Soundbrenner Core Review - Anyone?

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danondrums

Well-known Member
I found a post for the Soundbrenner Pulse, but not one for the Core so here it is!

Main concern for me is having something on me at all times when I'm playing music to monitor decibels to help keep the maximum safe volume going into my ears and knowing when I need to throw ear plugs in (and which db attenuation I should use as I have a -15 and a -25 set).

My questions are:
- Weight - The unit looks heavy. I wear the larger size Apple Watch and the Core looks like it may be considerably heavier than that. Does anyone have any feedback on that weight comparison.
- Tuner - Is there any way for the tuner to simply read out what pitch it hears, say if you're practicing vocals and want to use it as a pitch barometer?
- Is it glitchy/buggy/poorly conceived? In general I don't like purchasing Version 1 of anything that's new and that doesn't have any competition. How much room for improvement is there with this watch?

Here are the features I'm probably holding out for in an expensive product like this one:
- Tempo meter - I'd love for this watch to be able to monitor tempo and display the current bpm.
- Song Count-Ins - I'd love for the option to have the watch start a tempo (based on the song) and then have the click/metronome drop out but display the current tempo that's being played.
- In addition to the contact tuner, it would be great if it could determine pitch through listening
- The above might make drum tuning really nice as well
- Bluetooth (or some other connection type) device/ear plug to go in ear and deliver a click sound.

To me it sounds like a great product for all the musicians but it needs some more features and work to really be a drummers solution. The suggestions I have above already exist in other apps so hopefully these will make their way to Soundbrenner eventually...

As a side note to soundbrenner since they seem to poke their heads in once in a while.
I'll be happy to work with you on testing/implementing the above features. :)
 
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My Soundbrenner Core Steel came here about 2 weeks ago. Haven't messed with it yet. lol
 
I'd be interested in knowing more about this device too. Seems like a cool way to keep time.
 
Hey man! I'm Florian the Founder of Soundbrenner. Happy to answer your questions, and thanks for sharing your ideas!

- To keep your ears safe and knowing which earplugs to use, the dB meter feature should work great :)
- Weight: The Core made out of polycarbonate is extremely lightweight, the Core Steel is much heavier. If you care about the weight I would recommend the polycarbonate and for sure you will have no issues with the weight
- Currently the tuner only works with the contact microphone, so there is no way to use it for vocals. Sorry! Maybe in a future version :)
- The Core is very well thought through/well conceived. We spent over 3 years on the development, and all the learnings from our first generation product Pulse are built in. That said, in terms of bugs for sure there are a few there that we are working on. Things like MIDI support are in beta and can glitch. We focused a lot on stability though and took it a notch up from our first wearable.

- Tempo meter: cool idea, very difficult to do engineering wise to work with multiple instruments, etc. but something we'd like to do maybe with the next iteration in some years
- Song count-in: you can start a count in via the app, and in the iOS app you can also program the metronome to stop after a certain amount of time. If you have an iPhone, just download the Soundbrenner app and you can experiment with it before purchasing
- Drum tuning: this is also something we'd love to add as a feature in a future generation
- Bluetooth: you can simply connect headphones to your mobile phone. The click will be played on the phone & will be in sync with the Core. That said, with some Bluetooth headphone models it can glitch out because there are too many Bluetooth commands being sent. Alternatively you can plug in wired headphones in your phone, or use the built in speakers, that works extremely well
 
That’s great info.
I’ll be strongly considering for sure and I very much appreciate the tip to go for the lighter/poly-carbonate one.

I do have the soundbrenner app, and the ability to program set lists is nice. I didn't know about the count-off drop off feature so that could work nicely.
I'm guessing you probably know of these other apps, but I'll share since they are currently able to do what you guys are working on regarding monitoring live tempo.
Beat Mirror is great because it does a count off, then drops out and reads out your current tempo. The shortcoming of BeatMirror is that you can't program in set lists so each song you're playing requires more manual intervention than I want to be doing during a set.
LiveBPM also delivers live tempo and is a little easier to use than Beat Mirror since it doesn't require you to set a specific tempo. But it lacks the count off.

If I want the ideal setup it sounds like I'd use two devices and program setlists into soundbrenner, have the count drop off and then use liveBPM to monitor my tempo.

Thanks for your time and help!

As mentioned I'll be happy to help test any development that you might need. I have a really strong resume in software testing, mechanical and computer engineering and I play my drums a ton in multiple groups. I'm looking for a way to be able to not have to "feel" songs as much as one has to when they might need to know and play more than 100 different songs in different styles. A tool that takes one worry away, like tempo is pretty invaluable in my opinion.
 
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florian-soundbrenner said:
Hey man! I'm Florian the Founder of Soundbrenner. Happy to answer your questions, and thanks for sharing your ideas!

- To keep your ears safe and knowing which earplugs to use, the dB meter feature should work great :)
- Weight: The Core made out of polycarbonate is extremely lightweight, the Core Steel is much heavier. If you care about the weight I would recommend the polycarbonate and for sure you will have no issues with the weight
- Currently the tuner only works with the contact microphone, so there is no way to use it for vocals. Sorry! Maybe in a future version :)
- The Core is very well thought through/well conceived. We spent over 3 years on the development, and all the learnings from our first generation product Pulse are built in. That said, in terms of bugs for sure there are a few there that we are working on. Things like MIDI support are in beta and can glitch. We focused a lot on stability though and took it a notch up from our first wearable.

- Tempo meter: cool idea, very difficult to do engineering wise to work with multiple instruments, etc. but something we'd like to do maybe with the next iteration in some years
- Song count-in: you can start a count in via the app, and in the iOS app you can also program the metronome to stop after a certain amount of time. If you have an iPhone, just download the Soundbrenner app and you can experiment with it before purchasing
- Drum tuning: this is also something we'd love to add as a feature in a future generation
- Bluetooth: you can simply connect headphones to your mobile phone. The click will be played on the phone & will be in sync with the Core. That said, with some Bluetooth headphone models it can glitch out because there are too many Bluetooth commands being sent. Alternatively you can plug in wired headphones in your phone, or use the built in speakers, that works extremely well
Click to expand...
Absolutely love the core steel, awesome. But it is not compatible with my galaxy s10 which is making the smart watch features unusable, I've troubleshooted with the support team but came to nothing as it seems to be a general issue with android, is this going to be fixed? Its the only pitfall for me, but it is a major one currently
 
I looked for one app to do it all but couldn't find it. So I use two. Pro Metronome in stage mode on an old Samsung phone and Live BPM on a 8" tablet. I tried a Peterson Body Beat Pulse plugged into the Pro Metronome but felt it wasn't needed. The 2 apps together sufficed.
 
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