An Interactive App for Drum Beat Practice

"Were you rushing or were you dragging?"

Credit Photograph by Daniel McFadden / Sony Pictures Classics / Everett

This is a scene from the movie “Whiplash”. The band director Fletcher was asking the drummer Andrew if he know his beat is rushing or dragging. The movie might have been a bit exaggerated about drummers (for example, getting slapped in the face, or bleeding on snare drum). But in reality, timing accuracy is indeed quite important. A lot of times it is one of the factors that distinguish professional drummer from amateurs.

The best way to improve drum beat timing accuracy is to practice against a metronome. But traditional metronome can only provide click sound, it cannot tell whether the beat you hit is rushing or dragging. Timing accuracy still needs to be determined manually by listening to the relative timing between metronome click and your own beat. Normally this is the task of the drummer himself. Occasionally drum teacher/bandmate would come to help as well.

Now there is a new way: Drum It!

This free App combines the functionalities of both metronome and beat detection. Using iPhone’s built-in microphone, Drum It! will convert detected beats into drum score in real time, and provide timing accuracy measure (early or late, relative to metronome click). Without further ado, let’s check out the video DEMO first.

BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Before start practicing, remember to adjust the BPM to the target value. You can use the stepper (+/- sign) under the BPM icon to change its value (resolution is 1). For bigger changes (say from 100 to 140), you can simply slide your finger on the BPM icon, instead of clicking the plus sign 40 times.

MIC (Microphone)
This setting is used to adjust the sensitivity of beat detection. In a noisy environment, lowering MIC value can avoid spurious beat detection. On the other hand, if the sound of drum beat is too small for Drum It! to pick up, you can increase MIC value in order to minimize missed detection rate.

LEVEL
When Drum It! detects beat from microphone, it will convert it to drum score (based on metronome setting). It will also show timing accuracy of the detected beat. We provided 4 different levels: none, easy, normal, expert. “none” means there will be no timing accuracy result (suitable for first-time practice). With the level increasing from easy —> normal —> expert, the tolerance range of timing error will become smaller and smaller.



Timing Accuracy Measure
When the detected drum beat is later than the metronome click, you will see a red circle with L (Late) under that particular note in the drum score. On the other hand, if the detected beat happens earlier than the metronome click, you will see a blue circle with E (Early).

Conclusion
That’s it! Hopefully Drum It! will help you improve your timing accuracy, as well as overall drum technique. Currently Drum It! is able to detect all quarter, 8th and 16th notes. Detection of other beats such as triplets, sixlets, and double rolls are currently under active development. We will update once these features become available.

In the mean time, if you have any question or suggestion (such as user interface, or new feature request), please feel free to leave your comment here or shoot us an email at drumitapp@yahoo.com. Happy drumming!