I recently downloaded the Tempo iPhone App for $0.99. It has quite a few features for a little 99 cent app. When you first launch the app you see this screen:

First impression is not that pretty of a UI. Color scheme isn’t my favorite, not soft on the eyes. But they do present you with all the basic functionality you’d expect out of a click generator. You can set your time signature, beat type, volume controls and setting the tempo either through tapping or explicitly setting the BPM. The tapping feature seems a little sensitive, but after a while you can get the tempo average to mellow out and give you a decently accurate setting.

The only other screen available is the settings screen:

The Animate Meter Change is kind of a worthless setting. Just turns off a very brief animation when switching time signatures. Play mode is pretty cool. Overlay mode allows you to play a song from your iTunes library and run the App on top of it. So you can tap out a time to a song in your library. That’s pretty darn handy. Sound set just changes the audio that’s played for the click. Digital is the best sound they have I think. The bummer with the drum kit sound set is they don’t offset high-hat and snare based on the time sig. Both high hat and snare just play together on every beat. That’s not really what you want when using a drum kit click track. Tuner feature is kind of nice, just plays the note tone. Maybe in a pinch it could be handy. Would be much better if it read tones from the mic of course.

The biggest annoyance with the app is stability. You can make it crash every time if you start the click track, then navigate into settings and change some setting. So they have some work to do on bugs. Practically I think the best uses I see for it now is tapping out tempos in your library and having a portable click track for rehearsals and laying down scratch ideas. Here’s the final score based on a 5 point score, 5 being the best and 1 being the worst.

Appearance: 3

Features: 4

Usability: 4

Price: 4

Stability: 2

Overall: 3.4 / 5

Bryan Nelson at Vertical Resonator recently did a post showing how his church actually syncs two live bands in 2 different rooms for their worship service. He leads worship at Topeka Bible Church and is really doing some great creative stuff. The two bands play the same set, at the exact same time in 2 different rooms and are forced to do this due to the bleed through in the rooms they are in. It’s a really awesome and interesting setup. Here’s the full diagram showing the setup.

I created a screencast to show you just how easy it is to create your own click tracks in Garage Band. You might also be interested in my post on an OSX BPM widget that lets you tap out the BPM for songs in your iTunes library. You can click through to the video on Vimeo to see it in HD where you can make out the menu options a bit better.

How to create your own click track in Garage Band from Our Rising Sound on Vimeo.

Why use a click?

I don’t want to assume we all know and appreciate the benefits of a click so I figured I’d start here. A click insures your band plays a song in the correct time and keeps your band in the correct time through the duration of the song. Without using a click it’s very easy to mess up both, either you start the song too slow or fast or you speed up and slow down in the middle of the song. Additionally, now that your band is all synced to perfect time you can use loops or visual effects like a timed lyric presentation.

How do you start using a click?

1. Drummer must get comfortable

If your drummer has never played with a click or metronome before this can be a difficult transition. You’ll quickly discover how good or bad your time is. Some drummers have a great internal clock and are just naturally able to keep great time. Others it takes a lot of practice with a click to stay in time. So first step would be some individual work with the drummer to make sure he’s comfortable and able to play with a click.

2. Monitoring setup

Monitoring requirements will vary greatly depending on factors like if you’re going to use loops, use timed visual effects, use click cued intros, etc… Some bands use in ears for all musicians so they can hear clicks and cues, others only have some players/singers with in ears. Quite simply the goal is to send the click to isolated(in ears or headphone) monitors for whichever players/singers need it and keeping it out of the main house mix so the congregation doesn’t hear it.

At the very minimum the drummer obviously needs the click in their in ears/headphones. The rest of the band would just have to follow the drummer closely and stay on his time because he can’t come off the click. This may be a major adjustment for bands that are used to speeding up(unknowingly) and the drummer typically sped up with them, but that wouldn’t be the case anymore.

For that reason I would strongly suggest the drummer and band leader have the click in their monitor. That will really help stabilize the band time wise. Even in this case you still would have musicians and singers with no click which can get tricky if that musician or singer is performing without any drum/band leader accompaniment. They could easily get off time, so what ends up happening is your drummer has to keep time on stage with the sticks and that just stinks and could ruin the vibe.

So we’re left with the optimal solution which is everyone in the band on in ears, everyone who needs the click has the option to have it sent to their monitor mix. This is the setup my band uses and it’s fantastic. We have quite a few songs where we all come in on 1, vocals and band. We’re able to hit these intros with no problem and without stick hits or other distracting cues. All our cues are isolated from the congregation and we know just where we are in a song.

3. Phase in

Start simply and slowly. Getting comfortable playing to a click takes some time and depending on the skill level of the drummer can take a looong time. Use a click in practice for a while before you start using it live.

Later this week I’ll post on various methods for creating click tracks and playing them live.