This year I started implementing some loops and click tracks into our worship sets, and they have been great! I know some of you out there might be thinking, "I like everything to be live and not pre-recorded," which I totally understand, however there are a lot of benefits to playing with a click or a loop!
1. They Keep It All Together!
When you're all playing to a click the band naturally gets tighter! Because there is a constant click throughout the song, the band all moves to the same beat and never changes! This is not as easy as it sounds! Your drummer has to be on his toes because its easy to lose the beat.
2. They Fill In The Gaps!
Loops can fill in the gaps of a song. Right now I have a bass player that has a class and can't play with us for this semester. I moved my rhythm guitarist over to the bass to cover the low end of things, but now the band is not as full. My loop helps me fill in that gap to make the song full again! If you're missing a band member or don't have someone to play a certain instrument loops can help fill the song out and provide more dynamics!
OK so now you're convinced that you're desperately in need of adding loops and clicks into your worship set, (or maybe your just curious enough to give it a try :) and you're wondering how to do it. Well first you must either create the loops / click tracks or buy them. There are quite a few software companies out there that can help you create loops (Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton Live, Reason, ETC). You can also simply buy pre-made loops. One company that I use a lot is Praise Charts. They have a good selection and are very reasonable.
So now that you've created or bought your loops you might be wondering, "How do we play with a click without the congregation actually hearing the click?" Great question! The click track is in the left side of a stereo track and the loop is in the right side. You simply separate them out so that the congregation only hears the right side and not the constant click. Then you send both the right and left signals to the band. There are two ways to send it to the band / drummer!
1. In Ear Monitors!
If you have a in ear monitor system like the Aviom or Hear Back system, simply send both channels to the in ear system and send only the right channel to the mains. Everyone with the in ear system hears everything and the congregation only hears the loop!
2. Buy A Small Mixer!
If you don't have an in ear monitor system that's ok. Buy a small little audio mixer for the drummer. He can control the clicks from a mp3 player or an ipod. Again you will want to separate both the right and left channels from the mp3 player and plug them both into the little mixer. You will send both channels to the headphone out of the mixer so that the drummer hears both channels in his headphones. And send only the right channel to the mains so that only the loop plays for everyone else to hear. The down side of this is that only the drummer hears the click, however he is the beat keeper and this still works great!
All in all I must admit I have enjoyed playing with loops! It has added to our worship and has made our team sound better! Hope this helps.
Serving Him,
Jimmy!
