Click track plugin for all DAWs · AAX · VST3 · AU

A better click,
in 4/4 and beyond

Downbeats, backbeats and subdivisions each get their own sound and level, whatever the meter. And in odd time it plays the bar the way you group it: tell it 7/8 is 2+3+2 and it accents where the bar actually leans, through every meter change in the session.

Made by Leo Margarit, drummer in Pain of Salvation.

7/8 grouped 2+3+2 — the accents OddClick plays

Why this exists

Your DAW’s click has one idea about a bar

In 7/8 an ordinary click plays seven identical ticks: one accent on the downbeat, then every beat the same. But 2+3+2 and 3+2+2 are two different pieces of music, and it plays them exactly the same way. So you end up counting over the top of the thing that was supposed to be counting for you.

OddClick fixes that by letting you group subdivisions any way you want, globally, per signature or even per individual bar. Type the grouping, or drag across the beats you want held together. From there the possibilities are vast: any tuplet you can imagine (5 over 3, 7 over 4 and so on), a count-in added automatically at a new tempo without importing or exporting anything, and much more.

And it isn’t just for odd meters: even in plain 4/4 it’s a better click than the one built into your DAW, with its own sounds for downbeats, backbeats and subdivisions, subdivisions set beat by beat, swing, and a level for every single hit.

An ordinary click in 7/8. Seven of the same tick, one accent at the top. Nothing tells you where you are.

The same bar, grouped 2+3+2. Downbeat, then an accent starting each group. You can play to it.

A look at it

The interface

The OddClick editor open on a 13/8 bar grouped 3+4+3+2+1, beside a song list of mixed time signatures — A 13/8 bar grouped 3+4+3+2+1, in a song that changes meter constantly

The detached bar editor showing a 13/8 bar grouped 3+4+3+2+1, with individual hits muted, revoiced and set to different volumes — The bar editor, detached — per-hit volumes, per-hit sounds, subdivisions beat by beat

The sound picker showing the built-in click kits — The sound bank — five synthesised, four recorded

The Import panel reporting 58 meter changes imported from a MIDI file, over a song list of 5/8, 7/8, 12/8, 5/16 and 9/16 bars — One MIDI import, 58 meter changes — the whole song at once

The essentials

What you’ll use every day

Grouping you can hear

Type any grouping that adds up — 2+3+2, 3+4+3+2+1, 4+4+4+3 — or drag across the beats you want held together. There’s no menu of supported meters to be limited by: if you can write it as numbers that sum to the bar, it plays. The bar’s first beat comes out strong, the first beat of each group gets an accent, the rest stay ordinary. Grab a group by either edge and drag it wider to take in another beat, or narrower to give one back.

A different sound per role

Nine sounds built in — five synthesised as they play (Classic, Rim, Cowbell 2, Beep, Wood) and four recorded (Cowbell 1, Cowbell 3, Rim 2, Studio Click). Give downbeats one, group accents another, ordinary beats and subdivisions their own. Import your own samples alongside them Pro.

Subdivisions, beat by beat

A step editor for the bar: set subdivisions across the whole bar, or beat by beat where only one of them needs splitting Pro. Mute individual hits, set a hit’s volume by dragging it. The editor detaches into its own window when the plugin frame gets tight.

A whole song, in and out as MIDI

Export a MIDI file from your session and import it: every bar lands in the bar list as confirmed knowledge, so the first pass is right immediately with no meter detection left to get wrong. Drag the click back out as MIDI Pro and drop it on a track — velocities carry the level each hit was actually playing at. Per-signature presets remember each meter’s grouping and sounds; bar overrides cover the one-off irregular bar.

Tempo Equivalents Pro

What tempo, and what should you subdivide to get there?

Two rhythms, two tempos, one identity: the count times the note value on one side has to equal the count times the note value on the other. OddClick ships a calculator for it, because doing it in your head between cues is how mistakes get printed.

The Tempo Equivalents window, set to solve for the matching rhythm, reporting the closest note value with its percentage error and the tempo at which it would be exact — Solving for the rhythm — the closest spelling, how far off it is, and the tempo where it would be exact

Solve for the other tempo

Set both rhythms, type either BPM, and the other side answers. You’re at dotted-quarter = 92 — what tempo in straight quarters keeps the same pulse?

Or solve for the rhythm

You’re at dotted-quarter = 92 and the next cue sits at 118. What do you subdivide to land there? It searches every note value against every dot and tuplet spelling and reports the exact match — or the closest one, how far off it is, and the tempo at which it would be exact.

Double-whole down to 32nd, with dots, double dots, triplets, quintuplets and septuplets — and dots combine with tuplets, because a dotted quintuplet is unusual rather than illegal. Written for click ramps between cues, and for turning a tempo you can feel into a grid you can conduct.

The beat bulb Pro

Something to look at from the drum booth

Counting in your head is fine until you’re four bars into a 13/8 and the click is somewhere behind you. OddClick puts the beat in its own window as a nixie tube — big enough to read across a room, or park on a second screen and forget about.

A brass and walnut nixie tube unit with OddClick engraved on the plate, its tubes lit to read 7 over 8

It counts the way you’d count

Turn Count Pulses on and it shows where each pulse of the grouping lands — 11/8 as 3+3+3+2 reads 1, 4, 7, 10, the figures as they sit in the notation. Turn it off and it counts every notated beat instead.

Or none of that

ADHD Mode swaps the tube for a plain counting number in high contrast — no glow, no glass, no crossfade, nothing moving but the number. It’s there for anyone who finds the photographic display distracting mid-take. The counting behaves identically either way.

Two versions

Lite or Pro

Lite is the complete odd-meter click. Pro adds rhythm inside the beat, MIDI out, count-ins and the tools. Try the full Pro free for 14 days with a trial key from this site, so you can hear the difference in your own sessions before you choose.

Feature	Lite	Pro
Follows your session’s time signatures, in AAX, VST3 and AU	✓	✓
Any grouping, typed or dragged: `2+2+3`, `3+3+3+2`…	✓	✓
Signature presets: set each meter once for the whole song	✓	✓
Bar list and bar editor: change any single bar	✓	✓
Subdivisions per bar, muted hits, a volume for every hit	✓	✓
Downbeat, backbeats and subdivisions, each with its own sound and volume; swing	✓	✓
Nine built-in sounds	✓	✓
A song’s signatures imported from MIDI (or pasted from Logic)	✓	✓
Mix presets, copy and paste between bars	✓	✓
Per-beat subdivisions, for example a triplet on beat 2 only	–	✓
Tuplets across beats, for example five over two or seven over four	–	✓
Count-in before a tempo change, at the new tempo	–	✓
The click exported as MIDI	–	✓
Your own sounds, imported	–	✓
The Beat Bulb	–	✓
The Tempo Tool	–	✓

Mailing-list price: OddClick Pro for €19 (regular price €49, + VAT). Leave your address and your code arrives on launch day.

Specifics

Where it runs

Formats	AAX, VST3, AU
System	macOS · Windows version planned for launch
Status	In development · estimated release fall 2026
Versions	Lite and Pro · compare
Price	Pro €19 for the mailing list · regular €49 + VAT

There’s nothing to buy or download yet. This page exists so I can tell you when there is, at a launch price for the people on the list.

Want to know when it’s ready?

Leave an address and you’ll get one email when OddClick ships, with a code for OddClick Pro at €19 instead of €49. That price is only for people on this list. That’s the whole arrangement.

A better click,in 4/4 and beyond