FR: tap tempo for MMetronome

[Starship Krupa]

It's surprising to me that it's so hard to find a plug-in that does this. Click with the mouse or tap a key and it tells you the tempo.

MMetronome seems ideal for this (I half expected it to already be there but hidden in some way ).

It's too bad that a limitation of the VST spec is that there's no way for a plug-in to report tempo to the host, which would be so useful. Still, it would be great to not to have to launch an external program like I do now.

[edkilp]

How are you running a VST plugin without launching a program like Reaper or Cubase, etc? It's a plugin, which typically needs to be run in some kind of host, such as a DAW. Tap your tempo in the DAW and the plugin will follow it. Unless I'm totally misunderstanding what you want to do.

[Starship Krupa]

Yes, MMetronome follows my DAWs' tempo wonderfully. That's not what I mean.

Not all DAW's expose a tap button for setting initial project tempo. Some, Mixcraft for instance, only expose their tempo tapper when you insert a tempo change, and that function is only available via a menu. It would be handy to have one around when setting up a project (and if the readout text could be copied from the plug-in for pasting into the host's tempo box, even handier).

There are also cases where one might not want to lock a plug-in's LFO or delay time as a musical division of the DAW tempo, but they would still like to get an idea of a number to dial it to. I think people could find other uses for the feature.

After all, MTuner has polyphony and pitch-to-MIDI, I should think that the Melda metronome would be able to cook breakfast, bathe my dog and tutor me in calculus.

(which brings to mind an interesting question: how long before a Meldaproduction plug-in reaches sentience?)

[MeldaProduction]

You mean tempo tap, well, it could be implemented I suppose, but doesn't your DAW already have that?

[Starship Krupa]

You mean tempo tap, well, it could be implemented I suppose, but doesn't your DAW already have that?

Yes, but not all DAW's do it in a friendly fashion and some don't expose it for setting the initial project tempo.

It could also be useful for things like setting timing in plug-ins when the user doesn't wish to lock in exactly to a division of the DAW's tempo. Most plug-ins with sync capability assume the project is in 4/4 time, which may not work in other time signatures.

Also, the tap functions built into the DAW usually assume that after you've tapped out your tempo that you want to set that tempo for the project or insert it as a tempo change. If I'm "hearing" the project faster or slower, I may want to experiment with tapping out another tempo without it affecting the project.

I've discussed this with other users of my DAW's and found that they sometimes use external software to calculate tempi via tapping. I do this. If it were available in a plug-in, I could do it without leaving my DAW.

[MeldaProduction]

Tap will be added to MMetronome

[Nspace]

Tap will be added to MMetronome

You beat me to it.

I was going to find this thread and post about how useful it would be to have a simple TAP tempo at occasions with several musicians playing together, each with their system and you don't have a physical way to MIDI connect timings.
So you want to tempo your layers (rhythmic track, etc) to add to the already playing out rhythm.
Musicians interplay of varied nature would benefit from that.
Not that I use MeldaProduction for performance, but we already have MLooper out and interactivity improving at each new version, so it seems it may happen the sooner...

Or similarly you want to DJ your way, where some other DJ or musicians have been rocking the dancefloor and you are coming next. Just TAP the tempo of what's playing and it's much easier.
Thank you!

[Starship Krupa]

Tap will be added to MMetronome

Thank you so much! I'm amazed! Just installed beta 15j and the tempo tap works great. I'll be using it in every project!

[MeldaProduction]