Click-Track/Count In for live

I've used cheap MP3 players for soundscapes/intros. Just select the track you've recorded in a daw etc as a click track and press play.

Or, create a preset in the KPA where the delay is set to 1/4 notes at the right bpm. Quick muted chop on the strings and you'll get the tempo and then start playing. You can then kill the delay if needed.

Buy a cheap metronome and give it to your drummer and let him do the count-in with his sticks .....

( If you're brave enough to trust a drummer )

Cheers and Happy New Year !

Work on your "Back in Black" technique with the drummer.

bit old fashioned here - but as Hoki Toki mentioned above our drummer would tap us in with the sticks.

ps I at giving the drummer a cheap metronome - careful they don't respond with a cheap tuner

To me, the drummer is the timekeeper. He sets the tempo and holds the tempo. We have all dealt with wobbly drummers but that is a wider issue.

I think a drummer providing a click in is the right approach and pro bands ( unless using a click track) all do this. As a listener I prefer that to a messy start.

Quote: “i would like to put a click track on my ears so i play at the correct tempo when i start a song by myself. The problem is that sometimes I start a song too slow or too fast depending on how I'm feeling that day.”

With respect, if would appear that you have no compellingly needful requirement for MIDI controlled tempo establishment.

Such as supportive backing tracks added by technicians at specific points synchronising with live performance, for impressive augmentation.

It also appears that you personally lack genuine confidence in your innate ability to establish the correct tempo, for each and every song performance.

As £160 is too great cost for you to outlay, to provide a technical solution.

Referencing a cheap metronome affording a visual indication or a vibrating indication are two methods you could adopt.

If you are fronting a band, the draw back with the former is that to the audience, a lack of professionalism, will become clearly apparent.

With the latter, your diverted attention and preoccupation with continuing necessary technical adjustments, will have on them a similar effect to watching paint dry.

Thus, handing the responsibility to a reliable drummer who can be equipped with a low-cost metronome to establish timing for the introduction of each song, would appear to be by far the easiest solution.

However, establishing timing is something which I am very familiar with in live performance.

As I have worked primarily as a Musical Director conducting large ensembles of singers and musicians.

Responsible for 150 individuals, plus technical staff in the productions. Which has involved recording live albums in prestigious concert halls.

Thus, establishing the tempo, not only in my own mind, but also in everyone else’s involved in the production, has been a very important part in the role, it is necessary for me to play.

To that end, thoroughly rehearsing that role, until the correct tempo becomes an innate part of ones being, is an essential discipline to cultivate.

Moreover, a methodical plan is necessary to clearly communicate that tempo, in an easy-to-understand manner, to everyone else involved singing or playing, each specific piece of music.

How does one do that?

Please appreciate that any slap dash methodology is neither good enough in my typical situation, or indeed, in any other.

It involves practice, discipline and repeated rehearsal till “ideal tempo” become an automatic association in the mind, imprinted with the memory of the music itself.

Until, tempo is no longer something one “counts” but something one “feels” inside as a part of one’s actual being. It is no less than a complete internalisation of the tempo, ultimately to be externally be heard.

To that end, when one piece finishes and some might be taking a bow, I will be actively engrossed in mentally establishing the tempo for the next piece in my own mind, and extremely discretely communicating that simultaneously to all the singers and musicians.

During rehearsals I will have explained my methods to those involved, and described my discrete method of indicating the tempo of the next piece to them. That during times of applause, thy should take very careful note and using the indications to already establish in their own minds, the tempo for the next piece.

I describe what we are up to like this...

Imagine they are in a huge airport, its so big, they have mechanical walk ways to aid movement.

They are walking along the moving walkway themselves, at a continuous, set pace. Carried along and moving with it, quite effortlessly, as one.

Finally, they will step off the moving walkway conveying them along and continue to move along the motionless ground, at an exact pace they have already, clearly established.

I will typically give two bars of discrete, but clearly conducted introduction, prior to the start of the piece. However, the first note of music performed, is by analogy, the singers and musicians first step off the moving walkway conveying them along (the discrete tempo indications).

Therefore, the first music the audience will hear, is not the onset of a tempo that is beginning to be established. Rather, it is the entirely natural continuation of a set tempo that has been seen, felt and understood for a much more considerable time that anyone in the audience could possibly ever be aware of.

In the singers and musician’s hearts, minds and souls, they have been walking along that moving conveyor for while by now, and the sounding of the first notes of music the audience perceives, is simply their first step off that conveyor, continuing to walk at the steady pace they are already, completely familiar, and at wholly at one with.

Or, you could simply have the drummer do a four count on closed hi-hats.

Quote from paults

Or, you could simply have the drummer do a four count on closed hi-hats.

Or a silent visual count.

I know you wrote you don’t want to have a smart phone on the stage but that would be a very cheap solution, also good for practical/rehearsal.

I use a very nice app called tempo.

Totally agree that the drummer should set and own the song tempo.

It takes years, but you can learn to decouple the adrenalin from your timekeeping. It's like a state of increased consciousness.

Quote from PETERFR

I know you wrote you don’t want to have a smart phone on the stage but that would be a very cheap solution, also good for practical/rehearsal.

I use a very nice app called tempo.

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this is the one I use on silent with a visual pulse . It also does set lists.

Quote from michi333

@Crispy Panther:

Thank you for your detailed illustration.

This is what separates a hobbyist from a professional. And I'm definitely not a pro...

It may be that the wrong impression was created here. It's not that I can't play two bars straight reasonable.

This is more like micro timing. As if you already think "oops, that's a bit fast/slow now" while playing. And then, in my opinion, the drummer would have to counteract something with the tempo.

Or after the gig you talk about it again or listen to the recording later and realize that the song should have been just a tiny bit faster to make it more danceable/interesting (to work better).

If I were a drummer and noticed that during the gig, it would be my part to correct the tempo, right?

Instead, what feels like is a look at the guitarist (me) along the lines of: "Who started the song??! So who messed it up again??!"

I rather have the feeling that he can't pick up the tempo because he's not quite sure himself.

Or as if he wants to be on the safe side because he wants to be considerate of us, which isn't necessary at all because we would naturally (as a matter of course) react to his change in tempo.

Since that doesn't seem to be possible (there have been talks about this already), I didn't want to keep blaming myself and would prefer to

start immediately in the correct song tempo, even if the intro seems a bit too fast to me personally.

Hence the idea of using the click as a count-in for me.

And since I felt the Boss metronome for a simple count-in (with about five or six songs) was too expensive for me, I asked here for a possible alternative.

I always find it remarkable when someone can say "that was 118 bpm now."

Or to be able to determine tones exactly, great!

I'm not a professional musician, I don't have to earn my money with it and I only do it as a hobby.

I'm more of an emotional musician. Make decisions based on gut feeling and reach my goal despite it via detours.

That doesn't mean I'm too lazy to get better. That's why I'm going to force myself to play to a metronome more often at home, paying close attention to my playing style.

I'm quite good at playing after a click, but maybe there's something to be gained by paying even more critical attention to my technique.

I'll definitely try that anyway, thanks!

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Dude, I think you are very sensible and describing a common problem.

The first point to me is to have a drummer who plays with confidence. I would expect a drummer to adjust his drumming if he felt the tempo wasn't right be we all know sometimes its not the case and yes I've been blamed before because I started the song. In some cases I've even had the opposite - I know the drummer is slowing down so I push the pace.

I think you know this but my view is:

1) Don't over think it. Pro bands who even wrote the song often play the song at a different tempo live - adrenaline etc. I watched a song by Slade ( gudbuy t'jane) live last night and it was about 3 times the speed of the original...so even the pro's "mess" it up.

2) Try to get the drummer to feel he can set the pace/own the pace, even if you start it because often we play around the beat as well so we are not always best placed to set tempo's. I think a stick click in is always preferable.

3) Feel is your friend, although is empirically inaccurate.....but feel overrides accuracy. In other words, might be a touch faster than the original BUT as long as you are tight and it feels good, so what! The problem is people when they play faster tend to be less tight....so its not about tempo but tightness for me.

4) A metronome is the only sure way to get it right and might be useful purely for peace of mind.

I loosely categorize drummers by whether I need to be thinking of the tempo or not. With the best ones the music just breathes and we're locked in. For some I'm having to play conductor on stage and pull us back when the rush happens.

I think it is a mistake to think the drummer is the time keeper. Everyone is the time keeper. All good music has a common pulse that every musician must feel and play. Labelling someone the time keeper somehow lessens the responsibility of keeping time. Everyone must keep time and share a common pulse.

For live performance, I am not that concerned about small tempo differences. Not worth worrying about IMO. I find the best method to get it right is to sing the words or melody silently in my head. Then I count off the tempo to the others. My $0.02.

The drummer has the responsibility for setting and keeping the time. The rest of us are responsible for being in the pocket that's been created.

Quote from lbieber

I think it is a mistake to think the drummer is the time keeper. Everyone is the time keeper. All good music has a common pulse that every musician must feel and play. Labelling someone the time keeper somehow lessens the responsibility of keeping time. Everyone must keep time and share a common pulse.

Very well said. I know plenty of great drummers who would be offended to be labelled as (just) the time keeper.

It's not belittling them as "just a timekeeper", it's acknowledging that they are in charge.

Of course we're all part of the whole.