Track Structure: Spotting & Timeline

Within Score, you can perform track-level edits using spotting and timeline controls. In this article, we'll teach you about:

• Spotting Logic
• Timeline Controls
• Timeline Spotting
• Beat Grid
• BPM

 

Spotting Logic:

Score automatically places your intro, climax, and outro spots on phrase downbeats so that your spots fall into naturally musical places. You can move your spots to any downbeat on the timeline. 

Timeline Controls:

In the workspace, the timeline displays basic information about your track and allows you to edit a track’s tempo and spotting points.

 

Timeline Spotting:

Spotting shapes a track’s energy by dictating how many instruments are playing in a given track, making your music more dynamic. Here's a guide to what our spot markers mean:

• Intro: Fewest instruments are playing.
• Climax: All instruments are in, full impact.
• Outro: Fewer instruments than Climax, but more than the Intro.
  
  
  
  
  

 

Beat Grid:

When you edit a spot, the Beat Grid changes, highlighting musically significant beats to help guide you in placing your spots. Here’s how we’ve grouped these beats, in order of musical importance:

• Phrase downbeat: A beat where one musical phrase ends and another begins.  Usually every four measures.
  
• Downbeat: The first beat of a measure. 
  

Tip: For some extra oomph, place an accent on your climax by right-clicking your climax spot and switching the accent to ON.

Tip: To achieve an even level of instrumentation throughout the track, try moving your intro spot to the beginning and your outro spot all the way to the end of your track.

 

BPM:

Auto-BPM:

Amper automatically defaults to auto-BPM mode. This will take your spotting information and automatically find a BPM that lines up with your spots. This is signified by the lightning bolt and double arrows in the BPM display.

When you are in auto-bpm mode, you can change the tempo while perfectly retaining your spotting information. Just click the left/right arrows to nudge the BPM up or down. We’ll take care of lining up the spots.

Note: In order to nail your spots perfectly, we’ll jump the tempo up or down by a few BPM. If you’d like to hit a specific tempo, try using manual BPM mode.

Manual BPM:

In Manual BPM mode, you can enter any specific tempo. Just double click on the BPM indicator and type in a new BPM.

Once you’ve typed in a new BPM, notice the lightning bolt disappears and the double arrows become single arrows.

Now, clicking the arrows will adjust the tempo by a single BPM.  

Note: Each descriptor has a range of tempos that it plays well within. You can offroad, going into uncharted territories, but note the displayed tempo will turn red, and the music might sound strange. Hey, maybe you’ll get some happy accidents!