The Global Metronome: Absolute Tempo Sync For Networked Musical Performance

Reid Oda, and Rebecca Fiebrink

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

At a time in the near future, many computers (including devices such as smart-phones) will have system clocks that are synchronized to a high degree (less than 1 ms of error). This will enable us to coordinate events across unconnected devices with a degree of accuracy that was previously impossible. In particular, high clock synchronization means that we can use these clocks to synchronize tempo between humans or sequencers with little-to-no communication between the devices. To facilitate this low-overhead tempo synchronization, we propose the Global Metronome, which is a simple, computationally cheap method to obtain absolute tempo synchronization. We present experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of using the Global Metronome and compare the performance to MIDI clock sync, a common synchronization method. Finally, we present an open source implementation of a Global Metronome server using a GPS-connected Raspberry Pi that can be built for under $100.

Citation:

Reid Oda, and Rebecca Fiebrink. 2016. The Global Metronome: Absolute Tempo Sync For Networked Musical Performance. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1176096

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{Oda2016,
 abstract = {At a time in the near future, many computers (including devices
such as smart-phones) will have system clocks that are synchronized to a high
degree (less than 1 ms of error). This will enable us to coordinate events across
unconnected devices with a degree of accuracy that was previously impossible. In
particular, high clock synchronization means that we can use these clocks to
synchronize tempo between humans or sequencers with little-to-no communication
between the devices. To facilitate this low-overhead tempo synchronization, we
propose the Global Metronome, which is a simple, computationally cheap method to
obtain absolute tempo synchronization. We present experimental results
demonstrating the effectiveness of using the Global Metronome and compare the
performance to MIDI clock sync, a common synchronization method. Finally, we
present an open source implementation of a Global Metronome server using a
GPS-connected Raspberry Pi that can be built for under $100.},
 address = {Brisbane, Australia},
 author = {Reid Oda and Rebecca Fiebrink},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1176096},
 isbn = {978-1-925455-13-7},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 pages = {26--31},
 publisher = {Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University},
 title = {The Global Metronome: Absolute Tempo Sync For Networked Musical Performance},
 track = {Papers},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2016/nime2016_paper0006.pdf},
 year = {2016}
}