Hey everyone, So I'm not that much new now since my last post which was the first one here actually I know some of you and I'm glad.

Back to the topic, I have this problem which I hope I can use your great advices again on this one.

I can't play instrument in rhythm. I go off the beat almost all the time.

A. I play my midi keyboard and I have to correct most of the notes places in Ableton.

B. Play the guitar I get out of the rhythm, Go fast and get slow and the result also comes that pauses are not done right too.

C. I play drums and percussions with pads or even clap my hand, I go fast and slow and lose the tempo. Even on metronome, I get better but still not right.

I can't understand the logic in my brain. So set the time between each clap

What can I do to practice and make this problem fade?

 

Use the metronome. Clap to it. Count to it. Your brain will eventually fix a grid for you. There should also be numerous YouTube vids on rhythm n counting. This should work given enough practice. Depending on the complexity of what you want to achieve this can take weeks of work just a heads up. Lastly check you latency in you DAW n make sure it low when ur recording.

 

Just practice with the metronome.

If You know (are aware) of the mistakes You are making, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
It is probably just a matter of time until You develop the necessary connections in Your brain to synchronize Your arms with Your thoughts, and to build a steady timing line in Your brain.

The metronome will help You if You are not a "natural" in this matter.

 

Timing = it's important for all musician's playing any instrument. It could also be said that every part of your body should be able to keep the beat eg. tapping simple soft rhythms on a couple of midi keys, to laying down a solid beat behind a kit to thumbing a mbira to stumming guitar chords fast or slow to playing midi pads with sticks to shaking egg shakers running a pen along a spiral metal notebook. It's all the same just different system of execution. You gotta feel it.

That being said, muscle memory is important to execute properly, so you've gotta 'practice' until your brain notices results in some way. Warming up helps a lot. Or, recording without pre-production and just experimenting for hours does too.

Get a pair of Vic Firth or Promark 5B drumsticks and practice 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 notes as well as in triplet form. Use a metronome ticking off quarter notes. Feel how fast or staccato the stick rebounds.

Take those skills to your midi keyboard and do the same thing (with your fingers), but this time also experiment with the duration of the notes.

It really just takes understanding the concept from many angles, not just 1, and putting in the time to develop your own questions and figure out your own answers to them.

1.) metronome 2.) note durations 3.) mixing things up 4.) doing it for hours 5.) doing it on more than one instrument 6.) get those muscles to memorize 7.) internalize the beat somehow at all times
8.) polyrhythms 9.) rudiments 10.) try tapping your foot while you practice these things too.

If you don't like the word practice, or dedicating precious time to only practice, again, focus on it while you're composing, producing, whatever. You'll get there, and it'll be because of your style and determination.

 

In music classes in elementary and middle school we always had "clap tests".
We would be given rhythmic sheet musics and have to clap out passages of it.
We always counted in our heads "1, e, and, a, 2, e, and, a ..."

This was challenging in two ways because we had to count a steady metronome pace, and then coordinate our hands with it. (kinda like the rub your stomach and pat your head thing). If you practice and eventually nail this, performing to a metronome will be easy because then you're given a pace and just have to follow it.

I did a quick search for "clap tests" and the first couple results were for chlamydia ahaha.

 

I agree with the metronome approach. It works best for me. Another thing I do almost unconsciously now is when I listen to music while I am working on something other than music, I count through it. Sometimes in my mind and sometimes I make my teeth touch (not grind and not hard) at every beat.

Not sure if this is your case, but one thing that used to happen to me, also, is that there were some instruments I played -namely drums and guitar- that would play up with latency. This was due to the fact that I didn't have an audio interface at the time and my computer had no juice in it to process so many plugins at once. So if I had compressors, other instruments, reverb, etc playing at the same time as I was recording, it would come out as a mess. So the guitar would start on time and then be delayed, giving my brain the impression that I was late, so I would try to catch up without realising that I was doing it fine in the first place. If a track then had no data on it, the latency would get better again and it would get even worse. A good audio interface solved that problem. With that being said, if you don't have an audio interface, make sure your tracks are as clear of any effects as possible (bypass effects/mute tracks while you record a new instrument); when you are done, re-activate everything again and see how it sounds.

In any case, this is what happened to me when I first started with this.

Best of luck.

 

Practice. Metronome. An hour a day will keep the drift away.

 

never had this problem, now I know why

 

Exactly. I've never really had this problem either. I have my drum teacher, the metronome and years of practicing to thank for that.

 

The recording with a Daw is not simple even without having tempo problems. As said before by many people, to practise with a metronome is the first goal to reach.
Now, there are many things to consider. Music is not only a matter of tempo and Math. It ask concentration to reach an objective with the rythmic placement even for a good musician. It will be just before the beat, on the beat, right after the beat or somewhere else (the overall process is the Groove.) It's more complicated when some instruments are recorded before the rythmic section. So don't waste your time to correct every single midi note on your DAW, try to learn what your music style is based on and what's your goal. Try to be organized, it will make your life easier

 

From what you say under A. it seems that you already know very well what's wrong, you just have (yet) a hard time playing precisely.

I can only confirm the many great suggestions here: Don't worry too much about timing, just record your playing over and over again and it will improve almost automatically.
This is one of the few things that banging your head against a wall actually helps a lot

A nice little practice you can do almost everywhere to enlighten yourself and people around you is tapping a steady beat both with your foot on the floor and your hand hitting the table at exactly the same time. Making that synchronous and steady took me quite a while!

As you obviously already know how to correct note positions, I guess it's only a matter of "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak":

 

One thing to watch for is the "Trying Too Hard" syndrome. In other words, it is often better just to relax and 'feel' the rhythm rather than over thinking it and constantly trying to predict where the beat lies. Try and switch your thinking brain off as best you can and let your unconscious take over. This does take practice, but over time becomes second nature. When I'm playing along to something now, I rarely am thinking when to play, but let the groove come naturally.

Another pointer - adjusting the relative volumes between your instrument (even if its your hands clapping) and the metronome click or backing track can make a remarkably big difference to how easy it is to stay in time. Have a play with the volumes until you hit upon levels that work. Again this takes time and practice, but when you get there it will be obvious.

Good luck.

 

Practicing to metronomes and click tracks is boring. For a little more inspiration, try making your own drum machine patterns, use repeated or looped samples, or practice along to almost any modern recording. Most recorded music is recorded to a click or MIDI-fied correct. Focus on repetition of patterns, over and over again, redundantly, and then some more. Practice shuffle and swing feels, too. Then a little understanding of clave rhythms after that. Playing in solid time with feeling requires a certain comfort level. You'll get there.

 

Also, with ableton, something weird happens with latency and VST effects.

The more vst effects you have in your project, the more latency you'll have.

If i open a blank project I get my standard 18ms audio interface latency and I can easily go along with the metronome with my midi keyboard.

If i try to play live midi on a heavy project once i got a bunch of effects going on (on any track) it's nearly impossible because i'm getting insane latency. This is supposed to get fixed in Live 9.2 which will come out relatively soon.

So that might be problem too, not just bad timing

 

I also think it might be a latency issue ... if it continues - which sound card and drivers use ..

 

Zero-frag may have a point. Are we talking about your music time keeping abilities, or latency issues between record, playback, monitoring etc.?

 

If it is latency, go to options -> reduced latency when monitoring.

Even with lots of plugins running, I can play in time with that option ticked.

If you don't have an interface with a designated driver, you might want ton consider getting one. Even if you're not super serious about music, there's some pretty decent stuff out there for $150 or less. The Mackie Blackjack and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 come to mind.

 

Hello everyone,

Sorry for being late to reply, As I had a lot going on. Also was out of city for some time.

As already mentioned, I'm so happy being around knowledgeable people like you guys. You are awesome.
I am noting each and every great advices you guys have given. Appreciating it. Thank you

- About the latency issue which got mentioned, I'm talking about my music abilities, But I also don't have an interface.
Using ASIO4ALL driver with laptop soundcard, Can I still have some small latency?

Here is a reason why I don't think the problem is that:

- 2-3 weeks ago, I tried playing guitar with a new singer friend of mine, never did play it before with someone/band etc.
Just a guitar and Amp, I would go off-beat a lot, faster/slower ... Only one time it went very well and that time I didn't 'think' about it that much. Just like you guys said "relaxed", I think that was the reason it worked. It was embarrassing. She said I play good but not in time.

Or... maybe the latency issue has messed with my countings!? because I tried to correct myself and now I'm afraid not to go off-beat. (btw so tired now can't really know if that really makes sense).

 

I found it !!

Guys, I have latency about:

Input 20ms
Output 24ms
==Total: 44 ms ==

I lowered the buffer size in ASIO4ALL and input went down to 9.80 ms. But I get clicks and glitches when playing.
But I can totally play a lot better I can tell. How much latency is considered as OK? I think that might lead to fix my problem.

Can a cheap interface like focusrite scarlet 2 fix this?

 

It depends on your playing skills. Many piano players need a very low latency ~ 7ms but the rest of us can get away with slightly higher. It's basically a trade-off between playability and CPU insensitivity. If you're hearing pops and clicks, it means that your PC can't handle that low a latency so you should ease up a little on the amount. Invest in a better soundcard, that will help a lot in pushing very low figures.