I'm a keyboard player in a party band, and I'd love to be able to use the kind of loop-delay sounds so common on modern processed recordings to fill out the sound. However, I face the immediate problem that it reverses the 'conductor' relationship we have with our drummer: ordinarily, we have no option but to follow his (thankfully very steady) rhythm.
I can get the keyboard reasonably synchronised to the drummer at the start of the song, but inevitably it drifts away after a few bars (the tempo is internally quantised to a whole number of beats per minute, so it's not the drummer's fault!).
The only solutions I can think of are
- resync my keyboard to the drummer every few bars with the 'tap tempo' button, or
- glare sternly at the drummer if he dares to drift away from my tempo (he just smiles and ignores me)
Is there a technique I'm missing to do this? I've seen bands where they do seem to use sounds like this, but I've never been close enough to see exactly how they do it.