Using Metronome

Accelerator

Tempo Finder

Saving Settings

Preferences

Using Metronome


Start and Stop

Start the Metronome by pressing the 'Start' button or using the 'Start' command in the 'Run' menu. For convenience, you can also press the space bar, the Return key, or the Enter key. Stop Metronome the same way — press either the button, the space bar, Return or Enter, or use the menu command. When you quit Metronome, you don't need to stop it first if it's running.


Changing the Tempo

The tempo is expressed as beats per minute, or bpm. To change the tempo, you can use the various menu commands in the 'Run' menu or type the tempo as bpm into the bpm text field. You can use the buttons on the Metronome window under the 'Slower' and 'Faster' labels. You can click the small button labelled  '↔'  which shows a slider with which you can set tempos between 40 and 240 bpm, or you can use the keyboard in the following ways:

  • Increase the tempo by one bpm by pressing the Right arrow key
  • Increase the tempo by 10 bpm by pressing the Right arrow with the Option key held down
  • Decrease the tempo by one bpm by pressing the Left arrow key
  • Decrease the tempo by 10 bpm by pressing the Left arrow with the Option key held down
  • Up arrow increases the tempo by 0.1 bpm
  • Down arrow decreases the tempo by 0.1 bpm
  • 'H' key halves the tempo (no Shift key required)
  • 'D' key doubles the tempo (no Shift key required)

Holding down a key or a button will cause the value it affects to change rapidly.

The '-' and '+' buttons will also change the tempo by 10 bpm if you hold down the Option key when you click.

There are other keyboard shortcuts which are shown in the menu. To see them, press the Option, Shift, and Control keys (separately) while the menu is open.

Whenever you change the tempo using any method, you don't need to stop the Metronome for the new speed to take effect. It happens 'on the fly'.

The name of the current tempo is shown in the centre of the window below the 'Slower' and 'Faster' buttons. These names describe a range of tempos rather than an exact tempo. You can change which language to use for these in the Preferences.

Traditional Tempos

Click the checkbox marked "Trad. tempos only" to force the tempo to the next traditional tempo found on clockwork metronomes when changing the tempo. These tempos are: 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72, 76, 80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 126, 132, 138, 144, 152, 160, 168, 176, 184, 192, 200, and 208. For example, when the checkbox is checked, pressing the right arrow key when the current tempo is 101 changes the tempo to 104. This 'constrain to traditional tempos' behaviour also works when holding down the Shift key even if you don't have the checkbox checked. Whether you use the Shift key or the checkbox, the tempo will be constrained to the traditional set whatever method you use to change it.

While the "Trad. tempos only" checkbox is checked, the tempo cannot be changed by increments of 0.1 as this makes no sense.


Setting the Bell accent

Set the beat on which the bell will sound by choosing a value from the Bell Accent>Main Bell menu, or by clicking one of the buttons labelled 2 to 9, or simply by typing one of those numbers on your keyboard. You can use either the keypad, if you have one, or the number keys at the top of the keyboard. The top row of buttons represent the bell accent values available on a traditional clockwork metronome.

To set the bell to a value higher than 9, click into the small text field to the right of the 9 button and below the 6 button. Type any number you desire, press your Enter or Return key, and the new bell value will be set. Any whole number will work.

Stop the bell by pressing the button marked 0, choosing '0' from the Bell Accent>Main Bell menu, or simply type a '0' on your keyboard. (That's zero, not the letter 'o'.)

Changing the bell accent takes effect immediately. You don't have to stop the Metronome first.


Setting the Other Bell accent

Set the second bell accent by using the Bell Accent>Other Bell menu, Option-clicking any of the number buttons, or typing Option+(a number) on your keyboard. To stop it, Option-click the zero button, choose zero in the Bell Accent>Other Bell menu, or type Option-zero on your keyboard.


Changing the Sounds

You can change the three sounds Metronome uses for the click, bell, and other bell. Go to the Sounds menu where you can choose any of the sounds which come with Metronome, or any sound on your computer. Note that short sounds work best; about one tenth of a second is good.

Set any sounds to be the default sounds to use by choosing 'Make Current Sounds Default' from the Sounds menu. Then you can always revert to your chosen default sounds by choosing 'Use Default Sounds' in the Sounds menu. The default sound is marked with an asterisk (*) before it's name in the Sounds menu.

On Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and above you can set the volume of each of the three sounds, click, bell and other bell. Do this via the Volume Control menu item in the Sounds menu. On earlier versions of Mac OS X, this menu item is absent.

Metronome will remember any custom sounds you choose and keep them listed in the menus. If you move or delete a custom sound which you have set to the click, bell, or other bell, Metronome will put up a dialog the next time it launches informing you that it can't find the sound. If you want to keep it, just use the 'Add New Sound...' menu item to find it again, or simply choose another sound.


Removing Sounds from the Sounds menu

You can remove the sounds you have added to the Sounds menu by clicking "Clear Added Sounds" in each of the sound menus. If any sound you remove from the menu is one of the current default sounds, there will be no default for that sound type (click, bell, other bell) until you set one.


Plugin Sounds

Add any sounds to Metronome's list of built-in sounds by adding the sound files to the Plugins folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Metronome/Plugins/. Metronome checks this folder every time it starts up and if it finds any sound files there, they're added to the "Built-in Sounds" of each of the sound menus. Metronome can play any sounds with the following file extensions:aiff, AIFF, "'AIFF'", aif, AIF, aifc, AIFC, wav, WAV, "'WAVE'", snd, SND, au, AU, "'ULAW'", "'ALAW'", mp3, MP3, "'Mp3 '", ulw, ULW, m4p, and m4a.

Short sounds work best (about 1/10th of a second is good).

Some sounds suitable for Metronome's Plugins folder are available here. They are modified versions of the Kavala Drum Archive. Thanks to Lars-Erik Johansson for making the archive available, and to Albrecht Bastemeyer for telling me about it.


Practice Timer

There is a Practice Timer accessible from the Window menu. It's a simple countdown timer which will play a 'ding' sound after the time you specify. A few people have requested this feature and I think I may even begin to use it myself.

Set the time you want the timer to stop at in the Minutes text field. (You can add fractional values if you want.) The button named 'Reset' in the picture is named 'Start' before the timer is running. Click the 'Start' button to begin the timer. The sweep hand will begin and the time will countdown.

After the countdown has begun, you can close the window and the timer will keep running in the background and sound the 'ding' sound at the right time. You can open and close the window as often as you like and it won't affect the timer. To stop the timer before the countdown time, hit the 'Reset' button.


Speaking Bars

You can have Metronome speak bar numbers as it plays. To use speaking bars, open the Speech Settings window from the 'Settings' menu and click the checkbox at the top labelled "Speak bar numbers". Metronome will use whatever voice is currently selected in the System Voice popup button in System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech pane. The checkbox labelled "Notify with speech when speech changes" sets whether or not Metronome will say "Speaking bars in on" (or "off") when you click the first checkbox. If this checkbox is checked, Metronome will say "Welcome to Metronome. Speaking bars is on" when it starts up if speech is on.

Below the "Speak bar numbers" checkbox of Metronome's Speech Settings window you can alter some characteristics of the voice while it speaks bars:

  • Rate will change the speed at which the voice speaks. As noted in the window, values between 150 and 180 are considered normal, but often this conversational speed is too slow to count bars for faster tempos, especially when the bar numbers are over one hundred. Metronome first sets the speech rate to a value of 220 as a good compromise between speed and diction, but you can of course use whichever rate suits you. The rate you set will be remembered between Metronome sessions.
  • Normal speech volume is much louder than Metronome's sound volume. So as not to drown out Metronome's sounds, the volume is first set to 0.3, but, like the rate, the volume you set will be remembered between Metronome sessions.
  • "Speak digits instead of whole words" lets you control whether the voice says, for example, "One hundred and seventy-seven" or "One seven seven". Having 'speak digits' on is a good idea for faster tempos, especially for larger numbers, as then the voice will be able to complete it's speech before the bar is finished.
  • The "Starting bar" combo box lets you set which bar to start speaking from after Metronome starts. Set it to "1" to start straight away, or you can set any higher number bar from which to begin counting.
  • The "Starting number" combo box lets you set which number speech will begin counting with.

Speaking bars is primarily designed for use by the vision-impaired, but fully-sighted users may also find it useful.


AppleScript Support

Metronome is AppleScriptable. It has the following commands and properties:

  • start Starts the Metronome.
  • stop Stops the Metronome.
  • tempo Get or set the tempo of Metronome.
  • bell Get or set the beat on which the bell sound plays.
  • other bell Get or set the beat on which the other bell sound plays.
  • click time Get the length of a click in seconds. Useful for "delay click time * [some integer]".
  • bar time Get the length of a bar in seconds. Useful for "delay bar time * [some integer]".
  • speak bars Get the value (true or false) or set to true or false.

There is a sample script in the download folder.

There is one counter-intuitive aspect to scripting Metronome which should be noted. If you set the bell to zero (ie, no bell) the value of bar time will NOT be zero. It will be calculated using the length of a bar as set in the Preferences' Accelerator section for when the bell value is zero.




If you like Metronome, please consider donating USD$8. You will be taken you to the Kagi website where they can process your credit card.

Happy practicing.