Does this tool exist?

[skycanyon]

I can describe this but can't find anything like it. This would be portable for stage and studio, and would have an little screen like an iPad. Two audio inputs. Say bass and drum for example. For each input, each note above a certain threshold would be displayed as a spike going the full height of the screen. The goal would be to see how close they are to being on the same beat. If the drum input was the reference (duh), it would pulse/spike in the middle of the screen, while the bass spike would appear to the left (ahead of the beat) or to the right (behind the beat). Does this exist?

[1001gear]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/aug95/jeanius.html

[skycanyon]

Thank you 1001gear for that! Seems the item is discontinued. So I can keep on dreaming, or learn to build stuff, eh?

 

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[Phil O'Keefe]

I can describe this but can't find anything like it. This would be portable for stage and studio, and would have an little screen like an iPad. Two audio inputs. Say bass and drum for example. For each input, each note above a certain threshold would be displayed as a spike going the full height of the screen. The goal would be to see how close they are to being on the same beat. If the drum input was the reference (duh), it would pulse/spike in the middle of the screen, while the bass spike would appear to the left (ahead of the beat) or to the right (behind the beat). Does this exist?

 

You essentially just described a Russian Dragon, at least in terms of the basic concept. As the link above that 1001gear posted will no doubt point out, the name was a play on "rushing / dragging." It was an early 90s era device that used a row of LEDs to show timing discrepancies between two sources - say, a click and a bass player. The further to either side of the center the LEDs lit up, the further off the player's timing was - either rushing, or dragging relative to the click. They were pretty useful back then for settling timing arguments that occasionally arose on recording sessions, and gave players some visual idea of whether they were "on" or not, but today, it's purpose is easily accomplished with a simple two channel interface and DAW setup - play along with a click, record both players, then zoom in on the waveforms and you can easily tell who's doing what, and even measure it very accurately... while the timing of most players tends to vary somewhat from note to note, with a little analysis of the patterns and trends you can see when Player A plays, on average, about 15ms ahead of the beat while Player B plays 20ms or so behind it, or whatever.

 

The Russian Dragon was a cool device in its day but you know, as a producer / engineer, I was never really that into having musicians sitting and focusing on a bunch of LEDs or staring at a computer screen. I generally feel that most players do better if, after you point out the issue (and settle any arguments over it ) they focus on the sound and feel of the track, or listen to the click and work off of that... music is a auditory art not really a visual one, so while useful, The Russian Dragon wasn't a be-all, end all timing tool - just another sometimes useful tool that could be helpful on occasion...

 

You can easily do something similar with an iPad, a two channel iPad compatible audio interface, and a decent DAW app such as Auria LE. It will record two tracks (actually, more) at once, and can display the audio waveforms - the note attacks - relative to a grid. It's not quite the same thing as the old Russian Dragon, but if all you want is to see how close to the beat you are, it will do it.