hi there, I'm Simon and welcome to the Roland Australia YouTube channel.
Today I want to cover something that's asked a lot which is, how do I use a click track
on stage if I'm a drummer and how do I integrate that with my playing or backing tracks.
So, I'm going to show today how you would do that with the SPD-SX.
The SPD-SX is perfect because it allows you to play extra sounds samples, expand your
setup but also has a really good way of routing signals just to the headphones on stage so
only the drummer needs to hear it.
So, there are two ways to use a metronome with the SPD-SX.
The first way is to use the built-in click and the second way is to import your own click,
your own sample onto a pad and then have it triggered when you hit the pad.
So the first way I'm going to show you is using the internal click.
Ok, so in my first patch here I have a backing track that I've loaded onto pad number one.
This has some percussion and drums for me to play along too but has the vocal switched
off so I can sing along to it.
So it's like a karaoke mix that I've got loaded into the SPD-SX.
Now often on stage when it's very busy and noisy you can't hear where the downbeat is
very easily so that's why I'm using the click that's built-in to this.
Now, only I need to hear it on stage, I don't want the audience to hear it so I have it
routed to my headphones and I have a start and stop button so I can start the click going.
I have a volume level for the click then all I have to do now is hit the pad when I want
it to start playing the backing track.So here we go.Ok and as long as I hit it on the downbeat,
it will play perfectly in time with the metronome.
I know what the tempo of the track is and the I can put the tempo into the metronome
so it plays perfectly in time.
The advantage of that is that obviously I have volume control for it and the start and
stop.
The disadvantage is that I have to hit the backing track perfectly in time in order for
it to play in time for the whole track.
So that's if you know the tempo of the track and you want to use the built-in click.
The second method, which I'm going to use a different track to show you.
This one, I'm not using the built-in click.
I've actually exported my own sample of the metronome which I've exported out of my sequencing
program and I've put it onto pad number two.
And I have pad one, my backing track 'pad-linked' to pad number two so when I hit pad number
one for my backing track it starts the click at the same time.
So let's see how that works.
So there you go.
You can see my backing track starting here.
There's nothing at the start so that I hear the click first and then the backing track.
These are linked together.
The way you link the pads, If I go into the menu here I have in the kit settings on the
output page I have routing.
So I can route the first pad here just out of the main outs and my second pad here I
can route it just to my headphones which is a really cool thing.
The other thing I want to do is link them so that they start together and that's using
the pad link function on the common page of the kit settings.
I can just go down there and I can link pad number one to pad number two.
I can do that for any of my pads on the SPD-SX.
The advantage of using this second method is that they will always play perfectly in
time with each other.
The disadvantage is that you don't have a volume knob for it on the front panel that
you can adjust your click level of.
So, you can adjust it's level but you need to do it inside the settings of the SPD-SX.
The benefit of the first method with the click on the front panel is obviously that I have
separate control over it and can start and stop it any time I like but the disadvantage
is I have to hit the sample perfectly in time with the down beat in order for it to play
in time.
So there are the two ways of using the SPD-SX with a click track on stage or in the studio.
Check out the blog via the link at the bottom of the video which will give you a lot more
details on how to set this up for your own music.
Thanks for watching!