intelligent accompanist bleg

[gusl]

I'd like to get some intelligent accompaniment software, to help me practice my solos. As you probably know, the accompaniment in play-along CDs lead rather than follow. So I want a system that can detect my rhythm through a microphone, and accompanies me properly.

Any tips, anyone?

Comments

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

why do you want it to follow your rhythm?

it's good practice to be able to follow someone else's. i don't see much value in practicing having someone follow yours.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

A lot of sound equipment will let you tap in the rhythm to modify the tempo of a playing CD, for example. The problem is that you want to do that hands-free, but beat detection only works on hard constant beats, not on violin sounds. I doubt there's any free software that will do playback time-stretching properly in real-time, leave alone the kind of beat detection that you're talking about.

I would invest in a hardware unit like a mini-jam unit made by Boss which allows tap rhythm adjustments and then look for a pedal controller which you can tap on with your foot, but obviously the input would have to be mapped in MIDI to allow you to interface the pedal. Alternately a software setup with Cakewalk Studio or something similar might also work, but the usability will get more little complex.