I hope I’m in the right section but I just wanted to share a small revelation.
I’m putting together some home recordings of cover songs we do in our set. We do them differently from the original version so I thought it worthy of getting it down etc.
Anyway when producing a guide track for us to build our parts from I couldan’ t help notice that the original track by the original artist goes out of time. Obviously as we aren’t in the same room due to Covid restrictions etc we are doing our parts at our homes and I will layer it all up and mix etc. We will have to be spot on the count / click otherwise we’ll be out from each other. Just made me realise that recordings we think are perfect are not necessarily so. I reckon the original band recorded it live in the studio and being human will move in and of time organically. Perfectly natural and we all do it and that’s the great thing about being human thankfully I.e. were not machines. One just can’t be that fluid though when recording this way from home though?
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ive got plenty of tracks here where our drummer recorded his parts in his studio without following a click... none of them stick to a perfect bpm!.
There were a few YouTube vids on the subject recently and I was surprised when a Joe Bonamassa track was featured and found to be bang on the grid...I don't mind JoBo at all...but, considering he can record where he likes with who he likes and the style of music he thrives upon, it seemed like an odd decision.
So the former is still clicked whilst the latter has no interplay.
You should be able to bung a Bpm meter on a track and set the time sig to automate to that count... you can then create a click that follows the variable time sig for everyone to play along with... it’s as easy as pressing the play button...
Like I said, you can build tempo variations into a click track if you're feeling adventurous...but it's still not 'organic'.
import the original into your daw... add a bpm meter to the track and set your time signature track to “touch” and read the output of the meter... you can then create a click that follows that variable time sig...
Bounce the click and send to everyone... they play to the click track not the daws metronome...
but... no bugger listening will notice the effort if it’s just a small variable if that makes sense?
Whatever it is, collaborators have the option of setting their DAW to follow your tempo(s)...you'd have to describe this for them.
Collaborators don't need to map the tempo: they just need to record alongside your track and send the wav file back to you.
Exceptions: MIDI'd keyboards, time-based guitar effects in a collaborator's DAW, etc.
If they really need a click, you can embed that in your guide track or send it out as a separate track.