The Conductor Track

The job of a musical conductor is to literally “conduct” a musical piece or ensemble. The conductor controls the tempo of a composition, indicates meter, gives cues for musical entrances and dynamics, and so on. Digital Performer’s Conductor track takes on the role of conductor and provides a “track” in which tempo, meter, key change, and marker information is stored.

The Conductor track is similar to other tracks in that basic edit commands—such as copying, pasting, and deleting—can be executed, and alternate takes can be created. The Conductor track can also be record-enabled to input tap tempo event information. Unlike other tracks, however, the Conductor track cannot be moved, deleted, looped, or renamed. The Conductor track can be edited in the Event List and other editor windows where it is visible. Here, we are going to discuss two windows specifically: the Event List (shown in Figure 11.1) and the Graphic Editor (shown in Figure 11.2). You can edit Conductor events in both windows, though the method for viewing and modifying event data in each window is very different.