Introducing Tempi, an App for Musicians

It’s pretty hard to think of a better gig than getting paid to make apps for other people. Davey and I have both loved coding since we were kids (to be fair, Davey still is a kid 😀) so getting paid to do what we love is awesome. That said, we’ve wanted to make something of our own for a while now and today I’m proud to introduce our first homegrown app, Tempi.

Tempi is an app for musicians that helps improve their rhythm. A friend of mine summed it up nicely:

“It’s like a reverse metronome.”

In a nutshell, it listens to music, figures out the BPM (beats per minute), and reports it back in real time. Musicians can use it while practicing alone to improve their technique and rhythm. Bands can use it during rehearsal to pinpoint areas of the song where they’re slowing down or speeding up. A drummer friend told me:

“I used it at rehearsal the other night to resolve an issue with our guitar player. (Why is it always the guitar players John?) He thought the tempo was speeding up. I turned on Tempi and had it record the song and that resolved that. Tempo only moved up by 3BPM a few times.”

If you’re thinking this is kind of a niche app, you’re right. So why’d we make it?

First, I’ve been playing guitar for 30+ years. And while there are musical tools like tuners, scale & chord references, slow-downers, and so much more, aside from the trusty metronome there’s hardly anything out there to help with rhythm.

Second, this is just the sort of app we’d love to see more of on the App Store: simple apps that do one thing very very well. While Tempi is simple, we’ve tried to make it easy, useful, and fun. It records your performance so you can play it back after or share the song with a friend. We’ve included themes to accommodate rehearsal in dark spaces or just to match your style. For example here’s the “Nighttime Red” theme:

If you’re a musician with an iPhone and an iPad, we think you’ll find Tempi to be a vital app in your musical toolbox so give it a try!