Improving Tap Tempo

[chris-7777]

This might be one of these “hey, is it just me?” kind of forum entries. However, since I find members of this forum to be particularly open and helpful, I’ll give it a shot.

I always struggle to use the tap tempo function of a stompbox, and the H9 is no exception here – at least from what I can tell checking it out at the local dealer. What happens is this: I switch into tap tempo mode, I hit the tap switch numerous times, I exit the tap tempo mode … and when I then start to play, the tempo setting is just not right. Sometimes the tempo that I tapped in might be good enough, but in case of heavy delay effects, good enough ist just not good enough.

From what I understand, most of these tap tempo features do is to calculate the time between the very last hit of the tap switch and the tap before that. Basically, it doesn’t matter whether you hit it 2 times or 20 times, it will always lock in that very last input. The device assumes that after you tried a couple of times, this last tap is the one where you got it right. 

Here are my questions: 

1. Is my assumption correct?
2. Wouldn’t tap tempo feel more natural if it calculated the *average* time between any number of taps?
3. Will Eventide eventually equip the H9 with an audio tapping feature? I have seen that in a delay pedal of a competitor, and to me, this seems to be a great improvement. Nirvana would be to be ablte to choose between audio tapping and footswitch tapping somewhere in the general settings of the H9. What are your thoughts on audio tapping?

[nickrose]

The tap tempo circuit averages the taps over the last few taps (a variable number, but more than 2). Since the purpose of tap tempo is to allow you to set the tempo to the beat, this is (we think) the best way to do it. If one was to average over a longer period, the tempo would drift around and not relate to the beat.

If you want to set the tempo to an exact value, you can do this with the encoder whenever the tempo is displayed.

Audio tapping is not something that we are considering at the moment.

[chris-7777]

Thanks, Nick. I appreciate that you put a lot of thought into that circuitry. As I said, I guess it’s just me not being able to hit a steady beat on tap switches, in general. I might have to invent an audio-tapping-to-midi-clock stompbox some day.

[lordradish]

I’ve had this problem, with certain algos, because how the tempo taps out can depend on the subdivision of the delays in a particular algorithm (someone illustrated this on one of the threads around here). What Eventide really needs to do is to somehow have it so all of the algos, regardless of delays, can be synced to the actual tempo tapped.

Eventide, is that possible? Because as it stands now, it makes syncing some of these things to actual tempo on the fly as darn near impossible.

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