Is it possible to play the Dwarf with a metronome?

Using MOD devices
#1

Hi all,

I was wondering if it’s possible for the Dwarf to generate a metronome which is only sent out the headphone jack and the not out the main outputs. That way I could play along with it but the audience wouldn’t hear it. Can this be done, and if so, how would the routing work?

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#2

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s feasible. The headphone output is hardwired as mirrors of the main outs, so there’s no way to isolate them. A monitoring function with the ability to route some outputs to monitor only would be pretty amazing, though.

Here’s an idea, though. Assuming you don’t want stereo output, you can have your instrument output go to output 1 to an FRFR cab, or whatever your output device is. you can have the metronome output go to output 2. In this case, you’ll hear the metronome in the headphones on one channel, but the audience wouldn’t hear it.

#3

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that’s too bad, I can think of several use cases for headphone-only output. For example, if you’ve ever heard an IEM-recording of a U2 concert, they will cue members of the band to come in with a one measure count, e.g. “Edge, 2, 3, 4” or “Verse, 2, 3, 4”. This could be really cool when playing along to backing tracks or a sequencer to know when to play or sing a given part.

Your workaround is pretty clever but it would be a shame to give up stereo outputs. I wonder how hard it would be to expose the headphone outputs as jacks to route to in the web UI…

#4

I don’t think it’s possible with the current SoC, but I could very easily be wrong on this. I believe that the headphone output is basically a tap of the output lines. One channel to the left ear, the other to the right ear.

#5

The obvious alternative is to put a cheap small mixer between the Dwarf output and your IEM. You can then mix in any signal, including a metronome output (or your phone’s).
I agree it would be cool to have all that happening in the Dwarf though.

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#6

True, but I don’t want to carry an external metronome and mixer, plus it wouldn’t know the tempo I had selected or tapped into the Dwarf. I’m also thinking of more advanced uses (imagine a looper which only triggers the metronome during recording, not during playback).

Does anyone know definitively whether the headphone outputs are hardwired to the 1/4" outputs, or if they can be addressed separately in software?

#7

Yes, it is hardwiered

Nope, I hope I won’t ever listen to this, but the concept is way more used than just U2. The limitations you see in the Dwarf is not the problem in this case, because I use it, with the Dwarf : another member of the band send a metronome to the mixing desk, the sound engineer send me this metronome track with the tracks of my guitar (and the other instrument’s tracks) into my IEM…
I don’t see the use off doing this within the Dwarf since you won’t hear the other members of the band. And if you are alone, you still want a metronome?

#8

A very nice device to have would be a small footprint digital NxN mixer for this sort of use. I know Adam Neely and his band use something along those lines. The idea is really to be able to create a IEM mix specific to each member of the band (for instance, the guitarist doesn’t necessarily need the same mix as the bass player), and to have this set up totally independantly from the front of house (who can then concentrate only on what is heard in the room without having to care about monitoring at all).

I do think a not too powerful computer with a capable audio interface (no need for 96Hz 24 bits here), running jack and offering a web interface accessible independantly by each musician from their phone/tablet to manage their own mix (including presets/snapshots) could be sufficient. It could even send a midi signal to people’s dwarfs to sync the tempos (for instance from a sensor on the kick drum ?)

#9

I play solo with a dedicated looper, and I use a metronome about half the time. It’s very helpful for a couple reasons, for example making sure I don’t speed up when playing live out of adrenaline. It’s also very useful to build precise loops and to hear the beat in a sparse part of a song, or one without a strong rhythm (imagine a long drone sound).

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