Home studio log: recording with click tracks and loops

I've started work on the new CD, tentatively titled Humming My Way Back Home. Wrestling with lots of philosophical and pragmatic issues down in my home studio. I'll be posting some thoughts about the process over the coming months, especially for the benefit of other home recording musicians.

First of all, I hate the damn click. That machine sound is, to my ears, so anti-musical and anti-groove... But there are plenty of practical advantages to having a steady time reference in a song, especially for editing. So I'm trying an alternate approach: using percussion loops.

Here's how it's going so far: I set the meter and tempo in Pro Tools, start up a MIDI click, and then record a little minimalist percussion part along with the click--something very basic and unobtrusive that fits behind the whole song. For instance, last night I did a four-bar groove with sticks on a pillow (for a sorta kick drum sound) and a tambourine. This percussion part will obviously be replaced later.... Then I shut off the click and record the basic tracks (guitar, voice, etc.) over the percussion loop.

Advantages? The loop is custom made for the song, and it's a basic groove rather than a mechanical click. And I have a steady tempo/measure reference that'll come in very handy later on.

Disadvantages? I'm still playing to mechanized time rather than letting the tempo breathe...

I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this.

Onward,
JPR