building a click track

[andrew graham]

I am a conductor that works in musical theatre and have worked with
many click tracks in the past. Although I have worked with them I
really would'nt know how to construct one on my own. I am now doing a
project where I need to build a click track to provide vocal
sweetening and orchestral sweetening in spots. Is there anyone in
here that could provide me with what I need to buy to accomplish this.
I.E. digital recorder, cakewalk? What is the best program to build a
click on, I have Finale 2004, would this help me at all? Pretty non-
technical so any suggestions would be a big help. Thanks in advance.

Drew

P.S. is this the best group to be posting this in or is there another
group that could provide me with the anwsers I am looking for?

[CK]

> I am a conductor that works in musical theatre and have worked with
> many click tracks in the past. Although I have worked with them I
> really would'nt know how to construct one on my own. I am now doing a
> project where I need to build a click track to provide vocal
> sweetening and orchestral sweetening in spots. Is there anyone in
> here that could provide me with what I need to buy to accomplish this.
> I.E. digital recorder, cakewalk? What is the best program to build a
> click on, I have Finale 2004, would this help me at all? Pretty non-
> technical so any suggestions would be a big help. Thanks in advance.
>
I seem to recall that there was recently an article in Sound On Sound about
this very thing.

[Abyssmal]

On 17 Aug 2003 06:23:02 -0700, andrewgraham@prodigy.net (andrew
graham) wrote:

>I am a conductor that works in musical theatre and have worked with
>many click tracks in the past. Although I have worked with them I
>really would'nt know how to construct one on my own. I am now doing a
>project where I need to build a click track to provide vocal
>sweetening and orchestral sweetening in spots. Is there anyone in
>here that could provide me with what I need to buy to accomplish this.
> I.E. digital recorder, cakewalk? What is the best program to build a
>click on, I have Finale 2004, would this help me at all? Pretty non-
>technical so any suggestions would be a big help. Thanks in advance.
>
>Drew
>
>P.S. is this the best group to be posting this in or is there another
>group that could provide me with the anwsers I am looking for?


Try here at download.com for free / shareware metronomes.
http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=metronome&tg=dl-2001

I use acid pro from Sonic Foundry if I want to put together tempo maps
where the tempo changes multiples times in a song.It is as easy as
creating a midi track,inserting tempo changes in the timeline,
assigning a sound, and rendering to wave file.

Most sequencers such as Cubase, Sonar,Logic audio,etc will allow you
to create midi tracks, assign sounds to the midi notes, and render to
wave.I am not sure if any of these will allow you to change tempo
within a song, though.I use Acid pro for this, since they made it
quicker and easier to do in that particular program.

Finale allows you to import,edit midi files.So you can create a midi
file of 8th notes,16th's, etc, assign them to an output, and record it
to wave.If you cannot change tempo in an arrangement in Finale, you
can render measures at 1 tempo, render more measures at another tempo,
and paste them together in a wave editor.If tempo changes are allowed
in finale within a song, then setting the type of note, assigning to
an output, and recording to wave should be all you need to do.

I find it easier to use a program that allows me to create the entire
song, with tempo changes, and export it entirely, which Acid pro
allows me to do.

[Mike Rivers]

In article <c19f2ffe.0308170523.2db02a88@posting.google.com> andrewgraham@prodigy.net writes:

> I am a conductor that works in musical theatre and have worked with
> many click tracks in the past. Although I have worked with them I
> really would'nt know how to construct one on my own. I am now doing a
> project where I need to build a click track to provide vocal
> sweetening and orchestral sweetening in spots.

How much "building" do you want to do? Will a drum machine work, or
are you looking for something that will allow you to easily match the
tempo of a click to go along with something that's already recorded,
or rehearsed, that will be played live (not following a click)?

Cakewalk used to have a function called "Fit Improv" that allows you
to create a tempo track by tapping a key along with what you're trying
to follow. That should be pretty easy for a conductor to do. I don't
know if they still use that name, but I'll bet they still have the
function. Probably others do too, including Finale which you have.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - (mrivers@d-and-d.com)