Click Track Maker (Metronome WAV & MIDI)

What it is for

A click track is a metronome recording that follows a whole song: the count-in, a verse at one tempo, a bridge in 7/8, an outro that slows down. Bands use one to rehearse with a drummer's in-ear click, teachers use one for students who practise at home, and home-recording musicians drop one into a DAW before recording.

The Click Track Maker builds that recording from a short text, the song map: one section per line with bars, meter and tempo. You get a 16-bit mono WAV file and a MIDI file with the same clicks. It is the engine of the metronome in the Tonegrid app (Practice view), so the same song map gives a byte-identical WAV file in the app.

It does not detect the tempo of an existing recording, and it does not add count-in voices or cue announcements.

Worked example

The first example uses this song map with a one-bar count-in and the wood-block sound:

Intro: 4 bars 4/4 at 96
Verse: 8 bars 4/4 at 96
Bridge: 4 bars 7/8 at 168 groups 2+2+3
Outro: 4 bars 4/4 at 96 to 80

The result: "Click track of 21 bars, 0:53 long (53.46 s), with 96 clicks." The section table shows the count-in at 0:00, the intro at 0:03, the verse at 0:13, the bridge at 0:33 and the outro at 0:43, which lasts 0:11 because it slows from 96 to 80 BPM. The 7/8 bridge at 168 counts eighth notes, so each bar lasts 7 × 60/168 = 2.5 s; the groups 2+2+3 put softer accents on eighths 3 and 5.

For a band rehearsal with a 6/8 verse and a triplet chorus, plus random gaps to practise keeping time, enter:

Verse: 16 bars 6/8 at 132 groups 3+3
Chorus: 8 bars 4/4 at 88 sub 3

with Count-in bars 2, Random mute 25 % and the seed band. The track is 1:11 long with 126 clicks; 7 verse bars and 3 chorus bars are muted. The same seed always mutes the same bars, so everyone in the band can download an identical file.

How to read the result

• Length, Bars (count-in included), Clicks (only the ones you hear) and Muted bars.
• The Sections table lists where every section starts, its meter, its tempo (a → b for a gradual change) and its muted bars.
• The WAV download places each click on the sample nearest its exact time, so the clicks never drift. The MIDI file has tempo and time-signature changes and section markers; drag it into a DAW to get a tempo map, or route channel 10 to any drum sound.
• The Song map box shows your map in the tidy form the app understands.

Tips and common mistakes

• The tempo always counts the lower number of the meter. If you think of 6/8 in two dotted-quarter beats at 88, enter 6/8 at 264 (three eighths per beat).
• "to" changes the tempo bar by bar in equal steps; for a sudden change, start a new line.
• Gap click needs both numbers above zero: for example 2 bars with clicks and 2 bars muted.
• "poly 3" in a 2/4 bar gives three against two; in 4/4 it gives four against three.
• Downloads are limited to 8 minutes; split long setlists into one track per song.

FAQ

Why is the MIDI file a few milliseconds off the WAV after several minutes?

MIDI stores tempo in whole microseconds per quarter note. Tempos such as 96 BPM are exact, but odd tempos are rounded, so the two files can drift apart by a few milliseconds over a long song.

Can I hear the accents?

Yes. The first beat of a bar is the highest click, the first beat of each group a little lower and softer, other beats lower still, and subdivisions are quiet.

Is the WAV file free to use?

Yes. The clicks are synthesized by the tool's own code and contain no third-party samples.