"Odd" time signature pulses for click

The resurrected thread (https://community.ardour.org/node/13341) in “How Do I…?” gave me an idea.

It’s common in Balkan folk music and progressive rock to have “odd” time signatures, such as say 7/8 or 13/8, where each bar is subdivided into different groupings of either two or three quavers.

Given the large numbers involved and with quick tempi it’s not practical to count every single quaver in a bar and the click can sound like a machine gun!

It would be really useful if Ardour’s click were able to accentuate the first note of each grouping, or even only play the first note of each grouping, within a bar.

I’ve pasted the idea I typed in the other thread:

Take for example something in 13/8 grouped as 2+2+3+3+3. Hearing all 13 beats each bar might not be desirable, depending on the tempo. The piece I have in mind I feel as two short pulses followed by three long ones: being able to select which of the 13 beats are actually sounded by the click (in this case 1, 3, 5, 8 and 11) would give the correct pulse.

I’ve thought of a way this might be able to work, from a user perspective (I’ve no clue how easy or not it would be to implement). As standard, each tempo marker works as it currently does, each bar is subdivided into x beats of N note value. On the context menu for a tempo marker have an option which pops up a dialogue box (called it “Feel” or “Pulse” or something like that). On the dialogue are x checkboxes, which the click “reads”, playing a click on the ones that are checked and remaining silent on the unchecked ones.

Alternatively, the click could play all subdivisions as it currently does, with the 1 emphasised as it currently is, but the checkboxes could be used to select additional subdivisions for emphasis within each bar, creating the uneven pulse.

Either method would allow every possible pattern of emphasis of beats in a bar in quite a simple to use manner.

Would this be feasible? If so, I’ll submit something to Mantis so it doesn’t get lost.