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Seriously...does he admit he's doing it and want to change? Just stop the song and start again. And again...
Or you can make a note of the bpm for each track and have a simple drum machine in the PA for reference or chain a pair of phones on and make him play to a click
Check first who he is following and can he hear them, 2nd, watch a video of yourself playing and listen where bassist plays his notes, on before or just after the beat. Who is dominant guy in band?
When we changed from one bassist to the next, despite bassist being far better, the rhythm was a struggle between drummer and bassist. It really upset the balance. Another drummer always slowed down, so we put a monitor with rhythm guitar up loud in the mix, never slowed down again.
I don't think it's the end of the world if the tempo drifts slightly (for example in longer instrumental breaks) as long as it comes together again when it needs to. Depends on the music I guess.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
In one of our new songs our drummer goes from 105bpm to 160bpm for only 4 quarter notes and then back to 150bpm for the rest of the song.
I mapped this out based on about 10 different performances we did in the practice room. He was very consistent.
Consistency is the key. Using a click doesn't imply you never stray from the pulse, or change it altogether. It just implies that you're working on being consistent with your clocking.
It shouldn't be necessary to monitor the tempo on the fly in case of drastic changes. The drummer should know what the hell he is doing so that the rest of the band can follow.
A band shouldn't really be going up on stage to play Mustang Sally or whatever, and constantly starting or ending with different speeds. That just isn't professional. It's sloppy. This is completely different to having known and expected shifts in the time.
A band also shouldn't be held to ransom by it's worst performing member either.
I find musicians who are anti-clicks really aggravating. They love to pretend that if they did use a click, it would ruin their vibe, their jive, their groove, etc... it's bullshit. Complete bullshit. It's just an excuse to avoid work and remain as a sloppy musician.
Fundamentally, I have high expectations for this kind of thing. Musicians get better when they practice to a click.
But it isn't always the drummers job to be the metronome that everyone else plays to. I'm playing songs where the guitar part is the timekeeper and the drummer plays around me - pushing or dragging for musical effect. I also like music where the time ebbs and flows a little according to the mood of the music and the whole band goes with it. They have to listen to each other, mind...
There's more than one way of playing as a band and sounding good.
There's definitely a million ways of playing as a band and sounding dreadful. But one persons dreadful is another persons delight.
It would be difficult to build, I think. I don't know if you've ever compared your vehicle speedo against the sat nav speed when driving/riding. The speedo gives you the actual speed as it changes up and down (but over-reads). The sat nav gives you a more accurate speed over time, because it averages it out as it samples the changing satellite positions. When you accelerate, it's slow to catch up and the same when slowing down. If you cruise at a constant speed, it seems quite accurate. I think you need the same thing and it will have the same problems. What would the software use to assess the bpm? The kick drum? Snare?
Maybe you need another musician to sit in on your sessions and tap a metronome app in time with the band and tell you what they've found. Someone who doesn't need to stay friendly with anyone afterwards!
I'm quite sure that practising with a click is a good thing for drummers - I'm starting to do this myself - but for recording and live it's not a case of "click tracks absolutely make music better". Clearly they'll make the timing more accurate to a predefined bpm, but they also remove an element of flow and connection between players. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.
https://youtu.be/hT4fFolyZYU
he has a little flashing light on his sampler that pulses the tempo...
it sucks all all of the soul and feel out of the track... all of it... we may as well be miming... we can’t stray off of that click... it’s stiff and turgid!...