Tricks For Your Tracks

NC Piedmont Triad Edition

A Publication of The Community Arts Cafe, Inc.

Tricks for your Tracks is a column for the project studio musician & engineer that offers tips designed to help make your studio a better & more fun place to create music.

Often when working with drum loops, the end result may sound static & mechanical. One way to avoid monotony is to drop in random fills or hits that don't repeat in the loop. This can result in a more natural feel.

Be careful when using the randomize time function. This feature is often applied to make the drum loop sound more human. But it can result in the track sounding sloppy. Instead, try pushing individual drums & cymbals ahead of or behind the beat. Just a small tweak here & there can make a difference. Use the kick drum as the metronome or reference.

Often when tracking songs live, a click track is first put down. The click is simply a metronome track used to keep the players in tempo. When programming this track, use a different pitch to indicate beat number one. A clave is often used, but experiment with other percussion sounds. During recording, set the volume of the click as low as possible but not so low that the musicians have trouble hearing it. If it is too loud, the click can bleed through headphones & onto the instrument tracks. Also, if the piece has large sections of rests, it may be helpful to set aside a vocal track to verbally count the bar numbers.

For questions, comments & inquiries, contact Bil Jenko: biljenko@email.com