Metronome
Keep steady time from 20 to 300 BPM with accents, subdivisions and tap tempo.
Stopped
Tap along with a song to find its tempo.
Space starts and stops. T taps the tempo.
How to use
Set the tempo with the slider or the minus and plus buttons, then press Start or the Space bar. Press it again to stop.
To match a song, press Tap tempo, or the T key, on each beat. The tempo is averaged over your last taps and starts fresh after a two second pause.
Choose beats per bar to match the time signature, for example 3 for a waltz or 4 for most pop songs, and keep Accent the first beat on to hear where each bar starts. Subdivisions add softer clicks between beats: eighths split each beat in two, triplets in three and sixteenths in four.
The clicks are scheduled ahead on the browser's audio clock, so the spacing stays even when the page is busy. The light for each beat follows the sound, and your settings are remembered in this browser.
FAQ
How accurate is the timing?
Each click is scheduled on the Web Audio clock, which runs on the audio hardware, instead of being fired by a JavaScript timer. The spacing between clicks therefore stays even. Bluetooth headphones add a fixed delay of their own, but the beats stay evenly spaced.
How does tap tempo work?
Each tap records the time, and the tempo is the average gap across your last taps, up to eight. Two taps are enough for a first estimate and more taps make it steadier. After a pause of two seconds the count starts over.
Does it keep playing in a background tab?
Yes. When the tab is hidden, the metronome schedules further ahead because browsers slow down timers in background tabs. A phone may still pause audio when the screen locks, so keep the screen on while you practice.
What is a subdivision?
A subdivision splits each beat into smaller equal parts. Eighths give two clicks per beat, triplets three and sixteenths four. Practicing with subdivisions helps you place notes evenly between the beats at slow tempos.
What tempo should I practice at?
Start at a tempo where you can play the passage cleanly every time, then raise it a few BPM at a time. If mistakes appear, go back to the last tempo that felt clean.