Metronome for drummers live?

[l0vemetal]

Hey guys, any help on this topic would be immensely appreciated.

A few buddies and I have been writing and recording some music for a while, and we'd like to start playing shows. This is all fine and dandy and great, we're all experienced musicians from other bands doing this in our free time, except we've never encountered this situation before: a lot of our stuff includes programmed strings, choir, synths, etc, and we'd like to have our shows "pre-set-up" so to speak.

Does anyone out there have any experience with keeping the drummer in time with pre-programmed synths live? It would sound pretty fucking stupid for us to be so out of sync with the synths that we're halfway through a song and then the beginning for the next song comes blaring in over the PA.

How do drummers like Gene Hoglan (particularly in Dethklok), Jukka (Nightwish), etc keep in time with the PA and cue the band in at the right moment? It seems confusing to have pre-programmed parts running through the PA with no clicks and a different monitor with the same parts in the drummer's ear with clicks.

[Back-From-Purgatory]

I've played live with drummers before with pre-recorded strings/synths and such (No one to play them live... cause I was doing everything but the drums... well... I wrote the drums too, just had someone else play them)... But the way I did it was to always have something playing throughout the song, however subtle, just so that you have something to reference to.

It's not really a perfect solution, because that means you kinda have to build the song around this issue. But it worked for me because I can only play 1 guitar part at a time, so I would stay in sync because I had pre-recorded the rhythm and bass guitars.

You could use an in ear monitor with clicks I'd imagine, but how you'd set that up properly is beyond me, I've never actually used any kind of monitor.

[l0vemetal]

I've considered doing something like that, except I think for the songs with synth I'd just add in a pre-programmed intro (something along the lines of this), but that might take away since it's not really our "style" so to speak. Oh well... if I wind up finding any information I'll try to post something here in case someone's curious in the future.

[SRT-M1tch]

The most common way live shows (that require the drummer to synchronize to something rather than the other way around) are done by feeding the band members "monitor mixes" through their in-ears or wedge speakers that face them. These monitor mixes are tailored to each member of the band and take into account click for the drummer.

For your situation, you would either have to feed the drummer a click track from the same source as the pre-recorded parts OR manually trigger the parts by section to be in time with the drums (like a drum pad or MIDI controller). Those are pretty much your only options.

[Breed]

At 5/23/14 12:04 AM, SRT-M1tch wrote: The most common way live shows (that require the drummer to synchronize to something rather than the other way around) are done by feeding the band members "monitor mixes" through their in-ears or wedge speakers that face them. These monitor mixes are tailored to each member of the band and take into account click for the drummer.

For your situation, you would either have to feed the drummer a click track from the same source as the pre-recorded parts OR manually trigger the parts by section to be in time with the drums (like a drum pad or MIDI controller). Those are pretty much your only options.

Yay I agree with you in this thread.

To add, the method you chose to integrate a click track is largely based on the hardware used for the synths/backup music. If its a computer, consider using an interface with multiple outs so you can asign a seperate click track. If its hardware based, youll need to either physically or manually sync it with a click (be that hitting two buttons at the same time which requires some practice, or using CV/MIDI data to sync two devices. This way you have two channels or two sets of channels on your mixer to assign accordingly. A main mix, and a monitor mix. In a nicer set up each member has their own mix through a monitor distribution system of some sort, but in a typical smaller band set up, you may only have 1 or 2 assignable group outs or monitor outs so you may have to share the click with the band on some wedges or in their in-ears, just make sure it isnt audible in your front of house sound; If it IS clearly audible in front of house, then your drummer either needs his own mix or he needs to learn to play along with a click track. You shouldnt ever be completely out of sync with a backing track if you guys can all hear it. That of course entails acquiring some chops though.