Wow! Just got back from my 1st workout with pace tones and had to post.
If you are in the city, you prob. don't have this problem. But I have NO ONE to pace with. Our local pool has Water Aerobics, Zumba, and a handful of bobbing, dog-paddling octogenarians. At 58, I'm the youngster.
I just added pace tones to EVERY OTHER song on my playlist for my 1 hour swim. WOW did that jolt things out of the "Garbage Yardage"! The tones correspond to the flip turn, not the stroke.
Here's what I did:
I used Audacity in Linux. But, Macs & Microsoft must have their equivalent simple audio mixing programs .
1) Generate a 3 second 1000hz tone.
2) Now add (generate) a silence reflecting the target time to the wall (eg the 3 second tone + silence = wall to wall).
3) Cut & Paste the above tone & silence until you have a 5 minute string. (songs are usually around 5 min. so it works out well)
4) Save it as an mp3 file (call it your pace time)
5) Now you will have two mp3 files (tracks) to mix into one (your song, and your tones)
6) In Audacity, you import them each into separate tracks, then "Mix & Render".
7) Export & save as an mp3 file. VOILA!
I did 12 songs on my playlist, then alternated 12 songs in between with no tones, to catch my breath.
Best workout I've had in a long time!
