Metronome presets

[Raj G]

I am a piano student and use Cakewalk by Bandlab as a piano VST host for daily practice.

I practice a number of songs with different metronome settings (tempo speed and 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 etc.). I find the process of switching metronome settings cumbersome. Is there a quick way to switch between settings, such as

1. 3/4 120
2. 4/4 108
3. 3/4 140
4. 3/4 90
5. 6/8 90
6. 4/4 140
7. ....

I need about 10 such settings for the typical practice hour and going through all of these manually is a pain.

Thanks.

[scook]

Tempo and time signature are data stored in project and project templates. One could create empty projects or project templates to use as presets or create the variety of tempo and time signatures a measure or two apart in a single project, add markers where the changes occur and move now time into the appropriate measure as needed.

The only other solution I can think of is scripting with a tool like autohotkey.

[Feral State Sound]

3 hours ago, scook said:

Tempo and time signature are data stored in project and project templates. One could create empty projects or project templates to use as presets. It may be faster to load the project/project template files than changing the values in a single project.

The only other solution I can think of is scripting with a tool like autohotkey.

Yeah.. The best solution is to create some project templates. If you are not going to record, then you could make only one template with different measures and tempos highlighted by markers and only selecting and looping the one that you want. Here an example:

Edited December 23, 2018 by Alex H.

[scook]

Looks like we were posted at the same time. It just occurred to me the OP may not be recording and I was updating my post to suggest a single project with multiple tempo and time signatures may be best.

[Feral State Sound]

1 minute ago, scook said:

Looks like we were posted at the same time. It just occurred to me the OP may not be recording and I was updating my post to suggest a single project with multiple tempo and time signatures may be best.

? I didn't see the update.

[Kurre]

I'm still learning but wouldn't the easiest way be to use mix recall?

[Raj G]

Thank you everyone for the responses. Very helpful!

I tried saving different tempos to different projects and then loading each one by one. It loads the piano VST (Embertone Walker 1955 Concert D) each time - and it takes only a few seconds as the files are probably already in memory - but it is still a slow enough.

I do not always record - but I do record sometimes to listen back to the pieces I am practicing to get them better. So, I am not sure looping would work.

I am currently trying out AutoHotKey (thanks for the suggestion!). I think it will work out. In preferences, I  added custom keyboard shortcuts for bringing the meter/key and tempo dialog boxes. Now, I can send those keyboard shortcut from AutoHotKey script to Cakewalk and send the key input. I am still in the process of working it out - but I think this will work.

BTW, Cakewalk by Bandlab is an awesome piece of software - I can't believe such a full-featured software is free. Thanks to Bandlab for making it free!

Thanks.

[scook]

1 minute ago, Raj G said:

I am currently trying out AutoHotKey (thanks for the suggestion!). I think it will work out. In preferences, I  added custom keyboard shortcuts for bringing the meter/key and tempo dialog boxes. Now, I can send those keyboard shortcut from AutoHotKey script to Cakewalk and send the key input. I am still in the process of working it out - but I think this will work.

I usually navigate the menu with autohotkey instead of adding shortcuts to CbB. It seems to be more reliable. Here is an old example of a GUI to switch a time signatures I wrote a few years ago updated for CbB. It may give you some ideas. The script is missing a hot key to bring up the UI and lacks a tempo settings.

Gui, tSig:New
Gui, tSig:Add, Radio, vMyRadio, 4/4
Gui, tSig:Add, Radio, , 6/8
Gui, tSig:Add, Radio, , 7/8
Gui, tSig:Add, Button, w60 default xm,OK
Gui, tSig:Show
Return

tSigButtonOK:
  If Not WinExist("ahk_exe i)Cakewalk.exe")
  {
    MsgBox, 16, Error, Cakewalk not running
    Return
  }
  Gui, tSig:Submit
  Gui, tSig:Cancel
  If myRadio = 1
    Send, !jm{Tab}4{Tab}4{Enter}
  Else if myRadio = 2
    Send, !jm{Tab}6{Tab}8{Enter}
  Else If myRadio = 3
    Send, !jm{Tab}7{Tab}8{Enter}
 
tSigGuiClose:
tSigGuiEscape:
  Gui, tSig:Destroy
  ExitApp

[Raj G]

Thanks scook - I will try out your script.