One thing I’ve been doing lately is practicing more with a metronome, and trying to hold a solid groove. Here’s the basic idea:

• Turn on a metronome or simple drum beat.
• Record along to the beat.
• Play back the recording, listening for whether the timing sounds good or not.

It’s amazing how many imperfections you hear once you record something - a take that felt great while playing can sound jumpy and uneven when played back without the metronome.

This groove came out of one of those metronome practice session - it started with the electric piano part heard at the beginning (iLectric piano recorded into Cubasis), played along to the drum beat (MoDrum, processed a little bit through Turnado). Then I had the idea to add a layer of acoustic piano on top (iGrand piano).

The overall groove isn’t perfect, but I’m mostly happy with it.