Very Basic Question - Using as Click for Drummer

[BMKDrums]

Hi All.  I have Set List Maker loaded on iPod touch (and sync'd on iPhone for redundancy in the event that I my iPod touch fails) to use as a basic click track.  I set the duration of the songs to run anywhere from a few seconds as a count in, to well over a minute in order to really lock in the time.  I do not use foot pedals to control the iPod - rather, I touch the screen with a finger in order to start the songs; the clicks have ended by the time I need to get to the next song.

Question is this - is it possible to change a setting so that the next song in the set is automatically displayed on the screen (as opposed to my having to swipe to advance to the next song)?  Swiping does not always work quickly/easily in the heat of the moment.  FYI, the view that I use is the 'Perform' view.

Thanks in advance, Mike

[arlo]

You can use Settings > Automation > Song Completion Actions > Select Next song, but Set List Maker will only know when to select the next song if you know the exact duration you will be playing the song (and set Triggered By to Duration), or you play to a backing track (and set Triggered By to Recording).

Otherwise you will need to trigger the song change somehow. Check out the PercPad here:

http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/support/hardware.html

[BMKDrums]

Arlo, thanks very much for the prompt reply to the question - your instructions worked as described.  Howerver, it has turned into another issue - here is the scenario:

Songs One, Two, Three and Four are all 3 minutes in length; I set the duration of the click to run for 2 minutes in each of the songs; when Song One is over, Song Two pops up (as you described), ready for me to push the 'metronome button' to start the click.  However, an 'internal clock' of some kind begins as soon as Song One's click is over and Song Two (even though I've not pressed the button yet) is now on the clock.  When I press the button for Song Two, the click terminates one minute into the song; Then Song Three is queued, and I don't get to use a click for that song - the 'clock' brings up Song Four in the list.  It appears that the program is looking at the time as cumulative - is there a way for the program to advance to the next screen (per your instructions) but to wait for the countdown until I press the metronome button?

Thanks in advance, Mike 

[arlo]

If you're using the Duration field for a song to determine when the song is finished and the next song is selected, that duration is counted from when the song is selected. I think you're saying that the song is 3 minutes long but you're setting the duration to 2 minutes because you only want the click to last for 2 minutes. In that case, the next song would be selected 1 minute before the current song is actually finished, so yes, the completion timer for the next song would start 1 minute too soon.

In this case you're using the song duration to stop the tempo, which is not how it was designed to be used. You can use it in this way, but you can't simultaneously use it in the way that it was designed to be used, as an indicator of how long a song is actually played for.

The "official" function for what you want to do is the Settings > Tempo & Pitch > Tempo Options > Auto-Stop Time setting. However, this is global for all songs; you can't set a different auto-stop time for each song.

If you need a different auto-stop time for each song, you can do what you're doing above, but then you should select the next song manually when you are ready to start playing it, rather than using the song completion action. If you are manually starting the tempo for each song when you are ready to start playing it, I think you could just as easily manually select the song, and let the app start the tempo for you at that point using a song selection action.

One more option would be to record an automation track for each song that starts the tempo and then stops it after the desired timeout for that song. Then you could set the song durations to the real durations, and use song completion actions to change songs after their real completion time, then start the tempo by starting the automation track, and let the automation track stop the tempo.