Online Metronome
A free, sample-accurate metronome for practice. Set 20 to 300 BPM, tap a tempo, pick a time signature, accent or mute any beat, add subdivisions and let the speed trainer push you faster bar by bar.
Click a beat to cycle accent, normal and mute. Beat 1 accented plays the highest pitch.
Stopped
Keys: Space start/stop · ↑ ↓ or ← → change BPM (Shift for 5) · T tap tempo
Settings
Clicks are sharp sounds. Start quiet, especially in headphones, and raise the volume until the click cuts through your instrument.
Speed trainer
Starting at 100 BPM, the tempo moves 5 BPM toward 140 after every 4 bars, then holds there. Set a target below the current tempo to slow down instead.
How to practise with a metronome
Start slow, then earn the speed
Find the tempo where you can play a passage cleanly three times in a row, and start there, even if it feels painfully slow. Then use the speed trainer: for example 4 BPM every 4 bars toward your goal tempo. If it falls apart, drop back 10 BPM and climb again. Accent beat one so you always know where the bar starts, and once you are steady, click beats 2 and 4 until they are muted, so you keep the time yourself instead of leaning on the click.
Tempo markings and their BPM ranges
Italian markings are loose conventions, not fixed numbers, but the usual ranges are: Grave under 40, Largo 40 to 59, Adagio 60 to 75, Andante 76 to 107, Moderato 108 to 119, Allegro 120 to 167, Presto 168 to 199 and Prestissimo from 200. The marking under the big number updates as you change the tempo. Most pop songs sit between 90 and 130 BPM.
Why some browser metronomes drift (and this one doesn't)
A naive web metronome plays a sound from setTimeout once per beat. Those timers can fire tens of milliseconds late whenever the page is busy, so the beat wobbles and slowly drifts. This one uses a lookahead scheduler: a light timer wakes every 25 ms and books each click about 100 ms ahead on the audio hardware clock, so every click lands on the exact sample it should. The dots are drawn from that same clock. In a background tab the browser slows timers down, so the scheduler books further ahead there; after many minutes hidden, some browsers may still throttle it, so keep the tab visible for long sessions.
Finding a song's BPM with tap tempo
Play the song, then tap the Tap tempo button (or press T) on each beat. The tempo is the average of your last 8 taps, so it settles after a few taps; ignore the first reading. Stop for 2 seconds and the next tap starts a fresh count. Tap on the kick and snare rather than the hi-hat, or you may get double the real tempo. Then press Space to check the click against the track.
Related tools
- Tone Generator: a steady pitch for tuning and drones.
- Sound Test: check your speakers before a session.
- Headphone Test: confirm left, right and balance in your monitoring.
- Auditory Reaction Time Test: how fast you respond to a sound.
Frequently asked questions
What does the BPM number mean?
BPM is beats per minute. At 60 BPM each beat is one second apart, and at 120 BPM each beat is half a second. The slider and the plus and minus buttons stay between 20 and 300. The scheduler will not divide by zero: a missing or non-positive tempo is treated as 20 BPM. Eighth, triplet and sixteenth split each beat into 2, 3 or 4 equal clicks.
How does tap tempo work?
Press Tap tempo or the T key on each beat. One tap shows a count of 1 and does not change the BPM. From the second tap, the tempo is 60000 divided by the mean time between taps in the current window, and that window keeps at most 8 taps. That number is rounded and kept between 20 and 300. A zero or non-finite gap is ignored, so the readout stays a real BPM. Wait more than 2 seconds and the next tap starts a fresh count. Further taps while the count is already 8 still count as recent taps and do not wipe the window early.
Which beat is accented?
Beat 1 of the bar is the downbeat. The dot labeled 1 is that beat, and the presets accent it. 5/4 also accents beat 4. 6/8 and 12/8 accent the first eighth of each group of three. 7/8 accents beats 1, 3 and 5. Click a dot to cycle accent, then normal, then mute. An accented beat 1 plays the highest pitch. Any other accented beat plays a lower pitch, a normal beat is quieter, and a muted beat is silent while its dot still flashes.
How do I stop the clicks?
Press Stop, or press Space. That clears the 25 ms scheduler and stops every click already booked, including ones that have not sounded yet. Reset does that too, then restores 100 BPM, 4/4, a quarter-note click and the other defaults. Leaving the page stops booked clicks and closes the audio.
Why do the clicks stay in time?
Each click is placed on the Web Audio clock, about 100 milliseconds ahead. A timer only wakes the scheduler every 25 milliseconds, so a late wake-up does not move a click that was already booked. In a background tab the page books about 1.5 seconds ahead, because browsers slow timers there. If the next click is more than 0.2 seconds late, the scheduler starts fresh instead of firing a burst. Keep the tab visible for a long session.
How do time signatures, subdivisions and the speed trainer work?
The time signature sets how many dots are in a bar: 4/4 has 4, 6/8 has 6, and Custom takes 1 to 16. In 6/8, 7/8 and 12/8 each dot is an eighth note and the BPM counts those eighth notes. Subdivision splits each dot, not a separate quarter-note grid. With Change the tempo automatically while it plays turned on, the BPM moves toward your target after every number of bars you set (1 to 32), by 1 to 20 BPM, then holds. A target below the current tempo slows down.