Soundbrenner Core: 4-in-1 smart watch for the gigging musician

03 Oct 2018 by Robin Vincent | Approximate reading time: 4 Minutes

Soundbrenner Core · Source: Soundbrenner

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Why check your email with something square and boring on your wrist when you can feel the beat, tune your instrument, check your levels and tell the time on the Soundbrenner Core 4-in-1 Smart Music Tool?

Soundbrenner Core

We’ve already seen the Soundbrenner Pulse, the vibrating, wrist-worn metronome. You’re probably aware of it through the constant stream of Instagram and Facebook adverts that seem to fill up my feed. Yeah, a vibrating metronome is kinda fun, it looks cool, but it’s really quite limited in scope and usage. And so in comes the Soundbrenner Core. It takes the Pulse idea and expands into an infinitely more useful device. It’s the kind of thing that you could almost see yourself wearing and even using from time to time.

Along with the vibrating metronome you get the Magnetic Twist Tuner, a Decibel Meter and it also has a watch face with an alarm and even some push notifications from your phone.

Soundbrenner Core

Metronome

This is still a big thing for Soundbrenner, and that’s fine…. I can’t remember the last time I used a metronome outside of a DAW but I’m sure many people do. Use it to practice your playing, trying out new rhythms and all sorts of exciting things like that. Soundbrenner sell it so well that I end up wondering why I’m not using a metronome more often. They suggest that if the whole band is wearing a Core you can sync them all up so you all play in time. Personally I thought that’s why we kept a drummer around the place. But, yeah I can see how that might be useful in some situations. Actually, I can see that some kind of non-aural metronome could be useful in performance using something like Ableton Live. If you are playing along to a passage of music that has no drum or percussive backing then a pulse on your wrist could keep you together until the drums drop back in. I always thought Live could do with a flashing visual metronome for that reason – but this could be a more versatile solution. Of course, it will need a bit of DAW sync – which is where Bluetooth MIDI comes in.

Soundbrenner Core Metronome Mode

Magnetic Twist Tuner

This is almost laughably cool. It’s a tuner – right you’ve got a tuner app on your phone – but they tend to be awkward to hold and needs sound to work. With the Magnetic Twist Tuner you just rip the thing off your wrist and stick it to your machine heads. Or if there’s no metal surface to magnetically attach the Core then you can stick on a little metal pad that does the job. And you get a lovely visual display. You’ll also never accidentally leave your clip-on tuner at home.

Soundbrenner Core Tuner Mode

Decibel Meter

Slightly scraping the bottom of the usefulness barrel but OK, noise levels are important and in this mode it will tell you the sort of volume you are kicking out. Could be useful at gigs or clubs where it would alert you to whether your ears are likely to be taking damage.

Soundbrenner Core Decibel mode

Watch

And then finally, unlike the Pulse, the Core also incorporates the ability to display the time – genius, because then it’s a regular watch. They also crammed in some phone notifications and an alarm clock so that you could almost call it a smart watch. You won’t be surfing the internet, checking stocks or buying plane tickets with it.

Smart

It’s good-looking, with some nice strap options and a decent feature list. It got funded in about 15 minutes on Kickstarter so I think a lot of people agree. If I could find a criticism it would be to suggest that the ability to record and playback music would be the one feature that’s missing. It could be an MP3 player and it could be a useful way to record jams or secret conversations. But as it is it’s pretty darn groovy.

Early Bird discounts are still available starting at USD 159 for the Core with the silicone strap, or if you fancy Italian leather and a pouch (what possible reason would you need to carry it around in a pouch rather than your wrist?) then it’s USD 199 for the “Core Steel” version. And there are 44 days to go.