Another use for this great app

Am I the only one doing this? No reviewer has mentioned my use of the device. Im a casual drummer, meaning so far, I do all my drumming alone, in a room in my basement. Naturally, I wear ear protection - either in-ear monitors or cans. That cuts the decibels, but it makes my toms sound like cardboard, and my cymbals sound like garbage can lids. This program is my solution. I plug into the iPhone and turn on this app. I set the threshold quite low; I want it to pick up all the ambient noise, i.e. my drumming. (But not as low as it can go; this program is so sensitive, it would pick up my own breathing.) Then I switch over to my metronome app (I use Tempo) or a music track Im playing to.

Now I can have a click track or music in my ear phones, along with my drumming. The drum volume is cut, but Awareness! does a fair job of feeding in a range of tones, unlike the cans that distort as they muffle. Its far from perfect; a pair of good in-ear plugs would do a better job of maintaing accurate sound, but those guys cost around $200 and you cant feed your click track or music in.

Right now I use single-driver headphones from Zagg. Tolerable for music, but lousy for drumming, because it just cant deliver the lows. Im thinking of going to custom-molded, dual-drives from Alien Ears or Westone. With the great sound from those, combined with Awareness!, I should have something. When I play with a band, Ill plug into a real system with those buds.

Anyway, Id be interested to hear from anyone else who is using the app this way, or from the developers if you have any comments.

mark

mmmmark about Awareness! The Headphone App, v2.1