Free tool · no account needed
Online Metronome
A free metronome with six sounds — a soft beep, a digital click, a mechanical tick, a struck bell, a marimba, or a real drum groove. Any tempo from 20 to 300 BPM, seven time signatures, subdivisions, accents and a built-in speed trainer.
6 sounds, incl. real drums 7 time signatures Speed trainer No signup
Stopped · Space to start
Made with Drumloop AI — describe a beat and hear it in seconds.
Generate drum loops with Drumloop AIHow to use this metronome
- Set your tempo — type straight into the big number, or nudge it with the plus and minus buttons. Not sure of the tempo? Tap it in first.
- Pick a time signature. 4/4 is the default; the metronome accents the first beat of each group automatically.
- Add subdivisions if you want a click between the beats — eighths, triplets or sixteenths.
- Pick a sound. Beep is the default; switch to Drums to practise against a real groove instead of a click. Then press play, or hit the spacebar.
Metronome by tempo
Each of these opens the metronome already set to that speed, with notes on what the tempo is used for and how to practise at it.
Metronome by time signature
Odd meters are much easier to internalise when the accents are in the right places. These pages open with the grouping already set — 7/8 as 3+2+2, 6/8 as two groups of three.
A metronome that plays drums
Every metronome does the same job, and most of them do it the same way: a click on every beat, a higher click on beat one. It works, but it is not how music actually feels. A click tells you where the beat is; it does not tell you where the groove is, and for a drummer those are different questions.
Switching the sound setting to Drums replaces the click with a kick, snare and hi-hat pattern that follows whatever tempo, meter and subdivision you have set. The accent becomes a kick, the backbeat lands where a backbeat should, and the subdivisions become hi-hats. Suddenly you are playing with something rather than against it.
This matters most for time-feel work. Playing marginally behind the beat is a deliberate stylistic choice in hip hop, soul and a lot of jazz — but you cannot practise sitting behind a click, because a click has no pocket to sit behind. A groove does. Set the metronome to drums at 90 BPM and try placing your snare a few milliseconds late; the difference is immediately audible in a way it never is against a beep.
It is also less tiring. An hour of clicking is genuinely unpleasant, and a lot of players abandon metronome practice for that reason alone. An hour of playing along to drums is just playing.
Tempo markings and their BPM ranges
Italian tempo markings predate the metronome, so they describe character as much as speed and the ranges vary between editions. These are the conventional figures.
| Marking | BPM range | Meaning | Set the metronome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grave | 20–40 | Very slow and solemn | — |
| Largo | 40–60 | Broad and stately | 50 BPM |
| Adagio | 66–76 | Slow, at ease | 70 BPM |
| Andante | 76–108 | Walking pace | 90 BPM |
| Moderato | 108–120 | Moderate | 110 BPM |
| Allegro | 120–156 | Fast, bright | 140 BPM |
| Vivace | 156–176 | Lively | — |
| Presto | 168–200 | Very fast | 180 BPM |
| Prestissimo | 200–300 | As fast as possible | — |
How to practise with a metronome
Most people use a metronome as a judge — switch it on, discover they are rushing, switch it off again. It is far more useful as a tool with specific jobs. These four cover almost everything worth doing with one.
1. The practice ladder
Set a tempo where you can play the passage perfectly five times in a row. That is usually slower than you expect. Raise the tempo by two to five BPM and repeat. Any mistake sends you back a step. The speed trainer above automates the climb; the discipline of dropping back on errors is the part that actually produces results.
2. Subdivision work
Turn on sixteenths and play quarter notes against them. You will hear immediately whether your notes land on the click or slightly around it. This is the fastest fix for rushing, because rushing is nearly always a subdivision problem rather than a tempo problem.
3. The disappearing click
Play four bars with the metronome and four bars without, alternating. If you are still in time when it returns, your internal clock is solid. If you drift, you now know in which direction and by how much. Nothing else exposes time-keeping as brutally.
4. Displaced clicks
Set the metronome so its click falls on beats 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3 — count the click as the backbeat rather than the downbeat. It forces you to hold the bar internally instead of being handed it, and it is standard practice among jazz musicians for exactly that reason. Take it further by setting the click to land only on beat 1 of every second bar.
Practise to loops instead
A metronome is a reference, not music. Once a part is solid, playing it against a real groove is a better test — the arrangement gives you something to react to, and time-feel choices start to matter. Every tempo below has a free library of royalty-free drum loops:
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a metronome with drum sounds instead of a click?
Yes — that is what the Drums setting does. Instead of a click on each beat, the metronome plays a kick, snare and hi-hat groove that follows your tempo, time signature and subdivision. Most drummers find it far easier to lock in against real drums than against a beep, because you hear where the backbeat sits rather than just where the beat is. It is also less fatiguing over a long practice session.
What BPM should I practise at?
Start slower than feels necessary. Pick a tempo where you can play the passage perfectly five times in a row — for most new material that is somewhere between 50 and 80 BPM — then use the speed trainer to add one or two BPM every couple of bars. If you make a mistake, drop back to the last clean tempo. Practising fast and sloppy teaches your hands the sloppy version.
What do the two numbers in a time signature mean?
The top number is how many beats are in each bar. The bottom number is which note value gets one beat: 4 means a quarter note, 8 means an eighth note. So 3/4 is three quarter-note beats per bar, and 6/8 is six eighth-note beats per bar — though 6/8 is felt as two groups of three rather than as six separate pulses.
How do subdivisions help?
They fill the gap between beats with a quieter click, which makes slow tempos playable and exposes exactly where your notes land. At 50 BPM the beats are 1.2 seconds apart, which is longer than most people can hold a steady internal pulse — adding sixteenths gives you a reference every 300 milliseconds instead. They are also the fastest way to fix rushing, because you hear yourself arrive early against the subdivision rather than the beat.
What is a speed trainer?
It raises the tempo automatically as you play — here, by 1, 2 or 5 BPM every two bars. It is the most reliable way to build speed, because the increments are small enough that your technique adapts rather than breaking. Set a pattern going at a comfortable tempo, switch the trainer on, and note the BPM at which your playing stops being clean. That number is your actual ceiling, and it is what you work on.
What tempo is allegro, andante or largo?
Largo is roughly 40–60 BPM, adagio 66–76, andante 76–108, moderato 108–120, allegro 120–156 and presto 168–200. The full table is further down this page. These are conventions rather than rules — different editions and eras use slightly different ranges.
Does this metronome work offline?
Once the page has loaded, yes. Everything runs in your browser using the Web Audio API — the sounds are synthesised on the fly rather than downloaded, so there is nothing to fetch and no audio is ever sent anywhere. You can keep the tab open and use it without a connection.
Can I practise to real drum loops instead?
Yes. Drumloop AI generates original, royalty-free drum loops at any tempo from a plain-English description, so you can practise against a groove written for the thing you are actually working on. The free drum loop library is organised by tempo and genre.
More free music tools
Practise to real drums, not a beep.
Drumloop AI generates original, royalty-free drum loops at any tempo from a text description — a full groove to play against instead of a click.