20.0 Tempo, Click, & Grid

Defining a Song's Tempo and Meter

Mixbus allows simple creation and editing of a musical time/tempo map for each session. The meter and tempo map is controlled with the Meter and Tempo rulers. To show these rulers, right-click in the ruler area underneath the transport buttons and check the boxes for the Meter and Tempo rulers. Alternatively, you can use the View menu to hide/show the rulers.

There are 2 reasons that you might want to set the Meter/Tempo for your song:

1.To record with a "click" or metronome to help maintain consistent time among different performers and parts.

2.To use the Grid to facilitate editing (if the audio follows the tempo map of the song).

By default, Mixbus starts with the tempo set to 120bpm and 4/4 time signature. In many cases, you will use a single tempo for the entire song. In this case you will right-click on the existing markers and set the tempo to the desired tempo and time signature. Right-clicking in the Meter/Tempo rulers allow you to create new Meter or Tempo markers.

%Note: Currently, Meter and Tempo changes can only occur at the beginning of a new measure, so that the beats stay lined up.

￿Tip: Here's an easy way to set the

tempo for a song: record a portion

of the song, and then select one bar with the Range tool. Now click "Tempo->Set Tempo from Edit Range" to set the tempo.

Using the Click

To play click (metronome) sound during playback and recording, enable the "Click" button near the top-right of the edit window. The rate of the click is defined by the session's Tempo and Meter rulers. The sound of the click can be modified from the Preferences Window (see the section on Preferences).

￿Tip: It is common practice to leave some time at the beginning of a

song, rather than starting from the zero indication. Some common choices are 8 measures, 1 minute, 10 minutes, or 1 hour. This allows space at the beginning of the song to add an intro, place a sync click or test tones, or just make editing easier by allowing some unallocated space at the beginning of the track.

Using the Grid

Editing with the "Grid" allows you to make edits perfectly aligned with other events. If the grid is set to musical time (and the audio was recorded to a click) then editing can be done very quickly without zooming in, because you know all edits will happen on a musically-sensible time. Setting the Grid to SMPTE frames will guarantee that all edits happen in sync with the video frames, etc.

%Note: Some DAWs use the term "Snap" instead of "Grid". We use the term "Grid" to refer to the settings, and "snap" to refer to the operation of the Grid on the edit point.

Section 20.0 - Tempo, Click, & Grid

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Mixbus User Guide

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Harrison Labs V2.0.2 manual Tempo, Click, & Grid, Defining a Songs Tempo and Meter, Using the Click, Using the Grid