Requesting counting in to 3 for external bluetooth speaker

[semmelbroesel]

Hi.

I have a Bose SoundLink Mini which sounds great, but not only does it have a delay between the count on the screen and the sound appearing on the speaker, but it also takes a while for the sound to slowly fade in to normal.

A count-in of 2 bars is not enough, especially when the song I play starts before the chords start.

So I'm hoping that the developers can add a 3 bar count in option.

Thanks!

 

[dflat]

I would have thought the first song played would do this (to wake it up) then after that it would not fade in (unless you are not playing through it for a while and it again sleeps)?
Perhaps you could insert an intro, or NC measure for the pickup songs?
We do not have adding more measures for the count at the moment, but will keep it in mind, thanks.

With the delay in visual count with the audio count, do you also see the playback locator slightly out of sync also? (this is where the measure highlights as the music plays that bar). If so, it could be an audio delay going through bluetooth.

 

[semmelbroesel]

Yea, you'd think it would wake it up... I have tried getting the count in going and then stopping it as soon as I hear it so I can restart the song, but the short pause in between is enough to turn down the volume again to some degree. I think adding a 3rd bar to the count in would save a lot of trouble for external speakers.
In fact, I still have a small wired speaker that had the same issue, just not as extreme as this one - it also turned down its volume when there was "no signal".

So yea, if you could add a 3rd bar option to the count in, that would be great!

Yes, the playback locator is also considerably out of sync, about half a second or more. The audio delay doesn't bother me as much as the "wake-up" feature of the speakers which causes me to miss the first bar of counting in completely on faster songs.

 

[Keith88]

On what device are you running iReal Pro?

I have an iPad Mini with Retina display (now called the iPad Mini 2) and a Bose Soundlink III bluetooth speaker (which, by the way, does sound very good with iReal Pro and everything else). I have always noted a slight delay between the presumed first beat of iReal Pro playback (by my own counting in along with the iReal Pro screen) and the sound coming out of the speaker. This occurs with all of my bluetooth devices; I regularly use a Logitech bluetooth adapter for iReal Pro audio output. When I read this post, I did a few informal measurements.

I paired my iPad Mini with the Bose speaker and cranked up iReal Pro using a song played back at 150 beats per minute. Since one minute contains sixty seconds or 60,000 milliseconds, beats at this tempo occur 400 ms apart; sixteenth notes occur 100 ms apart. I found that the delay was of the order of a sixteenth note, or about 100 ms. This is a very rough estimate, of course. I did the same with the Logitech and got the same result. In neither case is there any noticeable delay between the playback locator on the iReal Pro screen and audio output.

I note that you have the same problem with a wired speaker. This seems to indicate that the problem is with playback (in general) on your device.

Two questions:

Is there a sync problem between your device when it plays a video (either pre-loaded on your device or streamed) and the Bose speaker via Bluetooth? If so, the problem is not with iReal Pro. Likewise, when you link your device to the wired speaker, is there a sync problem when playing a video or iReal Pro? This would indicate a general problem with audio/video syncing on your device.

I've had success linking my iPad Mini with bluetooth devices. I hope we can discover a solution to your problem.

 

[semmelbroesel]

It's a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone, fairly powerful. I haven't had a chance yet to do actual calculations or tests, I just noticed it very strongly yesterday as I practiced along with iReal.

Yes, there is a delay between video and audio when using a Bluetooth speaker. I don't know if this is normal at all since I only have the one device to test on at this time. I always thought that Bluetooth simply has a delay.

I also should point out that the issue I am having is NOT with the delay - the issue is that either the speaker or the Bluetooth output on my phone go into some sort of "sleep mode" (with low volume) when they don't get a signal for a second or two, and it takes 2 seconds for it to fully wake up and return to full volume. The delay I can deal with as long as I get to hear that first beat of counting in.

I am in no way trying to say that iReal has a problem. I'm aware that the issue is either with my phone or the speaker or the Bluetooth protocol. I am asking for a minor adjustment in the code to add the option for a third bar in the count in because I am guessing that I might not be the only one with this issue and because this simple workaround could fix a lot of these issues.

 

[Keith88]

Hi Semmelbroesel: I know absolutely nothing about Android devices. However, this sounds like a new problem if you only noticed it yesterday. It also sounds like a global problem with your phone. Maybe you need to back up the phone and then restart or reset (these are Apple terms) your phone. That may clean up a glitch which seems to have taken hold of the phone. That's what I'd do if I had a similar problem with my iPad. In fact, my iPad became frozen several times and I had to do a restart or reset to set things right. Good luck…

That being said, I see no reason not to add the option for a three-bar count in.

 

[semmelbroesel]

I haven't had the Bluetooth speaker for more than a few weeks, and I actually have noticed the lag and "wake up" delay before, but I hadn't had a chance to use the new speaker for practice with iReal.

But again: I have no problem with the delay!

I have a problem with the speaker taking one or two seconds to turn up the volume once it detects a signal by which time the count-in of 2 bars if mostly over.

These are two separate issues, and I don't mind the first one.

All I'm saying is that adding a 3rd bar as an option for the count in would help with both issues.

When I have a chance, I will look deeper into the issue and see if there is a fix otherwise, but being a programmer myself I figured it can't be that hard to add the number 3 to the count in options.

Given that my hardware is fairly high quality, I can only imagine that the issue might be worse for someone with a cheaper speaker or phone, so I am quite sure I'm not the only one with this issue.

 

[dflat]

I am wondering if there is some kind of noise gate (then perhaps compressor) working. If you turn up the volume on your android device so it can detect the count well then a few other tests with the count's volume lower (you can use the volume control in the iReal Pro mixer) you might be able to hear what is happening.

Also you could save the audio file (with the count recorded) and play it from your android's music player, and change it's volume and see if it does the same kind of thing.

 

[semmelbroesel]

I'll run a few tests when I have a chance.

Saving the file as audio is a possibility - I could even edit the count-in part in the sound editor and lengthen it. But it would take away some of the convenience of having it all in one program.

 

[dflat]

I'll run a few tests when I have a chance.

Saving the file as audio is a possibility - I could even edit the count-in part in the sound editor and lengthen it. But it would take away some of the convenience of having it all in one program.

Sorry I meant for the audio file tests to give us an idea what the Bose is doing, not for you to have to make audio files of all your songs which would be very inconvenient I agree.
Let us know what you find out. Also if you are able to test on the same model somewhere this would make it clear it is not a fault with your speaker.
Thanks for mentioning this here.

 

[semmelbroesel]

Ah, got it.

I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks!

 

[pdxdjazz]

I don't have a dog in this fight...
I'm betting the Bose unit is simply designed to "soft-start" to protect you from being startled.
Dflat's "noise-gate" idea is certainly a possibility as well to prevent "wireless" noise/artifacts during standby,

I don't know for sure, but it seems reasonable that the Bluetooth interface may have a built-in buffer to reduce/prevent audio hiccups that could result in the slight audio delay mentioned previously.

I bought a cheap(!) Bluetooth receiver that I plug directly into a combo amp. (Crate Limo or Roland Cube Street, both battery powered!) no troubles with significant delay or late-start issues.
)BOB

 

[Keith88]

I bought a cheap(!) Bluetooth receiver that I plug directly into a combo amp. (Crate Limo or Roland Cube Street, both battery powered!) no troubles with significant delay or late-start issues.
)BOB

Bob: I do the same. I use a Logitech "bluetooth audio adapter" (=receiver) with a Roland CM-30 Cube Monitor and have no problems. This combination is reliable enough for me to use it on gigs. There is, in my experience, no ramp-up in volume when audio starts when using either the Logitech receiver or the Bose speaker (I tested this before posting this message). Nor are there any sync issues. I think the problems are with the Galaxy phone, either hardware or software, based on the descriptions in the previous posts.

 

[dflat]

I would not have thought a bluetooth receiver adapter would need to sleep itself then wake when audio arrives because it does not need to conserve battery as perhaps a bluetooth speaker would need to. Good to know there are no problems with them.
I was wondering if his Bose is sleeping after seconds rather than what I would have thought might be 30 minutes or so, hence the idea of trying the same model in a shop just to test.

Some other thoughts:
- since it is reducing the volume after the first beat of the count, it might mean there is a limiter there, so reducing the volume the phone is putting out a little might work slightly better. Obviously not too much of a volume decrease because otherwise the phone's volume will not be enough to trigger it 'waking'
- delete any other bluetooth devices from the Bose so there is no interference from them and pair only with the phone
- check what is happening with playing MP3 music tracks instead and see what happens

We are working on an update for Android, but unfortunately we do not have adding a 3 bar count on the list, sorry.
Looking forward to any other comments and any tests done.

 

[sgosnell]

The delay with bluetooth is real, and can be a problem. I once tried using a bluetooth system with my guitar amp, transmitting to bluetooth headphones, and it was unusable because of the delay. There was a distinct delay between plucking a string and hearing it in the headphones. For something like this, it might work, though. I don't think it's the phone, it's more likely the speaker.