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Update: My drummer speeds up during every song. Found an App!

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  • koneguitaristkoneguitarist Frets: 4125
    youtu.be/TowCiqVQMmw

    first track Burning love is my last gig, tempo fairly even throughout, showing drummer can keep time. 
    2nd song Call me the Breeze, starts off slow, but by listening to beginning and jumping forward to end of song tempo changes a lot? whose fault?

    youtu.be/EM-7m6XZdcw
     

    Only listened to the start of the keys solo. The singer seems to have a tempo that makes musical sense on a casual first listen, so I'd suggest the rest listen to him and follow it. He’ll be the one the audience is listening to. The drummer does seem to be pushing, but he might be playing at the right tempo and the singer is dragging the band.

    Good luck when you play that to the whole band! The question for me is what is the tempo you've agreed on. And do people practice their parts at that tempo? 

    From memory, JJ recorded it a bit faster than you're playing it, but I like the slower tempo, myself. 
    Think JJ Cale used a drum machine on his version? one of the early ones.
    We never practised tempo's (actually we never practised) just played it to tempo on whoever starts it. Not always the same person. 
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  • darthed1981darthed1981 Frets: 11670
    I genuinely thought the OP had started a thread about replacing his drummer with an app...
    We have to be so very careful, what we believe in...
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  • JMP220478JMP220478 Frets: 421
    couple of questions based on what I've read so far 

    1. is he consistently playing with tempos on all songs ?  - if not what songs tempos or arrangements does he suffer with and why ? and likewise what makes him play well on others ?  does he like material  he plays well etc  

    2. is it live or at rehearsal too ?  - stage volume monitoring venue adrenaline  if live  only?

    3. have you asked another drummer / mate to step in for a few songs discretely and had improvements?  if yes to former and no to latter then perhaps not just drummer ?  

    4. serious line up or mates band ? attitude is key   p=c x a²      where p=performance c=capability a=attitude ; if hes not taking it seriously then is that his perception of band or just him .. 

    5. Have you any sight of material from his former drumming gigs ?  did he keep time then ?   

    6. have you played well to a drum track in his absence - record and play back to him ? 

    7. is he your mate ; relative of your other half ; brothers best man ; bassists auntie ?  how important is great band vibe vs 100% timing - latter can be worked on ?

    8. do you have great band vibe or  are you looking for reason to move him on ?  is there a personality clash that is influencing others playing and exacerbating timing issue ?

     Whenever I've had lineups that had issues with "musicianship"  - its not always been consistent and some of the above questions in quiet reflection / soul searching could be at root of the "timing" .. 

    good luck  


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  • jpfampsjpfamps Frets: 2723

    Drum fills are one major source of tempo problems. I think the problem is that drummers only practice fills at one tempo, so when they perform a fill it gravitates to that tempo.

    Incidentally I see this a lot with guitar players. They have obviously practiced a solo or lick at a certain tempo and then gravitate to that live. I have been guilty of this in the past.

    Even if you practice with a metronome this can still be a problem if the song is being played at a tempo you haven't practiced the fill / lick at. 

    Practicing at slightly different tempi is very useful, and there is plenty of software out there that can slow down and speed up tracks slightly without changing the pitch if that's how you like to practice rather to a 'nome.






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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited July 2019
    Slightly off-topic, but does anybody know of any VST drum software that automatically speeds up and slows down as you go along?
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • jpfampsjpfamps Frets: 2723
    edited July 2019
    youtu.be/TowCiqVQMmw

    first track Burning love is my last gig, tempo fairly even throughout, showing drummer can keep time. 
    2nd song Call me the Breeze, starts off slow, but by listening to beginning and jumping forward to end of song tempo changes a lot? whose fault?

    youtu.be/EM-7m6XZdcw
     

    Song sped up noticeably when the drummer went to the ride cymbal at around 2.40 on the video. Could be that the keyboard player was rushing too.

    Starts of solos are often a problematic area.
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  • ChéChé Frets: 302
    As a drummer myself I've been guilty of this, it happens to all of us, mainly at gigs when adrenaline and excitement kick in. 
    Practicing (as in the drummer practicing by himself) to a click is of the upmost importance. Hearing a recording of yourself playing back was a major one for me as I could hear exactly where and how I was increasing in tempo. 

    I've always said a good drummer can change your life, they can literally make or break and band and, in Buddy Rich's case, are the band. His advice was if your drummer can't cut it, get one who can. Sad but true. 

    Listen to "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters. Listen to the opening tempo then fast forward to the end of the song where they go back to that groove. Notice a difference? 
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  • Freebird said:
    Slightly off-topic, but does anybody know of any VST drum software that automatically speeds up and slows down as you go along?
    That's more of a DAW feature tbh. Because VST's are at the whim of the clock coming from the DAW. Ableton Live has a plugin that can track a live drummer. It started out as a Max4Live project called BeeKeeper but the final name is totally escaping me right now.

    Bye!

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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    Ché said:
    As a drummer myself I've been guilty of this, it happens to all of us, mainly at gigs when adrenaline and excitement kick in. 
    Practicing (as in the drummer practicing by himself) to a click is of the upmost importance. Hearing a recording of yourself playing back was a major one for me as I could hear exactly where and how I was increasing in tempo. 

    I've always said a good drummer can change your life, they can literally make or break and band and, in Buddy Rich's case, are the band. His advice was if your drummer can't cut it, get one who can. Sad but true. 

    Listen to "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters. Listen to the opening tempo then fast forward to the end of the song where they go back to that groove. Notice a difference? 
    Every great band has a great drummer.
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited July 2019
    Freebird said:
    Slightly off-topic, but does anybody know of any VST drum software that automatically speeds up and slows down as you go along?
    That's more of a DAW feature tbh. Because VST's are at the whim of the clock coming from the DAW. Ableton Live has a plugin that can track a live drummer. It started out as a Max4Live project called BeeKeeper but the final name is totally escaping me right now.
    Is this it?

    https://maxforlive.com/library/device/4917/ru-bees

    Can't VST drum apps offset the main DAW clock like the delay and glitch plugins do? I envisage a graph where you could enter the values or draw in the tempo variations, a bit like what you can do with velocity.
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4027
    That video shows the dangers of too strict an editing job. Not too strict a time keeping....
    100%.
    And there are comments that the video's creator, Rick Beato, made a sloppy job of determining the tempo of Bonham's playing -- and that's exactly what I think has happened here too.  Beato has said the tempo is 170 bpm let's quantise to that.  Well, it wasn't 170 bpm so no wonder the adjusted version sounded off.  You can see this happening as Bonham's original appears to fall behind a 170 click.  No it doesn't!  The click should have been a bit slower. 
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  • Freebird said:
    Freebird said:
    Slightly off-topic, but does anybody know of any VST drum software that automatically speeds up and slows down as you go along?
    That's more of a DAW feature tbh. Because VST's are at the whim of the clock coming from the DAW. Ableton Live has a plugin that can track a live drummer. It started out as a Max4Live project called BeeKeeper but the final name is totally escaping me right now.
    Is this it?

    https://maxforlive.com/library/device/4917/ru-bees

    Can't VST drum apps offset the main DAW clock like the delay and glitch plugins do? I envisage a graph where you could enter the values or draw in the tempo variations, a bit like what you can do with velocity.
    Nah that's not it. I'll have to do some hunting.

    Bye!

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  • Grunfeld said:
    That video shows the dangers of too strict an editing job. Not too strict a time keeping....
    100%.
    And there are comments that the video's creator, Rick Beato, made a sloppy job of determining the tempo of Bonham's playing -- and that's exactly what I think has happened here too.  Beato has said the tempo is 170 bpm let's quantise to that.  Well, it wasn't 170 bpm so no wonder the adjusted version sounded off.  You can see this happening as Bonham's original appears to fall behind a 170 click.  No it doesn't!  The click should have been a bit slower. 
    He did just go off one or two bars as I recall. You'd want to tap the tempo over the whole song to arrive at an average figure, and then edit to that.

    More to the point, many songs that get edited to the grid so to speak, still have tempo changes in them. So tempo isn't really enough information anyway I wouldn't say.

    DAW's like Reason and Ableton allow you to setup groove maps, so you can edit the hell out of your content and then conform it to a groove. This groove doesn't have to be metronomic. It could be that you take 16 bars of Bonham playing and make all of your midi conform to that timing.

    The possibilities are endless. But good time keeping is essential in my view.

    Bye!

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  • TeleMasterTeleMaster Frets: 10103
    edited September 2019
    Clicks for live bands without reason, no. For recordings I would say due to the nature of recording these days, mostly yes. 

    A drummer that speeds up continuously to the point of it being unbearable is like a guitarist that constantly plays the wrong notes. I’d probably be looking for another drummer. 
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  • I found one.  It is an iphone app called LiveBPM and works fantastically well. Shows thr current bpm and a graph trace. This is thr tool I was looking for. 
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  • I found one.  It is an iphone app called LiveBPM and works fantastically well. Shows thr current bpm and a graph trace. This is thr tool I was looking for. 
    So how are you going to introduce this to band ( drummer really )  ? run on ipad screen live ?  
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  • jpfamps said:
    youtu.be/TowCiqVQMmw

    first track Burning love is my last gig, tempo fairly even throughout, showing drummer can keep time. 
    2nd song Call me the Breeze, starts off slow, but by listening to beginning and jumping forward to end of song tempo changes a lot? whose fault?

    youtu.be/EM-7m6XZdcw
     

    Song sped up noticeably when the drummer went to the ride cymbal at around 2.40 on the video. Could be that the keyboard player was rushing too.

    Starts of solos are often a problematic area.
    I’d say the drummer was pushing the tempo in both of those, just playing a fraction ahead of the beat all the time, which then encourages others to speed up as well. Add adrenaline/nerves to that and you have the classic “everything speeds up” thing. 

    The whole feel of that material is in the almost lazy timing, imo, so you want a drummer who sits back into it rather than rushing at any point. But that sort of feel is not something every drummer (Or guitarist, keys player, etc etc) can do well
    The Assumptions - UAE party band for all your rock & soul desires
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  • Handsome_ChrisHandsome_Chris Frets: 4779
    edited November 2021
    @fastonebaz , how are you getting on with this?  Has the app helped to sort out timing issues, and how?
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  • @fastonebaz , how are you getting on with this?  Has the app helped to sort out timing issues, and how?
    @Handsome_Chris well, we ended up getting a different drummer in the end.  And a different band.  And totally different songs.  So in the end it worked out fine :lol: 
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  • @fastonebaz , how are you getting on with this?  Has the app helped to sort out timing issues, and how?
    @Handsome_Chris well, we ended up getting a different drummer in the end.  And a different band.  And totally different songs.  So in the end it worked out fine :lol: 
    @fastonebaz, you are the cure for the blues.  :lol:  
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