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Visual Metronome


gomiboy99
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I have added a wiki page here with much more detail. The code will be available soon.

Hi All,

I thought I would share a little project of mine.

At a recent show, there was a problem with the monitors leaving the rest of the band unable to hear the beat. We normally use a click track but it was not possible at this show. This lead me to come up with this design for a visual metronome so the others know where we are in the bar.

It uses the Midio128 running on a core8 that I had to hand. The external LED driver uses a CMOS decade counter to count 1 to 4 (auto reset at 5th count or response to a preset midi event). There is an OR gate to handle the reset lines.

The Midio128 is setup to respond to the metronome output of my SeqV4, this outputs C4 for the first beat and C3 for the rest of the bar. The decade counter is reset when a C4 is received, D2 on the DOUT goes high. This means that this device will always reset when the first beat of the bar is received regardless of time signature. Programming the events is easy using MIOS Studio.

Here is a quick video of it in action:

Maybe this will be of use to others?

Tim.

Edited by gomiboy99
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Kopla cool. I have no questions about using click track at gigs myself, as this would open up the possibilities of using different electronic music stuff like sequences and other cool stuff. Unfortunately the people I usually play with have no experience and training in counting when playing, even the lead singer and guitarist just shake their head when u speak musical theory like bars and stuff with them, wich left me to just give up on the whole thing. They are great at playing what they do, but if they have to count, u need to come up with custom methods of explaining how to do it to make em understand. Kinda frustrating for a keys player like myself who wants to use tempo synced sequences. That is impossible with them. In my younger days I used to play in a hi end brassband, lots of competitions and stuff wich we won a lot hehe, so I have a loads of training in playing, counting and listening and adapting to 15 musicians around me.

So this might be a great idea for many people, both, people who unconsciously just count automatically, and for people like my friends in the band who doesn't feel it. With this they can see it ;-).

I'm no big builder yet, have many midibox projects going but none finished up yet. But can your box be used standalone? Without a seq? I would like to build one, but I don't have any plans for a mbseq. I realize it is not very usefull if u don't sync it to an external source wich also control whatever u want to sync to the rest of the band, but it would be usefull even for gigs with no electronic music involved too. A metronome with such visible abilities could be used for everything from deciding start tempo for a song and show it to the whole band without audible click track, to count training for my buddies. The usual one-led handheld metronome won't cut it on stage if u need everyone to know what tempo u are at. Maybe a drummer could control it.

The control surface is easy enough to design and build, but the programming I wouldn't know where to start with....

Any of this sound like a good idea? If this cam be realized - with both midi sync wich sounds simple enough - can use whatever midi track to control it, either it is a mbseq or cubase track - and also as a standalone metronome. Would require to write a program for it...

This sounds in my ears somehow exciting hehe, and I would like to have a solution for that, but have no idea how to program it...

Would also be cool to be able to store many songs on a bankstick - just find it in the menu with a encoder, and hit start. And midi sync can be used for more complex stuff, with songs changing beats etc. Jordan rudess comes to mind hehe.

Somehow messy post, but scattered in here is a wish list for features I would like to have if this box was mine. If someone, or you program, I would gladly help design the physical parts of the box ;-).

By the way, is it all in that box seen on the video? How is the possibilities for breaking out the visual indicators from the control circuitry? I'm thinking that maybe the LEDs could be placed somewhere everyone see them, and that for example the drummer can have the controls at his spot... Of course it is not a problem when it is midi synced only... Then u can place the whole thing whereever u want...

Maybe it could be built with a midio app like yours, and a specialized metronome app running on another core, much like what you have now... But the control surface and program should be made in my case specifically as a metronome with capabilities like song / part / scene select, also tap tempo function and beat type selection. Maybe a kind of radio button style selection for the most normal beat types.

Would be an awesome thing to have...

Our biggest problem has always been a sloppy drummer who just put his finger in the air to feel the tempo before he starts or show the other people the tempo. So songs end up often with too great difference in tempo each time we play em, and usually too fast, wich makes the vocalists complain, and also gives the bass guitarist a hard time following bass riffs that are fast to begin with hehe.

A metronome with memory for songs and a visual indication that everyone can see would solve a lot of these common problems!

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Hi,

glad you like the idea.

The box as presented is just a midio128 running on a Core8. It responds to note on events on the midi in. This suits my needs at the moment.

The outputs of the midio128 drive the clock and reset lines of the decade counter which in turn drive the transistors to turn on or off the LEDS. The case contains a stripboard with the LEDs on, a smaller stripboard with the logic and DOUTx1 on it and the Core8.

As I use the Seq4 for the metronome and midi clock, this seemed like a good way to turn the click into a visual indication of the beat. But any midi metronome would do, the note on events are programmed into the core using MIOS Studio.

The schematic shows JP3 which is the input of the display board, this is connected to the transistor switches which could be used to drive anything (within the rating of the transistor).

Right to left is Core, logic board and display. The blue LEDs are just connected from +5v to 0v with a series resistor, I did this to give an additional visual reference when deciding which beat the click is on.

As far as stand alone use is concerned, there is no built-in metronome, I guess a cut-down or customised sequencer could be used. I did look around ucapps.de for a suitable solution before I came up with this idea, perhaps I will look into designing a standalone version which also has the midi function built in.

Watch this space;)

Tim.

Edited by gomiboy99
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a little update.

I have been working on a new standalone version using a single PIC core. It is not quite ready to publish but should not be too long now.

C code is actually easier to get to grips with than I had imagined. I think I still prefer PIC assembler though ;)

Parts are standard. Using an HD44780 LCD, DINx1, DOUTx2 and a PIC18F4685 CORE8. The exception is the custom LED display as shown in the schematic after JP3.

The features are fairly basic at the moment but it should be perfectly usable. I think less is sometimes more when it comes down to ease of use.

  • BPM selectable from 48 to 255
  • 2,3,4,5,6,7 or 8 beats to a bar
  • midi metronome (click) output any channel 1 to 16, selectable on or off
  • editable midi notes for the metronome output
  • midi clock master, selectable on or off
  • drive for 1 to 8 LEDs for the visual display
  • 2x20 LCD, 3 buttons and 1 encoder on the control surface, plus LEDs for the various functions


    My wish list would add

    • midi clock slave mode
    • midi thru mode

    I may add an audible metronome in there as well if I can do it easily.

    Tim.

Edited by gomiboy99
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

After a year of other distractions, I have finally updated the VM project to version 0_2.

 

 

Changelog:
 updated menu to add store, recall and format functions for eeprom
 added eeprom routines to store 32 presets
 DIN pin assignments corrected to conform with documentation
 
I discovered a small error in main.c with the set-up of the LEDs on power-up. This is now corrected.
 
Please note that pre-compiled hex files are in the downloadable zip file. I have tested the PIC18F4685 version but the PIC18F452 is untested as I don't have a spare chip at the moment.
 
 
 
Edited by gomiboy99
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  • 2 weeks later...

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