Home of independent Mix Engineer, Record Producer & Recording Engineer Christian Cummings
Based on this super fascinating article I found over at MusicMachinery.com, many of my favorite tunes were never recorded to a click. Yet another example of performance trumping perfection. Don’t get me wrong, click tracks have their place, but they should never get in the way of the song’s emotion.
Besides John Bonham and Zep, the article also examines tunes from The Beatles, Weezer and Britney Spears.
It just wasn’t common to use a click track back then, John Bonham had a great feel anyway. Some Zeppelins tracks do drift slightly in and out of perfect time, but it doesn’t take anything away from the quality of the music.
I examined one myself for a tempo matching tutorial in my blog. It’s Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen. It’s no surprize to me that many of these bands almost never used metronomes. But I use the click tracks to lead/help the musician anyway. If they drift a little of the grid, no biggie.