Automatic Pocket

Play bass along to real drums and find out, kick by kick, how locked in you are.

The play screen: a needle meter showing the last kick note 18 ms early, the word Locked in, and one bar of a rock groove with a dot where each note landed. — While you play: the needle swings to every kick note, and the bar shows where each one landed.

The results screen: a pocket score of 68, kicks played, lean and spread, then a row of dots for each kick position in the bar. — After the take: your score, your lean, and each kick in the bar on its own.

How it works

Automatic Pocket plays a drum groove in your headphones and listens to your bass through the microphone. The rule is simple: play a note on every kick. The score is how tightly those notes sit with the kick drum. Everything you play between the kicks is yours, so fills, walk-ups and ghost notes never count against you.

What's in it

Ten grooves: rock, funk, soul, disco, hip-hop, half-time, one drop, shuffle, jazz swing and sticks.
A drummer who can drop out for a few bars while you keep time on your own, or drift the tempo for you to follow.
Feel targets: push, dead on, laid back, or deep behind the beat.
Hidden kicks, so you find the kick by ear alone.
After each take: which kicks in the bar you rush or drag, the notes a listener would hear as off, and every bar at a glance.
Just drums: put a groove on and play with no scoring, through headphones or the speaker.

What you need

An iPhone or iPad, headphones (wired, USB-C or Bluetooth), and your bass through an amp or played unplugged near the device. There's no account, and nothing leaves your device.

Coming soon to the App Store.

Questions or problems: see support. How the app came to be is in its specimen entry.