I have always wanted a digital metronome that I can use anywhere. Faizan Bhat has just released Beats – a metronome app for the iPhone – designed for use by novices as well as pro musicians.
How it works
You start off by simply tapping on the screen. The app records the frequency of your taps and calculates a tempo. You can then press the playback button to start the metronome. Restarting the tempo calculation is as simple as tapping on the tempo label in the bottom right corner of the screen. Double tapping the label reveals a number-keyboard which lets you manually enter a tempo.
The app lets you adjust time signatures using a sweet visual interface that makes it really easy for users with no musical background to customize the beats.
Beats lets you compose your favorite beats, with 31 different quality sounds to choose from. Some of the sounds included in this app are
- Tick
- Tock
- Bass Drum
- Boink 1 to 6
- Bongo 1 to 3
- Chime 1 to 3
- Cymbals 1 to 3
- Dance 1 to 4
- Finger Snap
- Glass
- Muted Cymbals 1 & 2
- Pop 1 to 3
- Shaker 1 & 2
- Tap
Finally, the app includes various UI customization options such as the ability to choose your own backgrounds and modify the colours.
Version 1.0 Features
- Custom-built sound engine
- Time and tap accuracy
- Beautiful and intuitive user interface.
- Visual time signature customization.
- 31 sounds (including shakers, cymbals, drum beats and chimes) so that you can create the beats you want!
- Tap-anywhere for tempo accurate tempo calculation (Tap tempo label to reset, double tap tempo label for manual tempo entry)
Upcoming features
- A shake to display Set list interface
- Even more sounds
- Continuous improvements to the sound engine
Review
Beats has a slick interface. Most importantly, it simplifies the digital metronome. I’ve found most other metronome apps (even the pricey ones) rather difficult to customize. Beats actually manages to do away with the complications with its “What You See Is What You Hear” design. It does everything it says it does and so it gets 5 stars from me. Unbelievably, its also free, at least for the time being. I’d get it now
Other Info
Price: Free (on 2 Apr 2010)
Category: Utilities
Released: 01 April 2010
Version: 1.0
1.5 MB
Language: English
Seller: Faizan Bhat
© Faizan Bhat 2010
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.1.2 or later.
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