Conductor's Beat Tutorial

First off, I'm pretty computer-saavy and use Linux (read: I'm a big fat geek). I've tried to make this tutorial geared towards a beginning and non-computer-saavy Windows user. Some users will be able to intuitively figure the interface out. For advanced users, see the Advanced Tutorial. Linux users can download the "source" tarball and either use the binary there (i386) or compile from source

Conductor's Beat is released under the GPLv2.

The first step is to download the program. If you're geeky, you can compile it from source. If not, executables are also available. Click the "Download" link on the side and download the appropriate thing from Sourceforge. If you don't have a clue what Sourceforge is, you'll probably want to download the default Windows installer. Install it.

Open up the program. Desktop, Start Menu, wherever. To start a new song, you will need to declare a tempo first. Set your tempo using the spin box and click "update tempo". You can then do all the other operations. The interface should be fairly intuitive. Put your measure info in the spin box and "add measure". If you make a mistake, you can double-click the offending measure or press "edit selection" on the side. This will open up another window where you can make changes to the measure. You can do the same for tempo markings and comments.

If you want to add a ritardando or accelerando, press the "add rit./accel." button next to the tempo button. The tempo change starts the next measure. You can then add all the measures that are a part of the gradual tempo change. When the tempo change is done, you need to specify an ending tempo before you can export the song. If you make a rit./accel, you need to declare a tempo that it stops at! If a passage has a rit. for two or so measures, no marked ending tempo, and an a tempo or other marking, make the ending tempo several beats per minute slower (or faster, depending on the case). Then, change the tempo right back to the previous tempo (in the case of a tempo. So, the information box (the list with all the song's info) would show something like:

Change tempo to 156
Start rit./accel.
2 Measures of 4
Change Tempo to 145
Change Tempo to 156

While it looks a little weird, the "Change Tempo to 145" just means that measures between the start of the rit. and the "Change Tempo to 145" will start at 156, then slow down to 145 by the end. Then, after the rit., it goes back to 156. In short, you need to declare and ending tempo to a rit./accel which says what the ending tempo of that block of measures will be.

You can also add comments using the "Add Comment" button. Comments will be displayed within brackets and do not change the final .wav file at all. These can be used to add rehearsal markings to keep your place in a longer piece of music. The edit and remove buttons work the same way for these.

You can save your file. Note that this is not the same as exporting a song file. Saving the file will save the metronome information in a text file...not make a sound file. This is so you can save a song to edit later using the "open" option in the File menu.

When you are done, it is time to export it to a sound file. The button to do this is at the bottom of the screen. Specify where to save the file and what to call it. Press "Save". When the file is finished being created (may take a little bit depending on size of the song) a message box will pop up informing you. Open up Windows Media Player, WinAmp, iTunes, whatever you use to play .wav's. If you know how, you can then convert that to a smaller .mp3, or better, yet, .ogg.

Advanced Tutorial

Conductor's Beat stores the metronome info in a plain text file. The syntax of this file is described below. (if you want a real-life example, check out the file used to generate the click track for GBHS's 2008 show.

 
	# Here is how to write a metronome file for Conductor's Beatwherever you want. (Program Files, maybe, if you're on Windows).
	# Lines beginning with "#" are comments and are ignored. 
	# There is one instruction per line, comments included. Unlike normal programming languages, you can't have a comment appended
	# to another instruction. Tempo markings, measure declarations, and rit./accel.'s are all instructions that need to be on
	# separate lines. Call it bad programming. I call a need to get it ready and stable before marching season.
	
	# Parenthesis set the tempo in beats per minute:
	# To create a measure, simply put the number of beats in the measure
	# To make multiple measures with the same number of beats, put a space after the first number, followed
	# by the number of measures with that number of beats.
	# If x is the beats per measure, "x" is the same as "x 1" (one measure of x beats)
	# You can change beats per measure and tempos at any time.
	# A tilde (~) signals a gradual tempo change (ie, ritardando, accel.)
	# It must be placed on a line of its own
	# The tempo change will start at the next measure and end at the next tempo change
	
	(136)
	~
	4 4
	2
	4
	3
	(90)
	5 2
	~
	3
	# Start part 2
	(212)
	4 12
	2 2
	7
	
	# In the above sample, the tempo starts at 136 bpm and starts a rit. Four measures of 4/4, a measure of 2/4, 4/4, 3/4.
	# Then, the tempo changes to 90 bpm with 2 measures of 5/4.
	# The next 3/4 measure would start an accel. (albeit somewhat ridiculous) to 212 bpm, 12 of 4/4, 2 of 2/4, then a 7/4

You can then load this file into the program and export it.