Does this gizmo (or app) exist? If so what's it called?

[BlueStarfish]

So a metronome, you set the tempo you want, it makes the beat. We've all used one. To use an analogy, let's call that a musical pace car. Or, maybe a musical cruise control.

But what about a musical speedometer? I'm picturing a little box (or app on my iPhone) that I plunk down on my music stand in front of me, and listens to me play and sing, and shows me my tempo in big numbers. Kind of like if I had somebody listening to me play and tap-tempo'ing to the tap feature on a typical metronome app. But, without the somebody.

Does this exist? If so what's it called?

[sinistral]

There are devices called “tempometers” or “reverse metronomes,” but the ones I’m aware of are designed more for drummers/drums and need to detect some type of striking/drum vibration. There’s an iPhone app called Tempi that supposedly does what you’re looking for, but I’m not sure how it works or how accurate it is. I would expect it to still need to detect a beat. Anyway, the thing you’re looking for is called a tempometer or a reverse metronome.

[egordon99]

Logic can absolutely do that after you're done recording.

[musicman1951]

I use Metronome Beats, which has a great speed up feature for practicing technical passages, but I digress. It also lets you tap in a tempo (I suspect others will have the same feature).

It's not quite as slick as what you asked for, but as long as you can tap your foot to your playing speed, keep tapping and then tap the same tempo into the app you will get exceedingly close. Easy to adjust from there.

[Chipotle]

There are lots of after-the-fact solutions. You can record yourself in a DAW and use beat detection software, as egordon99 mentions. Most metronome phone apps have a tap tempo entry... just tap, and it'll tell you what tempo you're tapping. That might work, if you just want to see what your initial tempo is before you start playing.

In real time, it's more difficult, especially with guitar and there isn't always a defined pulse in the playing like a drum (sinistral alludes to this). If you had a reverse metronome, you'd still want to tap your foot and have it pick up that signal, rather than whatever you're playing on guitar.

There are bluetooth "page turn" pedals you can hook up to a phone or tablet... I wonder if there's a way to get one to do the tap tempo in a metronome app? Tap your foot on the switch, and you could see the tempo on the app in your phone. Maybe someone else knows more about what kind of control messages those pedals are sending....

[BlueStarfish]

Thanks for the comments so far.

Some of the suggestions make me realize I wasn’t specific enough. I want something real-time, that I can monitor while I am playing. Not after the fact. I want to know how fast I’m going, not how fast I went.

The words “reverse metronome” and “tempo meter” seem to be what I’m looking for. Very helpful!

So now I know the name of what I want. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any particular tempo meter built for guitarists. “The Google” shows me a couple of devices built for drummers, which are meant to attach to the drum kit in some fashion, but wouldn’t really work for non-drummers. I found devices called RokTempo and Backbeat — both very drum specific, they don’t look like they would easily adapt for guitar players.

The ideal would be something that just listens to me play, but maybe an alternative to try would be if the device required me to tap my foot to deliver a reading. So perhaps some sort of piezo sensor attached to a stomp board or the like. But the display needs to be in front of me where I can see it, not at my feet. Anybody ever see something like this?

[hubcapsc]

I want something real-time

I'm having a hard time imagining how something like that could
work without some latency...

-Mike

[J Patrick]

I’m not understanding why such a device would be useful in a live performance situation….or any situation really….would it be just to satisfy one’s curiosity?….personally I think I would find it a distraction but I do understand the importance of tempo and have found myself occasionally playing either faster or slower than I normally do. Not very often though…..once I start a tune I’m pretty much committed to maintaining tempo and just go with it.

[tbeltrans]

This MIGHT do the trick:

https://reverb.com/item/3536970-rare...racy-indicator

Tony

[BlueStarfish]

Originally Posted by J Patrick

I’m not understanding why such a device would be useful in a live performance situation….or any situation really….would it be just to satisfy one’s curiosity?….personally I think I would find it a distraction but I do understand the importance of tempo and have found myself occasionally playing either faster or slower than I normally do. Not very often though…..once I start a tune I’m pretty much committed to maintaining tempo and just go with it.

My intended use is practice, not performance. Though I suppose if such a device worked really well, it might be useful in recording or performance too? Much less intrusive and rigid than trying to play with a click track.

[BlueStarfish]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

I want something real-time

I'm having a hard time imagining how something like that could
work without some latency...

-Mike

My Concept2 rowing machine has a built in stroke cadence meter. I know it's doing some modest averaging, so the reading it gives me is actually "average of my cadence over the last x seconds." I don't know how many seconds or if the measurement period is adjustable but it's close enough for me. It's pretty responsive.

Similar observation for heart rate monitors and the cadence meter on my running watch. Looking for the same thing for the guitar-playing musician.

Seems like I'm an oddball in wanting this gizmo. Calling all electrical engineer inventors, your market of 1 is waiting!

[OddBod]

Hey BlueStarfish,

I created an account because I have a possible answer - I haven't tested this myself, but I have second-hand knowledge that it works well for people.

I sometimes play the button accordion (I like to live dangerously) and over on the UK forum for that instrument (melodeon.net if I'm allowed to post links) your "oddball" request is quite a common one - playing for folk dance it can be very useful to have an idea how fast you're playing.

People there recommend an app called liveBPM, which picks up sound via your phone mic. If it works for accordion it ought also to work for guitar I hope!

Good luck in your search!

[lar]

Moises automatically detects and displays the bpm of songs you play through it. Not sure it will use the mic to do the same thing while your playing though. You might want to ask them.

[tinnitus]

I used to struggle with a defective drummer who'd slow down during every song we played (4-man rock band). I'd try to catch his attention and get him moving again but he was always staring intently at his left foot on the hi-hat pedal.

His argument was that it was his prerogative to set the tempo for the band since he was, after all, The Drummer.

One week somebody showed up with a gadget that you tap on in time with the music, and it tells you how many BPM you're hearing. Not only did he start everything too slowly, but he drug the tempo down even more, losing another 5-10 bpm before the song was over.

It was clear that he was not interested in fixing the problem (or acknowledging that it even existed). Followed me into a gas station on the way home and seemed ready to fight. We didn't, but that was my final practice with that lost-cause.

This was years ago, and I'm sure the gadgetry has improved since then. Probably a lot cheaper now too. Not a happy anecdote, this. But I find the "reverse metronome" by any name an invaluable and very telling tool.

[BlueStarfish]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far! I frequently use a metronome as part of my practice routine. However, once I turn the metronome off, it’s a lot harder to keep the tempo steady. I’ll often speed up. Especially on a slower song, I might end up 20 BPM higher by the time a song ends. I find it’s hard to keep a steady tempo for 3 or 4 minutes straight, playing all by yourself. I started this thread hoping to find a different practice tool that might help my brain get this dialed in.

Anyways … it seems that the term “BPM Detector” has a little bit of critical mass, that turned up four different apps on the iOS App Store that all claim to do what I want. They are mostly long-abandoned indie apps, but they are there. Thanks for that suggestion!

So far I’ve tried two of the “BPM Detector” apps. Unfortunately they didn’t work well for me. I guess maybe they were written assuming there are drums in the mix? An acoustic guitar boom-chucking or fingerpicking away just confused them. The tempos they showed me had no relationship to the tempo I was playing.

Shoot. Two more to try, we’ll see if I can find a winner. If I find a winner, I’ll post it back here.