Some Terminology

In Click Builder, you start with a show, and that show contains songs which contain the instructions for building a click track.

This image shows part of the main form.  The show is Hairspray (as indicated in the window title).  On the left side is the list of songs in the show, and on the right is the script for building one of the songs.

A Simple Click Track

Here, we're starting with a new show where we've created a song called "#01 Overture".  It's a simple click track with a "3-4" countoff, and 36 measures at a tempo of 126bpm and 4 beats per measure. The first line of the script tells Click Builder to make a countoff that says "3, 4". The next line has a few parts:

  • The "t" in t126 means a tempo of 126bpm
  • The "n" in n36 means the number of measures is 36
  • The "b" in b4 means 4 beats per measure

That's all it takes to map out a simple click track.

A Little More Advanced

Now we've added to the click track above with the following lines:

  • "c90" means a change in tempo to 90bpm from the previous section
  • The "n2" on that line means perform the change over 2 measures
  • "v2" means create a vamp region spanning 2 measures
  • Finally, add 20 more measures at the current tempo of 90bpm and 4 beats per measure

Those simple script commands alone can build nearly all of the click tracks in most shows.

Professional Features

The Professional version adds features most commonly used when automating or interfacing with other departments via MIDI and/or OSC.

This image shows three tabs of a song's automation properties:

  • Measure Maps create text files with timing information for each measure (and optionally beats) in a click track
  • LTC creates linear timecode audio in a variety of SMPTE formats
  • Measure Counting creates a separate audio file with audible counts of measure numbers in a click track