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1. What's so special about
this metronome? 1. What's so special about this metronome? Music theory is just that. A theory. There are many ways of looking at rhythm and many ways of learning it. With this metronome you can analyze it anyway you want. Our metronome is very unique because it doesn’t use bars to represent rhythm. Instead it uses a series of regular, accent, and rest beats, which can be programmed into a variable length beat line, or time line. This method of combining rest, regular, and accent beats gives the metronome a nice feel and, therefore, it is very helpful when learning Latin American or Carribean rhythms like Soka or Reggae. There is another advantage of this method, you can listen to the pulses of the rhythm and not worry about time signatures. And because the rhythm is so pronounced you will internalize it much faster. Typically, it’s much harder to learn off of prerecorded music because the rhythm is often obscured by the music which can confuse you. As well, you can’t slow down the tempo of prerecorded music. Also, the Mundobeat metronome can be quickly and easily set up for Indian Classical music, Arabic, Flamenco, or any rhythm in the world no matter how seemingly obscure or counter intuitive it is. This metronome is also an excellent tool to help develop solos for difficult rhythms due to its beat counting feature. While playing the solo the writer can look at the display to see what beat their on. This will allow the writer to adjust the solo to fit inside the rhythm thus allowing them to begin and end on the right beat. 2. How long does the battery last? We highly recommend using a 9V DC 100mA outside ground wall adapter which is available through our distributors, or you may purchase a generic one through a good electronics shop such as Radio Shack. However, a good quality 9V alkaline battery should give about one hour of use. 3. My metronome is acting very strangely... If the battery cannot supply enough current to the unit it will behave oddly. Whenever there seems to be something wrong please try a new battery or wall adapter first before calling your dealer. We made no compromises on some of the features in this machine, therefore, the power requirements are high. Most metronomes are not loud, do not count the beats with bright displays, and have a poor weak tone. In order to do all these things our Mundobeat metronome requires a good stable power source. 4. Will your metronome retain my own programmed rhythms when the battery or power adapter is removed? Yes, the Mundobeat metronome has been designed to store your own programs with no battery or power adapter for well over 10 years. 5. What is the LP adapter for? In the future we may build a box that will trigger two 120V/240 Volt AC lamps from the metronome. These bright lights, one red one green, can be used to cue dancers in a dance class. In the meantime we may publish electronic schematics on our web page so you can build one yourself. However, should you decide to build one yourself we do not take any responsibility for any problems encountered during its’ construction or operation. You should have a technician or engineer build it for you or at least examine your work before you plug it into your wall socket. 6. Can I turn the volume down? No, we didn’t build a volume control into the unit, although we did plan to. We had found that most musicians and dancers prefered a loud metronome. A volume control and all the support circuitry would make the unit larger and more expensive, therefore, we felt it would be best to pass the savings on to the customer and not put in a volume control. If a lower volume is required you may use a piece of tape across the speaker holes or you may use the RCA headphone feature. This requires reading the manual to explain how to turn the speaker off. After turning the speaker off you may plug headphones or a stereo into the RCA jack and adjust the volume as needed. As for volume control for the headphones, you can buy inexpensive headphones with a built-in volume control. We have a number of products we are developing for the serious musician. These products include amplifiers, lightweight mixing consoles, PA systems, and flexible signal processors. Most of these products are for musicians that play small or large clubs that need good sound but don’t want to break their backs moving heavy gear. VKO Realtime was founded by two musicians. Both the president and V.P. of engineering have been playing music for over twenty years, therefore, when you buy a product from VKO you know it has been designed by people who know the business and understand music. VKO Realtime consults with music stores and musicians during new product development and prototyping. These design methods allow VKO Realtime to develop products that are closely tailored to what the customer needs. Also, VKO operates using customer oriented business model. This means that the customer always comes before profits. |