Click Track

A metronomic “pulse” heard in monitor headsets by the musicians (or conductor in film scoring) during the performance of music. The purpose of a click track is the same as any metronome: to guide the musicians temporally for the sake of timing consistency or some other timing concern. In film scoring this would be to have hits and other cues occur at the proper time in the film. Traditionally click tracks have been recorded to tape (hence the usage of the word “track” in the name), but in modern production this is increasingly rare. Click tracks are quite often generated by computer software (such as MIDI sequencers) and played back in real time through some MIDI sound source. However, in many instances for the sake of convenience, and as a fail-safe method they may also be recorded to the multi-track being used.