How do click and Guide tracks work in an Ableton set?
The short answer
A click is a metronome stem the band plays in time with. A Guide is a stem with a voice that calls out the sections, like "verse" or "chorus". In Plan2Live's built-in template, every song gets a Cues group with two tracks, Click and Guide, and your click and Guide stems go there.
The built-in template doesn't make a click. Bring a click stem for each song and it goes on that song's Click track. If a song's folder has no click stem, its Click track stays empty and the set still builds.
Mac only (macOS 14.6 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel) · Ableton Live Standard or Suite
How Plan2Live does it
Name your click file
Put the click stem in the song's folder, named Click, Click Track or Metronome. In Spanish or Portuguese, Claqueta, Clic, Clique or Contagem work too.
Name your Guide file
Put the Guide stem in the song's folder, named Guide, Guide Track, Cues or Guide Vocal (or Guía or Guia). Plan2Live puts it on the song's Guide track and reads its spoken cues to name the section markers.
No Guide in a song's folder? Then that song's sections are spaced evenly instead of following a recording.
What Plan2Live hears in the Guide
- The Guide is read on your Mac. The audio isn't uploaded anywhere, and no microphone is used.
- It puts a named section marker where each spoken cue starts.
- From version 2.8.5, it also listens to the count at the start ("1, 2, 1 2 3 4"). If the count clearly disagrees with the tempo or time signature the song is set to, the song's row says so and offers the change. Nothing changes unless you choose it.
When two files could be the click
A file whose whole name is just the role, like CLICK.wav or 12-GUIDE.wav, wins over files that only mention it. If two files could both be the click, Plan2Live asks you in Review Stem Matches.
In your own template
With a Custom Template (beta), Plan2Live looks for your template's own click and guide tracks and puts your stems there. Its review tells you where each one went.
What it doesn't do
- The built-in template doesn't make a click. If you want a click, bring a click stem.
- A song with no Guide gets evenly spaced sections, not named ones.
- Plan2Live is a Mac app (macOS 14.6 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel).