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Third sound for metronome?

Started by Mahlon, April 09, 2024, 09:29:12 AM

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Mahlon

Asking this for my drummer. 

We use BH on our Apple iPads onstage, we do not run tracks. We play a lot of synth-based 80's pop and BH manages the CC/PC midi changes for our HX pedals and the keyboard as well as pulling up different drum trigger sounds for the drummer based on what song is selected, so if we play a Prince song, the kick and snare going to FOH are triggering Linn drum samples mixed in as well as changing the electronic kit sounds on his SPDSX. If we are going to a Tom Petty song after that, the drum sound is just his natural shells and no one has to touch anything or fiddle with anything in between songs.  It's all being controlled by bluetooth, which is ingenious, but also introduces some latency.

We use IEM's and our drummer cheats the latency issue by running audio from his iPad directly to a mixer that goes to our main mix that sends his click/tempo from his Bandhelper app on his iPad to our individual IEM monitor mixes.

What he's been doing though has been to set the tempos in our songs at 2/4 and double the time (so a song that's 120bpm runs at 240) because he can't get the different available sounds for the click to work quite right.  We've been fiddling with it for awhile, and this is the best solution we have found thusfar, but what I'm worried about is if the tempo of the song is 150bpm and a tempo of 300bpm is being sent, then the delay or tremolo or whatever effect for whatever song being performed now has to be set to go in half time on all of our other processor pedals and the keyboard.

We will set our effects for dotted 8th or 1/4 or whatever depending on what the song is because many of those 80's songs created on electronic instruments in the 80's were all digitally time-sync'd in the studio and it's just "wrong" if the guitar that is supposed to be a big, wide delay sound is suddenly repeating twice as fast.  This is sent to our devices from our bluetooth MIDI that is controlled by BH on song selection.

My drummer is asking if there is some way we can generate a separate 3rd sound for "subdivision" as well as "click" sound and "downbeat."  Currently, we can have a click sound and a downbeat sound, but in many situations if it is set at 4/4 it has this awful mechanical "click click click BANG click click click BANG" feel in 4/4, so he's been putting into a 2 feel and doubling the time so there are just the 2 alternating sounds every other beat. (So more like: "click, bang, click, bang, click, bang...)

Also there seems to be some kind of bug where the volume of the subdivision just returns to the same volume of the click.  I was hoping we could use that feature and just have the subdivision be a lower volume, but the volume doesn't remain lowered and as soon as you change to the next song, the volume for the click and the subdivision go right back to the same volume, which is another reason we've been having to use 2/4 in double time and not use a subdivision at all.

Thanks in advance.  If this question has already been addressed elsewhere, please provide a link to that thread if possible.  I searched but didn't come up with anything that seemed to address our issues.

Our devices for reference:
Apple iPads
Line 6 HX Stomp/Helix
Roland SPDSX pro (whichever the newest one is, he just updated to the newest one)
Kurzweil PC4 keyboard.
CME Widimasters

arlo

It looks like the Subdivision Volume slider isn't triggering a save needed so then the change doesn't save when you leave that page. I'll put that on my to do list for the next update. Meanwhile, you could change the Subdivision Volume, then turn on Background Flash to trigger the save needed, then turn off Background Flash again, then leave the page. Does that resolve it?

Mahlon

#2
Trying that solution, and for some reason what's happening is I start the song any there is no subdivision (I set it for 8ths) but then I tap the song title to stop the metronome and restart it and the 8th subdivisions magically appears at the reduced volume.  Weird.  Trying to get the quarter note subdivision to work too and that's making no difference at all.

While you are sorting out the volume bug for the next update though, the initial reason I posted was to petition for the ability to choose a separate sound for the subdivision, which might make the metronome function in a more flexible capacity for many other professional (and non-professional) acts as well.

Thanks for getting back to me (us) about this.

arlo

The volume sliders will save correctly in today's app version 2024-04-13.

Mahlon

Just saw that in the release notes for the most recent update.  Thanks.