A free online metronome with steady timing
This metronome plays a click on every beat at the tempo you set, from 20 to 300 beats per minute (BPM), and lights up each beat of the bar on screen. Choose a time signature, hear the first beat of each bar accented, and add subdivisions when you practice eighths, triplets or sixteenths. Tap tempo finds the BPM of a song you hear. It runs in your browser, without an app or an account.
How the timing works
A metronome in a web page cannot rely on page timers alone, because the browser may run them late when it is busy. This one uses the lookahead scheduler described in the article A tale of two clocks by Chris Wilson on web.dev: every 25 milliseconds a timer looks a short moment ahead and books the clicks that fall in that window on the clock of the Web Audio engine. The article describes that clock as the audio system's hardware clock, and the engine plays each booked click at its exact time even when the page is busy.
The length of one beat follows directly from the tempo:
Time signatures and beats
The upper number of a time signature is the number of clicks in each bar, and the dots under the tempo show where you are in the bar. In 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4 each click is a quarter note. In 6/8 and 7/8 each click is an eighth note, so set the BPM to the speed of the eighths. With the accent on, beat 1 of every bar has a higher click; turn it off when you want every beat to sound the same.
| Setting | Clicks per bar | Each click |
|---|---|---|
| 2/4 | 2 | Quarter note |
| 3/4 | 3 | Quarter note |
| 4/4 | 4 | Quarter note |
| 5/4 | 5 | Quarter note |
| 6/8 | 6 | Eighth note |
| 7/8 | 7 | Eighth note |
How to use the metronome
- 1Set the tempo with the slider, the plus and minus buttons or the number field, or tap it in with Tap tempo or the T key.
- 2Pick the time signature and, if you like, a subdivision. Leave the accent on to hear where each bar starts.
- 3Press Start or the Space bar. You can change the tempo while it plays. Copy link saves your settings in a link.
To work up to a faster tempo, start lower and raise it a few BPM at a time with the plus button or the + key, even while the metronome plays. Tune up first with the online tuner, and time a whole practice session with the stopwatch.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is this online metronome?
Each click is placed on the timeline of your browser's audio engine before it plays, a short moment ahead, instead of being fired by a page timer. That audio clock is the hardware clock of your device's audio system, so each click plays at its booked time even when the page is busy with something else.
How does tap tempo work?
Tap the Tap button or press T on the beat of a song, at least twice. The metronome takes the average time between your recent taps and turns it into beats per minute. Pause for more than two seconds and the next tap starts a new measurement.
What does BPM mean in 6/8 and 7/8?
Here BPM counts the clicks you hear, so in 6/8 and 7/8 each click is an eighth note and a bar has six or seven of them. In 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4 each click is a quarter note.
What do the subdivisions do?
They add softer clicks between the beats: two per beat for eighths, three for triplets or four for sixteenths. The beats keep their normal sound, so you still hear where each beat falls while you practice even rhythms.
Does it keep running in a background tab?
Yes. Browsers may run page timers as rarely as once per second in a hidden tab, so while the tab is hidden the metronome books its clicks 1.5 seconds ahead instead of a tenth of a second. The beat stays even, and a change you make takes effect a moment later.
Is anything recorded or sent?
No. The metronome only plays sound. It does not use your microphone, and nothing is sent to a server. A copied link only contains the tempo, time signature and subdivision.