grid though.

Why?

Because learning.

There are different ways to approach playing, some more analytical than others. It would be interesting to me to take different players whose feels are immediately identifiable (Gadd, Dennis, Weckl, Steve Jordan) and look at how they're placing their notes at an almost atomic level. In order to groove you need consistency, so these guys are placing their notes *consistently* in the same place relative to the grid. It's part of the puzzle.

Lucas Ives wrote:these guys are placing their notes *consistently* in the same place relative to the grid.

Do you think they're doing this deliberately, or that they're naturally predisposed to play that way due to various physical and/or psychological factors?

And once you can see where they're placing the notes, how would you use that information? Is it to understand cause and effect, or is it to emulate someone else's "sound"?

I think it's much more effective to analyze your own playing. Not only placement of notes, but relative dynamics between limbs too. I personally have limited experience (until very recently) in seeing waveforms of my playing, but I'm finding it revelatory. I recorded a pop tune a few years back in Simon Phillips' studio, and Simon was engineering. He pointed out something that I had never realized. He noticed that I hit my snare with less velocity when I was also crashing a cymbal with my other hand. And now that I'm recording onto a computer using Sonar, I'm seeing it for myself. So this is something I'm going to work on. Not that it's a bad thing, but I would like to be aware of how I'm hitting things and be more deliberate in my playing.

Paul Marangoni wrote:

Lucas Ives wrote:these guys are placing their notes *consistently* in the same place relative to the grid.

Do you think they're doing this deliberately, or that they're naturally predisposed to play that way due to various physical and/or psychological factors?

Yes. :) I've had conversations with Dennis Chambers about his backbeat placement w/ Parliament, I wanted to get more into the answer he gave in one of his old instructional vids. It was a conscious change he made at the time based on some feedback George Clinton gave him.

For me, it's not about cloning someone else's sound ... it's about learning cause and effect and mapping the qualitative (that groove sounds "fat," or "greasy," or "sloppy") to the quantitative (this instrument is laying back, this one is right on, this one is pushing a little).

As for self-analysis, absolutely. I did some lessons with Tommy Igoe and we spent a bunch of time looking at waveforms the way you described with Simon; super enlightening (see also, humbling).

Thanks guys. Good information about a subjet we all are interested about, even obsessed.

Could some of you elaborate about how to work/use/analize your playing in a computer waveform?

Kepp on the good info !!

Juan Expósito wrote:Thanks guys. Good information about a subjet we all are interested about, even obsessed.

Could some of you elaborate about how to work/use/analize your playing in a computer waveform?

Kepp on the good info !!

If you multitrack record your drums, edit them etc... You will see how things line up(or not) to the click. If you notice your bass drum is consistantly early or late, you may want to be conscious of it when you practice. If it sounds good, then let it be. If not, try nudging the kiks around.

To avoid information overload, a good starting place is just 3 tracks: click, bass drum, and an overhead.