When I am trying a methodical approach to working on increasing speed I like to use Justin’s Time Trainer app. I set it to start at a certain bpm that I am very comfortable with, and then increase by 2 bpm after a certain time. So maybe I set it to start at 30 bpm and go up to 32 bpm after 2 minutes, another 2 bpm after another 2 minutes, etc. The increase is very gradual but useful. The app is great because you don’t have to stop and reset. A couple of screen shots of different ways to do this - it is an extremely well designed application. Justin doesn’t mention it a lot, I’m sure because he doesn’t want to look like he is just pushing merchandise, but I think it is worth mentioning much more.
Hi Dave911, I just joined here and downloaded this app to my phone but it only goes down to 40bpm and I can’t get the step upper to do intervals. Any suggestions? Anybody?
Hi Dennis, I don’t know why it only goes down to 40bpm on yours. It goes down to 20 for me on the main app screen on both my iPad and iPod - I don’t have it on phone. It looks like I have version 2.21 of the app. If I actually enter the trainer part of the app it has a range of 6bpm all the way up to 400bpm. Here is a step-by-step for how to set up a step upper to start at 15bpm for 2 minutes, then jump to 17bpm for another 2 minutes, and once more jump to 19bpm for 2 minutes.
-
Click the “Trainer” button in the lower right:
-
Select “Step Upper”:
-
Select “+Add Interval”:
-
Select “Tempo” and set initial bpm (click “Done” in upper right corner after selecting the bpm):
- When you are back at the “Step Upper Interval” screen, click the selector to the right side of “TIME INTERVAL” to switch from “BARS” to “MINUTES”, then click the minutes bar on the screen. This will take you to the minutes selector that looks a lot like the TEMPO selector. Select # of minutes you want to stay at this speed, then click “Done”. At this point, you have set the first interval. Click “Back” button at upper left to go back to the “Add Interval” screen that is displayed at step 3.
-
Repeat steps 3-5 to add as many intervals as you like. Once you have all of the intervals you want, click “Back” from the Step Upper screen to go to the “Trainers” screen, then the left arrow one more time to get back to the main screen. It should now display STU to the right of “Trainer”:
-
You will want to save this setting. Click the + button in the purple box, upper right corner and enter whatever you want to call this routine and click Save. The app calls the saved routine a “song.”
- Now click the play button at the bottom of the screen and your step upper should start. Next time you start the app you can select the “song” that you have saved to recall this routine.
(I have flagged this because it really should be split and moved to a separate topic.)
1 Like
The version I have on my Samsung phone is 1.09. I followed your instructions to step 4 and mine says Step BPM instead of Tempo. I still can only get it down to 40, and will go up to 280. Maybe I need to update it somehow. ? That’s too bad I can’t get down to 15BPM to work on the A & D change. Thanks for your help. If I can’t get it figured out, looks like I can email leafcutter.
To be fair any metronome count below 40 becomes very hard to follow at least for me.
The other option is to let it go for two clicks for every one that you play.
1 Like
Yes! Then you can also use the extra click to time your upstroke.
1 Like
Indeed you can. Just use the second click as the AND.
Setting a metronome too low can cause more problems than it solves but using it double the time that you need and using half of it is a great compromise.
Thank you.
I was wanting the Time Trainer to give me one click on the first beat of each bar.
This is so when I am practicing a song or series of chords not using the Song App, I can endeavour to try and keep me generally in time with the tempo without getting too distracted by having all the clicks.
Could not find a setting to do this, the work around is to do the arithmetic and set it accordingly.
What it could do with one of the sounds to be “silent” in the options.
I appreciate this is not a priority but any work is being done then it could be included then.
Just a suggestion.
All I can think of is to set the bpm to 1/4 of the time (assuming 4/4), so if the song is 100 bpm set it at 25 bpm and each beat starts the bar.
1 Like
@Jamolay
Yes that is what I have done.
The song is 150 bpm, so is set it at 37, 4/4 song, also made all the clicks the same sound, a workaround solution.