I think you should be able to set the metronome voices and then have that play over the songs. When you turn on the metronome in the Songs section it automatically turns off all the other instruments, but when I was initially attempting to use it I was wanting to add its voice to what I was playing. I could see doing it either way ( just adding it to the mix versus replacing the mix).
Beta testers needed / Play with my app! It's fun!
Well, I think I got it going the way you want. Refresh your browser and give it a test drive. Curious to see if I got it right.
So I’m not technologically savvy enough to export a video, but I would have you pull up Red haired Boy. The metronome in tools is set to bluegrass and I have the slider at full for 1/4 notes and about halfway for 1/8 notes. Play the song (110 bpm) with only the metronome selected and then play the metronome in Tools at the same speed. They’re not the same to me.
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You uncovered a months old bug in the app I didn’t realize was there. Since both metronomes were created at different times and for different purposes, it never dawned on me to compare them… mainly because I don’t use the metronome.
So now both metronomes are using the same engine. Settings are adjusted on the Metronome Tools page, and they are reflected on the song page. I also added a double time toggle in case you liked the double time.
Thanks for sticking with me on this one. It was not as easy to iron out as I thought it would be. Hopefully this gets it to where you were expecting.
FINALLY getting around to checking some things and replying back - apologies for being MIA!
1st, went on a long (17 hour) driving trip. As always, took the mando to play. Usually I play along with a play list of BG songs in the truck, or pick & play my “Radio Roulette” game with the “search” button on the radio. In addition to all that, I thought itd be nice to brush up on some fiddle tunes to get ready for the fall festivals and jams…
My Husband “donated” (haha!) his ipad to me for music use. Eventually the plan is to replace the old messy songbook I drag along everywhere w the ipad. Note: I am NOT an Apple user at all. Droid is what I use.
Anyway. Thought it’d be cool to see if I could blow up my phone and the App at the same time, lol, and see if A) phone would run maps (silenced) on the vehicle’s interface while B) at the same time running the JT fiddle tune backing tracks thru the radio and speakers of the vehicle to pick along with, as we drove down the HWY. Idk about how yall go about it, but fiddle tunes just dont come on the radio, and I normally dont have them on my playlist either, I have the “singing type songs”. This attempt was thru my android phone, which I had not yet tried out w JT.
Happy to report back that this process worked flawlessly.
Has anyone else tried (or had a reason to) run JT thru vehicle audio?
I had a bunch of time to kill, and it was much nicer (& productive, I think) practicing these tunes at various speeds and in diff keys with JT in the background than just cold turkey by myself. I think the husband liked it better “full band” than cold turkey as well… he’s so patient w all my picking in the car, lol.
OK so the above was w the phone. During this same drive, on the return trip actually, I figured I’d try out the ipad (which, again, I’ve never used before). It does NOT have internet connection like my phone does. So I Hotspotted it to the phone, got to the website, and got things working there. great!
Now I wanted to disconnect hotspot & run things w no connections. Enter my confusion. Not working. Sent a message out to Mark & he advised me that in order for the “off grid” function to work, you have to play a song (any song) first , before disconnecting, then it will work. So i got it back online, did that, disconnected again, and it worked great, and it worked thru the vehicle audio as well (bluetooth)!
Has anyone else used JT off grid? How’d it go? Were you aware abt the play a song 1st? I ask this bc if you weren’t aware, perhaps Mark may need to put a blurb somewhere abt off grid usage/how to use it. And if you were aware, I’m curious how you knew to do that? I prolly missed something somewhere haha!!
A few observations while on off grid:
first - a how to do it instruction/help note (if its not already there & i missed it)
second - you cant sign off JT on the device you wish to use offline, leave it signed in, or else you device will politely tell you you have no internet access, true story 
Third - when offline, your songs that were in your personal library are still there, only they are NOT under the MY SONGS section, they’re now lumped in alphabetically with ALL songs.
fourth - I made some song lists while offline to see how that would work out between ipad & droid, The app does save them, and once back online, they update correctly across multiple devices.
Also, I definitely like the drag & drop feature here.
This was my 1st usage of JT after the side index alphabet was added, definitely like that feature.
An across devices note:
the self-imported lyrics w self made chords above (references in prior posts) that show up fine on computer (chords stay in correct spots & also on scroll.) - that does NOT trasfer across devices. on both droid phone & ipad the chords above ended up on wrong lyrics (same exact wrong place both devices) - which was a point Mark made previously. This was my 1st time viewing on mobile devices of lyrics I had imported.
With this confirmed, for my usage, despite my pref for chords above lyrics, I would have to say I’d be using the chords in the same line (formatting them that way before import) for songs I import my own lyrics & chords on. (I have some song lyrics sheets without a charts (like to use scrolling lyrics for playing at a jam), and these are not eligible for L2L (bc have to have or make a chart).
Mind you this (the above comment) is not about the Chords In line Feature of the app, bc that can’t function unless you do L2L, & have a chart & lyrics. I thought that was obvious, but maybe a help note somewhere for users wondering why their imported sheets/lyrics aren’t aboving/in-lining via tha app…
I did think the chords inline or above features was great, if you do in fact use L2L.
Chords inline, whether from the app or imported, also looks/scrolls better on small mobile device screens - never thought Id say that haha! I stand corrected, lol! but… still my pref is above 
another thing that may be helpful - maybe ask folks what they think - is the option to save ABC notation or 123 notation independantly for different songs. a save function per song instead of global. For me , and perhaps, very likely I’m the oddball here, certain songs with crazy chords or tons of chords in certain keys, my little brain cant remember the NNS for all of them. For “those” songs, I usually use ABC so I have all the help I can get. For other more simple progs, I usually use NNS bc (in the case of my voice) some days you can sing it higher and other days not so much, so quick on the fly adj of singing voice is no big deal w NNS. Or maybe you’re playing for someone else that doesnt sing it in the key you usually do.
Lastly, sometimes the sign in-sign up button is there for the taking and sometimes I noticed it briefly flashes across the screen & disappears, making you go thru all the menus to sign in from the free screen. I cant exactly remember the situation though or what device of the 3 (computer, droid phone, ipad)…
Thanks Mark for the “help” on the Ipad questions I had!
It seems like I’m missing something from our prior discussion here. If you think of it, plz remind me. My brain is like a hampster wheel with missing spokes running on good intentions and coffee…
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Wow! What a report. Good things come to those who wait. I really appreciate all of your feedback.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Let me dig in to that and see what’s going on. I have it set to strip out lyrics and tabs if the song is shared, but your own personal lyrics and tabs should move between devices on the same account. I’ll let you know.
If you can nail down the situation where this happens, please let me know. That sounds frustrating.
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I tried out the metronome and it worked great. The voice set in Tools transfers well. As a side note, as you add additional instruments the metronome gets drowned out. This is especially true of upbeats in the bluegrass voice when guitar
Compared to Tab and TEF Files on Banjo Ben, Songs in 4/4 are playing at twice the speed. The tempo in JT needs to be half what is listed on Banjo Ben. It is treating the 2nd and 4th beats as upbeats. I have it set for guitar. To play Bury Me Beneath the Willow, I need to set the tempo at 57 rather than 115. Cripple Creek is at 200 on Banjo Ben, so the equivalent is 100 on JT. The song in 3/4 that I tried ( Amazing Grace) is playing correctly.
I tested the following:
Red Haired Boy
Cripple Creek
Amazing Grace
You are my Sunshine
Bury Me Beneath the Willows
There is constant debate about the BPM of bluegrass songs. I’ve even seen discrepancy about the BPM of a particular song between Ben and Kristin. I don’t pretend to know what the real answer is. I just know that I put a lot of time into trying to understand it, and looked for concrete examples before I finally landed on what I did with JT.
I just did a search for what a common BPM would be for Cripple Creek. To give you an idea of how difficult this subject is, here’s just 1 answer.
The common BPM for Cripple Creek depends heavily on the genre and specific artist, as the song has been recorded across a wide range of tempos.
Bluegrass and Folk Versions In the bluegrass tradition, Cripple Creek is typically played at a fast tempo.
- Flatt & Scruggs : 135 BPM in the key of A Major.
- The Country Gentlemen : 159 BPM .
- The Stoneman Family : 182 BPM .
- Practice backing tracks for bluegrass often offer variable tempos ranging from 80 to 130 BPM to accommodate different skill levels.
Rock and Pop Versions The most famous rock version, Up On Cripple Creek by The Band , is generally cited at:
- 144 BPM in the key of A Major (original 1969 release).
- Some sources list it at 128 BPM or 130 BPM .
- It can also be used at half-time ( 72 BPM ) for practice or mixing.
Other Notable Interpretations
- Buffy Sainte-Marie : 111 BPM in E Minor.
- Rhiannon Giddens : 97 BPM in G Major.
- Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence : 79 BPM in F Minor.
Did you play with the volumes of the metronome or the other instruments to try to rectify the issue?
The BPM thing always got me because I would play an instructional CD with a backing track for a song and it would say it was 200 BPM and I could play along. Then I’d try a different backing track that claimed it was 200 BPM and I couldn’t keep up. Technically they should be the same.
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I should clarify that my above comment was not about the Jamtrainer app, just practice material in general. The app is great because you can change the BPM to what ever you desire.
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The best I can figure is that it just depends on which beats are being counted. If you count 1, 2, 3, 4 you get twice the BPM as if you count 1, AND, 2, AND, 3, AND, 4, AND.
If I recall correctly, Foggy Mountain Breakdown is commonly said to be played at 162-ish BPM, but I have seen it called 324 more than once.
I just had to pick one and stick with it, and when I started researching the apps that are already out there doing backing track stuff, this is how they did it. It just seemed logical to fall in line, even if it’s not technically right… which I don’t know if it is or not.
I did some. It’s primarily the chuck (beats 2&4) because the guitar and mandolin emphasize that. Decreasing the guitar volume also decreases the 1&3. I’ll mess around with it some more later using different voices and let you know.
I’ve noticed that for fast songs, people will count off in cut time or else it gets too cluttered. For slower music, it’s better to use the stated speed. I figured you had a good reason, and as long as the convention is consistent I can adjust.
Along similar lines, I’m using the tempo trainer to help get my speed up. I seem to have more trouble doing this playing rhythm than lead. How fast is fast enough? When playing in Jams I sometimes have difficulty keeping pace.
This BPM question is related to a question I had several months ago that I posted in the Mandolin forum titled “Mandolin Chop”. See @Michael_Mark Mark’s wonderful response below that clarified my confusion. The reason I asked the question is that when I was researching the timing of the chop, I saw several videos and posts, some implied the chop was on the ands and some of the videos and posts implied it was on the 2 and 4. Like @Mark_Rocka said, Michael also addresses the BPM issue and also says that it depends on which beats are being counted.
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I was able to play with the metronome some more and it’s great. I like that you can adjust the mix including the metronome while the song is playing. You can get some very interesting effects. The guitar seems to overwhelm the other instruments in the mix at times. Using other voices such as the Train mix or dry kit cuts through better.
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Good to hear it’s doing the job for you! Yeah, I sometimes dial back the volume on the guitar, and especially the rolling banjo at times. I think it just depends on the song and dynamics required.
I got a weird one. I didn’t dig in to see if it was just this song, but Duck River, in the B part. The B minor of the guitar sounds like it has both a C# and a D. Are there 2 guitar parts there? I might just be having a weird ear day.
While I was stripping it down to see what I was hearing, I noticed the bass tone. Very nice!
Hey Mike. I just pulled it up and grabbed my guitar to see if I could hear what you were hearing. I don’t hear the C# in that Bm chord. I hear the D, but a C# would give it a very different flavor.
I played around with the instruments, but could find a way to make anything sound like a C#.
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