At Soundbrenner, we get tons of feature requests and we are grateful for that! While we're busy makes these ideas a reality, we already wanted to provide some workarounds in the meantime. In this article, you'll find useful little hacks on how to create rhythms that are not that straightforward to set up with our app yet!
Using the metronome slower than 20 BPM:
You can set the metronome to 10 or 5 BPM by muting the accent markers. When the BPM is set to 20, and you are in 4/4 time signature, mute the second the fourth beat by tapping on the accent markers to achieve 10 BPM. To achieve 5 BPM, you can mute the second, third, and the fourth beats.
Using the metronome faster than 400 BPM:
You can change the time signature to double the speed. For example, if you'd like to achieve 450BPM; you can set the metronome to 225BPM and chose 8th notes under the subdivision dropdown menu.
Using the metronome with sixtuplets:
You can double the BPM when using triplets.
Sending quarter notes to one band member, and eighth notes to another:
If your band members have different preferences on the subdivision, you can still use the same metronome but send different subdivisions to your band members. In order to achieve this, you'll need to use two different phones and link the metronomes via Ableton Link over the WiFi. When the metronome apps are linked, they will share the BPM but each app can use their own subdivision selection.
How to create beats using "quarter notes per minute" instead of "beats per minute"
In our app the tempo is configured and displayed as BPM. This means the tempo does not change when you adjust the time signature of your rhythm.
Example: if you change the time signature from 4/4 to 7/8, some musicians would expect the tempo to double. However, when you do that, our app will automatically change the subdivision from quarter notes to eight notes, causing the tempo to stay identical. We do this, because it's simpler to use beats per minute to configure the tempo, for example, a lot of sheet music provides the tempo in BPM.
If you're a musician who prefers to use "quarter notes per minute" to configure the rhythm, simply double the BPM when using a time signature with x/8, and half the BPM when using a time signature with x/2. This will set the tempo as if the app was using quarter notes per minute.