Tempo-Ref purchased from DrumBum

[Warren Wright]

I picked this item up from DrumBum and used it Saturday night on our gig.
It is what I would call a Drummers Tachometer.
It comes with the main read-out Unit and a 6 foot cord with a 1/8" male plug on one end that plugs into the main unit and a regular drum trigger on the other end, along with a wire that helps hold the trigger in place on your snare head and velco strips to mount the main read-out unit to a cymbal stand or what-ever else you might decide to use.
NOTE: the main unit also has a built in trigger so laying it on a drum will also trigger the tempo read-outs...so mounting it to a drum would probably not be a good choice.
The unit is powered by a built in battery, that is supposed to last 1+ years before needing changed. The main unit automatically turns itself off after about 5 minutes of no use. It restarts with a simple stroke on the snare.

It reads out your snare drum tempo at half the correct tempo. If it shows your playing at 60 bpm...youre actually playing at 120 bpm which is not a big deal.
The best part for me is that although I do not have the Neil Peart or Dave Weckl sense of time, the Tempo-Ref does. I simply check my tempo read-out from time to time to check my self and especially on tunes I know I have a problem keeping a steady tempo on or tunes one of the other guys tend to speed up or slow down.

NOTE: When you play a riff on the snare, the numbers go UP fastly...then drop to 1 or some weird number for about 2 seconds...then it goes back to reading the correct tempo.

For those of us who play Ghost Notes, there is a sensitivity adjustment that will keep the trigger from reading them. It will also read your cross stick rim shots as well. If you play a train beat , you might need to go back to the 2 and 4 on the snare for a couple of beats to get your tempo to read properly.

The unit refreshes itself 4000 times a minute so it detects any change in your tempo almost immediately.

And for you guys who have a band member that has a tendency to speed up or slow down the bands tempo's...this tool will put em in their place. No more arguments about tempo's and no more blaming the drummer for tempo changes.

You can also use it to Set the Tempo's...it has a built in Metronome that clicks and flashes the numbers in time with the tempo you set with the buttons above the read outs.

Best darned piece of equipment a drummer could have in his arsenal...after all, its OUR job to maintain the correct pulse, regardless of how well or how inept the rest of the group is at holding tempo.

Oh...I guess I should mention the cost: With freight to southern Oklahoma...it came to a few pennies over 92 bucks.

[Larrysperf]

Cool post thanks for posting

[pastor_bob]

Sounds like a handy piece of equipment Warren. Thanks for taking the time to give us a review.

[mr.mcguy]

i might just have to look into buying one of those. thanks for the review!