Every drummer on the planet should learn how to play with a metronome. Frankly, every musician on the planet should learn to play with a metronome! If and when you end up in a recording studio, you will most certainly have to record with one! The skill required to play good time and mastering tempo control begin with practicing with a metronome! Practice with different tempos, different grooves, different time signatures. You will not, as some suggest, turn into a clock with no emotion or humanness; quite the contrary, you will “find your groove” within the beats of a metronome. I use a drum machine as a metronome. I have found that the drum machine offers more flexibility in terms of programming in various time signatures, but if you have a DAW, even better! The options within a DAW are limitless and easy to program.
recording studio
Drummers in the Recording Studio
Generally, if you can play well, you should record well; right? Unfortunately, not always! Somehow, as soon as you put a microphone in front of a drum and you lay down a track, you may find what you thought was great may not be so great! Generally, I have found that the best way to record well is to simplify! In the recording studio, less is more!