External audio as tempo source?

[Trojan Badger]

OK, here's the idea. I do a lot of heavily improvised stuff with a live band and I'd really like to branch out and get some loops, VSTi's, samples and so on into the mix. Trouble is, as far as I can make out, most hosts consider themselves the centre of your studio and therefore the main source of structure and critically tempo.

Is there any host out there which can listen to an audio track and derive its tempo from it? For example, to take the drumkit as an input and work out for itself what BPM we're on, and then continually match itself to it?

Any thoughts?

yes I know this would be pretty hard to implement, but I reckon there's some call for this kind of concept - letting the host be an instrument in a band, rather than the controller for the band.

[Yossarian]

Dunno about automated solutions but I guess you could always use a tap tempo device like the 34one:

www.ploytec.com/34one

/Yoss