Custom click tracks for marching bands, drum corps, and other performing arts groups.

Custom Click Tracks

A custom click track is a computer-generated metronome that follows changes in your music's meter and tempo, including accelerandos and ritardandos. You can play a custom click track with a computer, an audio CD player, or a portable digital audio player. A custom click track audio CD or series of audio files can help you and your group learn, rehearse, practice, and perform your music and moves. Listen to samples.

Formats: Audio CD or audio files

You have probably already divided your music into sections to make it easier to learn, rehearse, practice, and perform. These sections might correspond to marching drill pages or might be designated by letters in your music's score. The click track for each of these sections can be a track on an audio CD, or it can be one of a series of audio files. For either format, you specify the measure and beat at which each section should start. Audio CD tracks play seamlessly from one track to the next. Some audio files can also play with no gaps between them. Please see the details about audio CDs and audio files.

Count-in beats

I move the starting point of each section of your music two measures earlier to give each track or audio file a two-measure count-in. I also add a two-measure count-in to the first track or file.

Click sounds

Click sounds can be clicks, beeps, or other sounds. Beat one of each measure can have a different sound than the remaining beats, or you might want to use only one sound, and perhaps make beat one louder to accent it. You can choose from 23 different sounds. If you need a sound that is not listed, please let me know.

Beat patterns

The default beat pattern is to play a click sound on each beat of the meter. You can add, move,
or remove beats to create your own beat pattern. For example, if your meter is 6/8, you might want
a click on only the first and fourth beats.

Cues

Cues are sounds that you can use as reminders or prompts in your music. They can be on or between beats.
Cue sounds can be made by any General MIDI instrument or General MIDI percussion instrument.

Extra tracks or files with more useful count-in beats

For starting points at which the tempo changes, or the beat value of the time signature changes, I create an additional track or file in which the clicks of the two count-in measures match the upcoming tempo, meter, and beat pattern. Each of these extra tracks plays to the end of the current song. There are a few seconds of silence after the last regular track and after each extra track to give you some time to stop your CD or audio player.

Sample custom click tracks

The following two samples demonstrate some of the features available in a custom click track. The table describes the contents of the sample files, which are the same except for the click sounds and the cue sounds. Each sample file is available in three formats. Links to players are here.

Metronome clicks and square clicks with whistle cues
Windows Media QuickTime Ogg Vorbis

High and low beeps with snare drum cues
Windows Media QuickTime Ogg Vorbis

Bars	Quarter Note Tempos	Description
Sample file contents
	90	8-beat count-in
1-2	90	Meter = 4/4
3		Cue (whistle or snare)
3-4	90-120	Accelerando
5	120
7	144	Subito tempo change
9	120	Meter = 3/4 and Subito tempo change
11		Cue (whistle or snare)
11-13	120-60	Ritardando

More samples

Your custom click track can be made with two sounds, like the sample files above, or with one sound
for all of the beats, like these 23 one-sound sample click tracks. You can use any of these 23 sounds
for your two-sound or one-sound custom click track.

Add a custom click track to a MIDI file

I can add a custom click track to a MIDI file that you export from Finale, Sibelius, or other program that supports MIDI. The resulting audio can be mono or stereo. The music in a stereo file is panned to the left and the clicks are panned to the right. If your player has a balance control, you can vary the volume of the clicks in relation to the music.

Here's a sample stereo MIDI file of "Aragonaise" from the opera Carmen
with a custom click track added to it.
Windows Media QuickTime Ogg Vorbis

Here's what you need to create your Custom Click Track:

Starting measure number and beat of each move or part of the music
that you would like to be a separate audio CD track or audio file.
Measure number and setting for all meter changes.
Measure number and value for all tempo changes. Use Note=BPM format.
Please specify starting and ending measure numbers and beat numbers for gradual changes.
Desired click sounds.
Measure numbers and settings for non-default beat patterns.
Measure number, beat number, and sound for all cues.
Number of seconds to pause between songs.
For MIDI files that contain more than one song,
send the starting and ending measure number and beat of each song.

More information

Use this feedback form to request more information.

All offers and options are subject to change (for the better).