To click or not to click?

There's probably no right or wrong answer to this but do you like to record to a click or not?

We tried to do this as a band in the studio last weekend because we'd already recorded a home demo with programmed drums and were keen to keep it as close as possible. Sadly it didn't work and we just ended up recording it to the drummer's natural rhythm. Bit worried this'll make the recording sound a bit amateurish or that it'll stifle opportunity to add effects or work with the parts in post-production.

Thoughts?

Depends on the music and the groove you are trying to establish.

If your goal is to sound less amateurish, though, a click track probably won't help.

IMO playing well with a click track is just as hard or harder than playing without one, so it really has more to do with how straight/steady/even you want the tempo to be than sounding more professional.

If you want to sound more professional, practice more. No way around that.

learning to play to a click is a discipline and involves more thought than people, umm, think. but once you learn to do it it's a useful discipline. I had one producer explain how you're not really playing to the click -- it's there as a reference, you're in a sense telling the click where it is or isn't useful -- this is kinda Rick Rubin zen level stuff but when you think of the click as something you're in conversation with rather than just obeying, it opens up the way you hear it in a useful way in my experience

that's... an interesting take on it if i've ever heard one.
i guess one of the main reasons i've heard for not playing (other than it's sort of easier to play to one's own tempo) is that playing to a click can feel limiting and can potentially flatten out the drummer's natural character.

It all depends on what you're going for. So much music is programmed and quantized these days that if your band is based around a human drummer, then I say embrace that and don't worry about the click. If he has terrible time, he probably won't feel comfortable playing to it anyway, so hopefully the excitement of non-perfect time will work as a positive (btw rushing is better than dragging for rock music).

But it also seems like you've had a lot of problems with this dude so maybe you should just fire him. :)

Personally I love playing to a click, it's relaxing because I don't have to think "Am I speeding up/slowing down? What was the original tempo again?" It took awhile to get used to it though. Also it's crazy how relative the perception of time is, like how the chord changes on a chorus can make you want to rush, same for the tiny adrenaline rush of playing a fill. A click definitely makes you aware of that sort of thing.

you're not really playing to the click -- it's there as a reference, you're in a sense telling the click where it is or isn't useful

isn't that just obvious? I mean, it is to me.

Yeah, it definitely depends on what you want. I can imagine dl's band wanting quite a strict/tight rhythmic thing from what I've heard, so I would say it would be worth getting used to if you can.

isn't that just obvious? I mean, it is to me.

generally no! people take the click as a conductor -- it's not that, though. you work with it / around it. it's not telling you what to do; it's just showing you the playfield. "you control the click" is the way the producer in question put it, it was a pretty big revelation to me

I vote yes