MIDI seems to be a popular subject for the PIXACE, so I thought I'd post an idea and let people comment on whether or not this is possible and/or how hard it would be to implement.
The idea is this:
I'm in a small band and play drums (a wimpy Yamaha electronic drum kit). I also sing occasionally. But I'm not talented enough to drum and sing at the same time.
On the songs I do sing, what I'd like to do is record a drum part beforehand and play it back using MIDI.
What I don't want is for the rest of the band to have to follow a click track or something to stay in sync with the MIDI drum part. What I'd really like would be some kind of input device, a foot switch for example, that I could tap with my foot while singing. The PIXACE would time the taps and calculate a tempo, and then transmit that to the MIDI drum kit to keep it in sync.
A bonus feature would be a way to make it so I don't have to tap every single beat in the song. For instance, if everything is lined up, I could stop tapping, and the MIDI part would continue on with the current tempo. If our beats start to drift, I start tapping again to get us all back together.
It really breaks down into 2 fairly simple pieces:
1) A timing piece to time the input taps and caculate a tempo in whatever units MIDI requires. Some kind of filter would be nice to reject long intervals between taps (to take into account the scenario where I stop tapping altogether).
2) A MIDI piece that takes the tempo information and relays that to the MIDI instrument (or a MIDI sequencer controlling the instrument).
What do you think? Crazy? Impossible? Or am I on to something? Maybe this has been done before?
The idea is this:
I'm in a small band and play drums (a wimpy Yamaha electronic drum kit). I also sing occasionally. But I'm not talented enough to drum and sing at the same time.
On the songs I do sing, what I'd like to do is record a drum part beforehand and play it back using MIDI.
What I don't want is for the rest of the band to have to follow a click track or something to stay in sync with the MIDI drum part. What I'd really like would be some kind of input device, a foot switch for example, that I could tap with my foot while singing. The PIXACE would time the taps and calculate a tempo, and then transmit that to the MIDI drum kit to keep it in sync.
A bonus feature would be a way to make it so I don't have to tap every single beat in the song. For instance, if everything is lined up, I could stop tapping, and the MIDI part would continue on with the current tempo. If our beats start to drift, I start tapping again to get us all back together.
It really breaks down into 2 fairly simple pieces:
1) A timing piece to time the input taps and caculate a tempo in whatever units MIDI requires. Some kind of filter would be nice to reject long intervals between taps (to take into account the scenario where I stop tapping altogether).
2) A MIDI piece that takes the tempo information and relays that to the MIDI instrument (or a MIDI sequencer controlling the instrument).
What do you think? Crazy? Impossible? Or am I on to something? Maybe this has been done before?