Click Track and Gradual Tempo Changes

Ritardandos and accelerandos are very tricky to do with a click track that live players need to record to later. Especially the standard tempo changes that DAW’s offer with a constant slowdown or speedup usually feel very unnatural in “real life situations”.

Invest some time to program these speed changes by hand to give them a logical and musical feel. Most of the time you can even program them in a way that from the absolute length they don’t differ from the “steady artificial rit/accel” (and still hit any hit point afterwards) but still feel more musical.

On the recording, give the musicians a few run throughs of the click track so they get to know what’s happening where. A good idea would also to talk through these things with your conductor beforehand.