How to make an audio track of a click track?

[jnewell1]

Hi, I need to produce an audio click track for a performer to record her part in a work of mine. The mp3 file will include the click track and also the virtual instruments that I'm using in the piece (for background to help him know what else is going on). How do I "bounce" or "freeze" the click track to an audio track and then bounce to an mp3?

Thanks! John Newell

[HCMarkus]

I route click to an Aux, so I can grab a fader on the mixer and adjust level without going into preferences. This also allows me to use pre-fader sends to route different click levels to different monitor mixes. You can set this up in Click Preferences, then if you need to record, just route the aux out to the input of a record enabled audio track.

[stubbsonic]

If you don't mind doing realtime bounces, you can route your VI's and click to a stereo bus pair and add a stereo track for the reference mix with that bus as the input.

I don't use bounce that much, but I know it is quicker. I always catch little things I want to tweak when I bounce in realtime.

[Phil O]

I'm with stubbsonic on this. In fact, I take it one step further. I don't use DP's click feature any more. I set up a loop on a MIDI track and use Model 12 to generate a click. It's easily customizable and I've found that most performers do better with something more akin to a drum track than with a simple click. Sometimes it's just a closed HH hitting quarters, but many players like to hear more of a groove. Model 12 and Drum Editor make this fast and easy. I also rarely use BTD. For most song work a real time bounce is my go-to method.

Phil

[Dwetmaster]

I find the fastest way to make a click track is to:
1- import the click sample on an audio track.
2- Make a "one beat" time selection and use the "Repeat" command at will to make it last your whole track.
3- "Merge Soundbites" to make it a single file.

That's 3 simples steps. About 20 seconds to do... You can even put it in a clipping BEFORE you merge it, then you're only a Drag away from your click track all the time...

[jnewell1]

Thanks for the reply! I got it done.

John

I route click to an Aux, so I can grab a fader on the mixer and adjust level without going into preferences. This also allows me to use pre-fader sends to route different click levels to different monitor mixes. You can set this up in Click Preferences, then if you need to record, just route the aux out to the input of a record enabled audio track.

[stubbsonic]

[EDIT: OP posted victory message as I was typing this, but I'll just leave all this for others who may find it useful.]

Although this is veering a little off-topic...

I'm with Phil O and others about always being clever and/or musical about the rhythmic reference track. Sometimes, a well-placed shaker*, or 808 groove can put a performer in the pocket much more naturally than a click. And being able to set when the click stops or even gets quieter (during breaks) is nice so you don't have headphone bleed on your vocal track.

[* I've found that sometimes shaker or cabasa samples will feel/sound a little late because the peak part of the sound is not the beginning. So I might slide the MIDI notes of the shaker a little early so they peak on the grid. -- depends on the situation, of course.]

All that said, DP has magnificent click programming capabilities, from letting you choose custom sounds (I have loaded a bunch of my favorite click sounds into that folder), to allowing you to customize the pattern of clicks from the conductor menu. They are different approaches. But that is DP in a nutshell, "Lots of different approaches to your work."

But back to the original question. If you want to just use DP's built in metronome to add to your bounce, you can also open the click preferences and set the output of the click to the same output that your bounce is based on. I think it will just add click to your bounce just like that. And with the non-realtime version, you can assign the click to the same stereo bus as the input of your ref mix track.