Conductor Track
The Conductor track is a special track containing markers, meter, tempo and key change information. It can also contain film cue events. Every sequence and song has a Conductor track; it cannot be deleted. You may use the commands from the Edit menu in the Conductor track to Cut, Paste, Repeat, Shift, and otherwise edit tempo, meter, and key maps, as well as markers. In addition, the Conductor track can be used to directly insert simple tempo, meter, and key changes, as well as to 'record' a tempo map entered in real time using Tap tempo synchronization.
The Conductor Track has two available Event Editing windows: the Event List and the MIDI Editor.
Conductor track basics
The Conductor track automatically appears in the Tracks window for each sequence. The Conductor track cannot be deleted or renamed; it can be moved and given comments like a standard track. The Conductor track has a record-enable button for use with Tap tempo synchronization, described in the "Receive Sync" chapter in the Digital Performer User Guide. The Conductor track cannot be looped.
Opening the Conductor track
The Conductor track Event List and MIDI Editor can be opened in the same fashion as for regular tracks. A song's Conductor track can be opened by choosing Edit Conductor Track from the Song window mini-menu.
Types of Conductor track events
The Conductor track contains the following types of events: Tempo changes, Meter changes, Key changes, Markers, Click Changes, Streamers, Punches and Flutters. These events are not MIDI data; instead, they control or conduct your music's performance during playback. These events can, however, be edited like standard MIDI events, either with the commands on the edit menu or directly in the Conductor track Event List or MIDI Editor. Markers, click changes and film cue events may be edited in the Conductor Track with edit menu commands such as Cut, Copy and Paste.
Key changes
Key change events display the name of the key. User-defined key signatures are displayed as 'Custom'.
Meter changes
Meter change events display the time signature (the number of beats per bar, over the duration value which gets the beat) and the click value, (the duration value between metronome clicks).
Tempo changes
Tempo change events display the duration value for the tempo marking, i.e. the note value of the basic beat, and the tempo value itself, as a certain number of beats per minute. Tempo changes can appear as a single event, indicating an abrupt change in tempo, or as a series of events, approximating a smooth increase or decrease in tempo. In this regard they resemble continuous controller data. Tempo changes can be inserted graphically in the MIDI Editor with the Pencil tool.
Markers
Markers are visible in all Event Editing windows, but in the Conductor track, they can be edited with Edit menu commands such as Cut, Copy and Paste. To add markers, use the Markers window Add Marker mini-menu command.
Click Changes
You can insert click change events in the Conductor track. There are three types of click change events: beat click, tacet click, and pattern click. Together, these click change events give you complete flexibility in programming even the most elaborate click tracks. For example, conductors of film cues can customize the click for each cue in ways that are commonly used on sound stages when recording music for films.
Beat click: A beat click event creates clicks on an even subdivision of the current beat. They are identical to the beat click that is part of a meter change event, except that they are independent of any meter change events. For example, you could insert a meter change event that clicks every quarter note, but then insert a beat click event a few bars later that clicks every eighth note. Changing the beat sub-division of the click in this manner can be useful in a wide variety of situations. For example, clicking on quarter note downbeats might work at a medium tempo, but if the tempo then slows down due to a tempo change, then switching to eighth note clicks might work better. Beat click events allow you to program any click pattern you wish by inserting a new beat click event whenever you wish to change the click.
Tacet click: A tacet click event silences the click until the next (non-tacet) click event in the Conductor track. For example, you might create a countoff in which the last two clicks before the downbeat are silent. Or you may want to create a period of audible click silence in which you then program visual elements in the Conductor track (punches, flutters or streamers) during the silence in order to provide a visual timing reference.
Pattern click: A pattern click is a customized click pattern that you program. Pattern clicks use an editable text code field for programming the pattern. You can easily program and audition different patterns in the Countoff or Click Defaults preferences windows, where you can choose Pattern for the click style and then type in different text codes and listen to the audition of the click to hear what they create. See the Digital Performer User Guide for details about programming the pattern click.
Accenting a click: To accent a click in a pattern click, highlight the number you want to accent in the pattern code text and type Command-B. That makes it bold and red. Bold and red clicks are accented, plain black ones are not. Select an accented click and type Command-B again to remove the accent.
Saving custom click patterns: When you access the click type menu on a click change event, there are additional items at the bottom of the menu that let you create and save click patterns by name using the Save Pattern menu command.
Streamers
A streamer event triggers a streamer independently from a marker. The streamer event shows the streamer icon; click it to change the streamer color. Click the streamer length to choose from among several industry standard lengths. Click the punch size to change it. Click the streamer display destination on the far right to change it.
Punches
A flutter event triggers a flutter independently from a marker. Click the punch icon to change its color. Click the punch size to change it. Click the punch display destination on the far right to change it.
Flutters
A flutter event triggers a flutter independently from a marker. Click the flutter icon to change its color. Control-click the flutter icon to change the number of punches in the flutter. Option-click to change the anchor punch, which corresponds to the exact frame location of the flutter event. Click the flutter size to change it. Click the flutter display destination on the far right to change it.