Any experiences with Phrase Trainers - standalone or PC?

[molan]

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking about buying one of those funky little Tascam phrase trainers which allow you to slow stuff down to learn parts or to loop the same part over & over whilst slowly speeding it up etc. The one I'd been looking at was the Tascam MPBT1 which has 1 Gb of MP storage onboard.

I then thought that as these days I tend to be learning from MP3 which sits on my laptop I wondered if there's a similar software tool available?

Also - has anyone used either the Tascam or any similar devices - they sound good to me in theory but I wondered what they are actually like to use as a teaching device?

Edited March 23, 2008 by molan

[Thunderthumbs]

For use on your PC (works with MP3 and CD), try "Best Practice". It's free too.

[url="http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/"]http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/[/url]

[molan]

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='162194' date='Mar 23 2008, 02:14 PM']For use on your PC (works with MP3 and CD), try "Best Practice". It's free too.

[url="http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/"]http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/[/url][/quote]

Downloaded already - just thought that the only initial problem is that I don't have a simple interface to link my bass through my laptop so I can balance signals and have the option to listen through headphones.

Maybe that Tascam is beginning to make more sense already!

[andyonbass]

I've got a [url="http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=PX3B"]KORG PX3B[/url] that I've been meaning to put up on the for sale board, it does all that and more. Excellent condition, boxed with instructions £30 posted if anyone's interested

[steve]

I have one of the tascams, great piece of kit, it's really useful for learning covers too, you can boost the bass to hear what's being played, and then cut it to practice playing along

[Raph]

The Tascam's pretty good. The slowing down thing's a bit crude, it simply chops up the audio and pastes it all back together slower... with the resulting chopped-up-ness in the sound, but still good enough to use.

[chrisba]

I've got a Tascam MP-BT1, and it's does exactly what it says on the tin. A few comments...

The speeding up /slowing down is crude, and I find it hard to pick out the bass line when it's slowed down.
The changing pitch works well for a semitone or two either way, but beyond that , the don't expect miracles !
The loop feature, which lets you cut a short section out and repeat it over and over, is really useful. With practice, you can get it to cut really accurately. I use this a lot.
The bass input , headphone out and mixer mean that you can practice without an amp. Sound quality is good. I use it like this most of the time, with decent headphones.
The bass boost is not perfect, but you can normally get something if you fiddle with the settings.
The bass cut is very crude, like listening through a cheap tranny.
Has lots of effects built in - Don't see the point, and have never used them.
Also has a tuner and a metronome built in. Both work well.
The user interface is very 1990's and clunky, but works OK.
This may seem silly, but having a easily accesible FFWD/REW buttons make life much easier than a standard Ipod / MP3 player.
Seems solid and well made, and the recharagble battery is replaceable if you really wear it out.

Utterly indispensable when learning a long covers set, like I did recently.