New, a few early questions

Just coming on board. I play drums and will be working on my recording setup in the coming weeks. I looked through some of the intro material, but didn't yet find answers to these questions:

- Is there typically a click or metronome track hidden somewhere? I found some guitar tracks without drums, and then with drums added, and somehow the drummer started before the guitar. I assume he was aided by a click. In general, it would seem like non-drummers would want to play to a click to keep tempo when laying down bare tracks.

- I searched up a rock track without drums, and there was no drum icon, but when I listened it had some basic drums, probably synthesized. Should I be able to get the temporary drums apart somehow?

- Is there a "preferred" order of adding instruments? For example, it might be that people love getting bare drums tracks to jam over vs. starting with guitar. Is that the case, or is it all over the map?

- Drum specific question: Is it possible to participate here (meaningfully) using only an EAD10, rather than full mics?

Thanks. I look forward to digging in soon.

Hi there Mastiff and welcome to the loops :) Nice to have you with us :) I'll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.
As far as I know there isn't a click or metronome track hidden on this site.

Each template (starter track) is different, so some start with just a guitar, some with bass or drums and so on.

Sometimes tracks are uploaded with instruments not correctly listed but we do try to keep things as organized as possible.

There is no 'preferred' order of adding tracks, although sometimes musicians may ask for specific instruments to be added.
It is much more of an organic process and part of the fun just to see where a track might go :)
As for the drum specific question... I am a singer not a drummer so I'm sure the drummers here might have an answer to that one for you.
In the meantime, have fun !

Hi Mastif, welcome my friend!

Fellow drummer here! Im sure other guys will also add in here, but just a few little comments :-

1 - if you see a track on here, it should have a bpm marker on it, so if you've heard drums come in before a guitar (ive done that a few times as a mini intro) then if a track is say 120bpms, then you should be able to play prior to the start of the track if you set your daw to 120bpms - and so on. One point though, some people on here dont always play to a metronome, and thats ok too if you like to just jam, or have a loose feel to your music, theres no real rules as such.

2 - Drum specific question, you mean using Yamaha EAD10 / Electronic Drums? absolutely fine, a lot of drummers on here use E drums, or drum machines. I use all methods, depending on the track, and / or sound I need for the song

3 - main point - just have lots of fun and enjoy! :)

Thanks for the replies. Regarding click, I guess my question was whether there might be a click "track" that doesn't play normally but that the guitarist used and is contained someplace else that I (as a newbie) don't know how to locate? For example, if there was a click track, would it play when just casually perusing/searching?

I think what you are saying regarding DAW, is that I could pull down the track and manually align my own click to the music, assuming a click was used in the initial take (time isn't wandering). Is that right? I'm not generally a fan of perfectly clicked music, but I could see value when the musicians can't play together and/or the drums aren't the first track.

Regarding EAD10, it's a Yamaha product lots of people seem to like. It's single device that records your acoustic drums and can add some effects such as reverb. The limitation is that you can't directly control the mix, like if the toms are too low for example. I'm tempted to start with it rather than a full recording setup and see how it goes.

Mastiff,

Theres no hidden click track, anyone that has uploaded a track here will have used a click track (if as I mentioned before they wanted to :) ) but then they would have switched off that click or not included it when they bounced the mixed track uploaded here. Some tracks contain data on them such as tempos and markers, which can be imported / exported, but I dont think many do that generally.

Regarding playing to click tracks, thats fine if you prefer not to, plenty of bands record tracks live and it captures that live energy, but however having music in time does have some advantages in that it gives more flexibility in adding say electronic drum beats, quicker editing but also (from a drummers perspective) as a disadvantage it can actually make the other musicians sound out of time, and i've experienced that in a recording studios where my band friends were playing too fast and making me sound out! :D As the great Joe Morello once said "a metronome doesnt make you sound mechanical" :) Dont worry about that though, its just minor details!

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Edited by pconey on August 01 2020 21:24

Hello Mastiff. Welcome to wikiloops.

Most of the time there will be a intro click for the tracks but not always.
I play along to a click track most of the time on my stuff. I always try
to provide a intro click to set the tempo. Sometimes I will use a drum pattern loop for the initial track and then remove the loop from the additional HD upload to accommodate the prospective drummer or programmer.

Have fun. Everyone here is friendly and helpful. I look forward to hearing your works.

Thanks. I pulled down a track I was interested in and it happened to line up perfectly with a click at the specified BPM started right at the start of the track. So this makes it easy. I can create my own click, or even develop a drum part in Guitar Pro and it will lay right where it's supposed to.