I’m doing something different this time around, and it’s a pretty drastic change. I’m using click tracks.

Ok, actually, this isn’t new to me, I’ve done this for years, but Kevin doesn’t generally need them, and doesn’t like using them. As I’ve mentioned before, we would practice the songs to be recorded, then when he felt ready, he’d just play the songs unaccompanied and I’d record him. He did this for the Yes, Mayhem album, both Metroid Metal albums, and the unreleased Life on the Blue Dot album (I really need to finish mixing that), so it’s been standard operating procedure for some time for us.

No more!

Kevin wants to do professional session drumming, and he’s certainly got all the chops to do that, but click tracks are a certainty in that environment – especially if he hasn’t established himself yet. So, we’re doing that as practice for him.

I don’t actually mind the inevitable ebb and flow of the tempo when he’s playing without a click. I think it lends a more live feel to the whole thing, but it can be difficult down the line for other people to track on top of it – especially other people who aren’t used to playing with Kevin. That said, there were a couple of places on the first album where tempo variations made overdubbing very difficult, and I almost had to scrap a song because of it. I worked it out in the end, but I hope to avoid some of that this time around. I’ll probably create a whole host of new problems for myself but c’est la vie.