60 Clock Ticks

I’m writing a song about the passing of time and wanted the sound of a ticking clock in the background. The song’s tempo is 60BPM so that works out well.

I didn’t just want the same tick over and over and over again. If you listen to a quartz clock, every tick is different. Some ticks are louder, some are quieter, some are longer, some are shorter, some are clearer, some are more muffled.

I wanted this same detail in my song.

I listened carefully around the clock to determine where I thought it sounded best. The front of the clock gave a more muffled sound, which sounds more authentic, but the back of the clock gave the clearest sound. I decided to sample the back because I can always make it sound more muffled with EQ.

I grabbed an old quartz wall clock I kept when I cleared out my grandparents’ house and used a Shure SM57 microphone just an inch from the back. I used to have 4 clocks from their house hanging on my wall I had to put them away when I started using the room to record music.

This is my first time making a DecentSampler sample pack.