When I first met Lucas back in 2011 creating an iPhone app was something I’d wanted to do, but had no idea how to start. I’d written some cool software for Mac and PC and really liked the idea of translating some of it to the iPhone, but it seemed like such a big leap.
Lucas had signed up for my Gold Pass to check out how I’d approached breaking down a Gary Novak solo. I emailed him to thank him and we got to know each other. I found out that he was based in New York, had worked for Pixar, AND was Dave Weckl’s part time drum tech! How cool is that?
I was about to start a US tour and we managed to meet up at a Brecker Bros Band Reunion gig at the BlueNote. While waiting for the band to start we got talking about software development and Lucas told me he’d been learning to code for iOS while on the road with Dave. I asked him how easy it would be to turn Pyramid (one of the programs I’d written) into an iPhone app. He didn’t think it would be too challenging – and that’s how PolyNome was born.
I explained to Lucas how I wanted it to work and he got his hands dirty with the iOS code. A few months later we had the metronome I’d dreamed of!
Cut to 2014 and we both wanted to add some major new features to PolyNome BUT life had got in the way. Lucas got married, changed jobs and moved to the west coast. He basically had no time left over to spend working on our little side project. I, on the other hand, had a LOT of time to kill between tours. We were close to releasing an update that would allow you to save presets but then I got really excited about a few new features to add. I mentioned these to Lucas and he agreed that they’d be killer features, but said it would take a long time since he could only work on it for about 30 mins a week.
That was the point that I decided it was about time I learned to pull my weight. I read books, watched online tutorials and began digging into the PolyNome code trying to figure out where to start. That was the beginning of August 2014. It’s now December 11th and I’ve spent pretty much every spare waking hour coding. Just ask the guys in the band! Since August we’ve done a US tour and a UK tour and every van journey you’d find me with laptop glued to my lap – head buried in code.
In that time PolyNome has been stripped bare and rebuilt from the ground up to include some amazing new features. I’m personally very excited to get this finished so I can start to use it and get back to playing some drums.
I know you’re going to love the new version and we’re working to release it as soon as it’s ready, but not before. We want it to work, and work well, and it’s important that we get it right.
We hope you’ll hang in there for these last few weeks while we pull together a few lose ends to make “PolyNome : The Ultimate Metronome” even better.
Joe
