How to use the metronome
Set a BPM and press Start and the beats begin. Here are the steps in order.
- Set the BPM. Type a number, use the slider and the − and + buttons, or use the arrow keys and the mouse wheel. The range is 20 to 300.
- If you do not know the tempo, use tap tempo. Tap the Tap tempo button (or the T key) along with the beat you hear, and the BPM fills itself in.
- Choose a time signature and subdivision. Pick 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 or another signature, and switch on eighth-note, triplet or sixteenth-note subdivision if you need it.
- Choose a sound and a volume. Click, wood or beep, whichever is easiest on your ears. Turn on the accent on beat 1 to feel the start of each bar.
- Press Start. Browsers allow sound only after a direct user action, so the click on Start is what wakes the audio. To stop, press Stop or the Space key.
- Add the speed trainer or practice timer if you want them. Both are described below.
You can change the BPM, signature, subdivision and sound while it plays (only the BPM is locked during the speed trainer). New values apply from the next beat that is about to sound, so nothing cuts out.
BPM and tempo terms
BPM, or beats per minute, says how many beats sound in a minute. At 60 BPM you hear one beat a second, and at 120 BPM two. Beside the number you will see the traditional tempo word for that speed: Largo (very slow), Larghetto, Adagio (slow), Andante (walking pace), Moderato (moderate), Allegro (fast), Vivace and Presto (very fast). Roughly, below 60 BPM is Largo, 76 to 107 is Andante, 120 to 155 is Allegro and 168 or more is Presto. The boundaries differ a little between books and periods, so treat them as rough guides.
Tap tempo
If you are listening to a piece and do not know its BPM, tap the button in time with the beat. The BPM is worked out from the average of your most recent taps, so a couple of uneven presses settle down after a few more. If two seconds pass after your last tap, counting starts again. You need at least two taps to get a value, and the slowest tempo you can measure this way is about 30 BPM. On a keyboard the T key does the same, which is handy when your hands are near the keys or the mouse.
Time signatures and subdivisions
The time signature decides how many beats make up a bar and where the weight falls. This metronome offers 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8 and 7/8, and a custom setting from 1 to 16 beats. The circles on the screen match the number of beats in a bar, and the one that is sounding lights up. The first beat of the bar is higher and louder. In 5/4 (grouped 3+2) and 6/8 the fourth beat gets a medium accent, and in 7/8 (grouped 2+2+3) the first beats of the second and third groups do.
In signatures with an 8 at the bottom, such as 6/8 and 7/8, one eighth note counts as one beat. That is why 120 BPM there can feel much faster than 120 BPM in 4/4. If you feel 6/8 as two groups of three, try setting a BPM close to half of the figure.
Subdivision
A subdivision splits each beat into smaller parts and sounds the extra ticks. Quarter notes means no subdivision, eighth notes gives two ticks per beat, triplets three, and sixteenth notes four. The extra ticks are quieter and lower than the main beat so you can tell them apart. Switching on a subdivision while you practise a fast passage helps you feel the space between beats, and the triplet setting is a good way to learn shuffle and 6/8 feels.
Sound, speed trainer and practice timer
There are three sounds: click, wood and beep, all generated on the spot by the browser as an audio signal (no sound files are downloaded). The click is short and clear and cuts through a busy practice room, wood is softer like a wood block, and beep has a clear pitch that makes the beat easy to pick out. With the beat-1 accent switched off, every beat sounds at the same strength.
Speed trainer
This automates the habit of starting a hard passage slowly and raising the speed. Choose a start BPM, a target BPM, how many bars to wait, and how many BPM to add each time. With a start of 80, a target of 120 and +5 every 4 bars, the tempo rises by 5 every four bars, reaches 120 at the eighth step and then stays at 120. If the target is lower than the start, it works as a slow-down exercise instead. The tempo only ever changes on the first beat of a bar, so the beat never stretches awkwardly in the middle of a phrase.
Practice timer
Set a practice time in minutes, and when it is over the metronome stops by itself and a chime sounds. The time left is shown on screen. Use it to keep practice blocks to 20 minutes or to hold a steady daily routine. The practice timer is also calculated from an end time, so it stays accurate when you switch tabs.
Keep the screen awake stops the display from turning off while the metronome runs, which is useful with a tablet on a music stand. The option is hidden in browsers that do not support it. Settings are saved only in this browser and nothing is sent to a server.
Practice tips
Start slow, then raise the tempo
The basis of metronome practice is to start at a speed where you can play without mistakes. Begin at about half your target tempo, and each time you play the passage cleanly a few times in a row, raise the BPM by four or five. Practise trouble spots in short pieces, and if mistakes appear as you speed up, drop back a step and consolidate. The speed trainer does this for you.
Feel the space between beats
Do not only listen to the click; count inside the gaps. With a subdivision switched on you can hear the length between beats, and once you are comfortable, try relying on the accent at the head of a long custom bar while counting the beats in the middle yourself.
Using it for mixing and sound work
If you know the tempo of a song, you can set delay and reverb times to the beat. Check the tempo here, then work out note lengths with a calculator. When you use tap tempo to find a tempo by ear, remember that it averages several taps, so tap about ten times and see whether the value settles.
Accuracy and limits
A web metronome that feels unsteady usually suffers from timer misuse. JavaScript's setInterval and setTimeout can be delayed by tens of milliseconds when other work gets in the way, and that makes beat spacing uneven. This metronome does not sound the beats directly. It wakes every 25 milliseconds, uses the audio device's own clock to schedule the beats due in the next 0.1 seconds, and the audio clock then plays them at the exact moment. Even if the page stutters briefly, the spacing of the beats is not affected.
There are limits, though. The time it takes for sound to leave the speaker (output latency) differs between browsers and devices. That latency does not shake the spacing between beats; it only shifts every beat later by the same amount, so it does not matter when you play along alone. It matters when you must line up with video or other sound, and especially with Bluetooth headphones or speakers, where the delay can grow to tens or hundreds of milliseconds. Wired headphones or the device speaker are better then. The lights on screen are timed to match the sound as closely as possible, but they can be slightly off depending on the device.
Browsers may slow timers in background tabs. When the tab is hidden, this metronome schedules further ahead (about 1.5 seconds) so the sound does not break up. Even so, a screen lock under some power-saving settings can stop the sound, so switch on keep-the-screen-awake for long sessions.
Frequently asked questions
I cannot hear anything.
Audio only starts after you press Start. If you still hear nothing, check the device volume, silent mode, the Bluetooth connection and whether the browser tab is muted.
The beat sounds slightly late.
That is output latency. It adds the same delay to every beat, so the spacing between beats is still accurate. Bluetooth headphones add a lot of delay; wired headphones or the device speaker reduce it.
Can I use decimal BPM values?
BPM moves in whole numbers only. A value found with tap tempo is rounded to the nearest whole number.
I cannot change the BPM during the speed trainer.
While the trainer is playing, the tempo is being changed automatically, so the BPM controls are locked. Stop it and you can set the BPM by hand again.
Are my settings stored on a server?
No. Settings such as BPM, time signature and sound are stored only in this browser's localStorage on this device and are never sent to a server.