Choose a Practice Tempo
Enter 30–300 BPM, move the slider, or use the ±1 and ±10 buttons. Tap at least three steady quarter notes for a tempo estimate.
Tempo practice workspaceLocal audio
Ready — sound is off
Tempo
BPM
Space toggles playback outside form controls.Stopped
BPM counts quarter notes. In /8, markers count eighth notes. Cycle a marker: ● Normal · ◆ Accent · × Mute.
Browser audio signal toolkit
Online Metronome
Use this online metronome to set a practice tempo, tap along with a recording, or build a click pattern with audible accents and muted beats. Start quietly and keep the page visible during practice.
What Is an Online Metronome?
An online metronome supplies a repeating timing reference for music practice. Tempo is expressed in beats per minute, or BPM. Here that marking always refers to quarter notes: at 120 BPM a quarter note lasts half a second. The time signature controls how those notes fit into a measure, while subdivision determines which shorter pulses are heard. The numbered markers help you see the current position without making the visual animation responsible for sound timing.
The online metronome creates brief oscillator clicks on your device after you press Start. There is no recording or microphone access. Each click has a short gain envelope rather than an abrupt on/off switch. A higher click identifies accented positions, a lower click supplies ordinary timing, and a muted position leaves room for internal counting. Start and Stop remain available without scrolling through the explanations below.
Three simple steps
How to Get Started
Set a quarter-note tempo, choose the rhythm, then start a short practice passage.
Build the Click Pattern
Select the signature and subdivision. Tap numbered markers to cycle Normal, Accent, and Mute; the first-beat switch adds a downbeat accent.
Start, Listen, and Adjust
Press Start at a low level. Practice a short phrase, adjust tempo gradually, and press Stop before moving to another task.
How BPM Works in This Online Metronome
The quarter-note interval is 60 divided by BPM seconds. A setting of 60 gives one quarter per second, 90 gives two-thirds of a second, and 180 gives one-third. The online metronome rounds tempo to a whole BPM and limits the control to 30–300, a practical range for deliberate practice. A live tempo adjustment affects events that have not yet been scheduled; the short queue can take about a tenth of a second to catch up.
A score may mark a dotted quarter as its tempo unit. Convert that marking before entering it here: dotted-quarter 80 equals quarter-note 120. This explicit convention keeps 6/8 from silently acquiring a different BPM meaning when you change the signature. Reset returns 120 BPM, 4/4, quarter clicks, normal beat markers, and the first-beat accent.
Tap Tempo Explained
Tap Tempo estimates the quarter-note pulse from several recent presses. This online metronome needs three taps before showing an estimate. It compares recent intervals with their median, discards obvious outliers, and averages the remaining intervals. After more than 2.2 seconds of inactivity, tapping starts a fresh sequence. The most recent nine taps provide a bounded moving estimate rather than letting an old mistake influence the entire session.
Tap the pulse you intend to practice, not every note in a busy passage. Human tapping varies, so the result is a useful starting estimate rather than a measurement of a recording’s exact tempo. For expressive performances with rubato, one BPM value may describe only a short section. Use the numeric field to make a final adjustment after listening.
Time Signatures and Beat Grouping
In 4/4, the online metronome shows four quarter-note positions per measure. In 6/8 it shows six eighth-note positions, so the bar lasts three quarter notes. At 120 quarter-note BPM, these bars last two seconds and 1.5 seconds respectively. The denominator therefore changes timing, not just the selector’s appearance. Supported signatures are 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, and 12/8.
Choose eighth-note clicks to hear every position in an eighth-note signature. For a 6/8 grouping, accent positions one and four; for 7/8 grouped 2+2+3, accent one, three, and five. A piece can use other groupings. This online metronome lets you choose the accents rather than assuming every irregular measure should have the same stress pattern.
Quarter, Eighth, Triplet, and Sixteenth Subdivisions
Quarter clicks occur once per quarter note. Eighth clicks divide that interval into two, triplets divide it into three, and sixteenths divide it into four. At 120 BPM these click intervals are 500, 250, about 166.7, and 125 milliseconds. The online metronome uses the selected spacing for the audible scheduler, while beat markers follow the signature’s denominator positions.
Subdivision grids restart at the bar line. In an odd eighth-note meter, a quarter or quarter-triplet grid may not divide the measure evenly, so the final interval before the new bar is shortened. Use eighths or sixteenths when you want equal click spacing through every eighth-note position. Changing signature or subdivision restarts the pattern at beat one.
Accent Patterns and Metronome Practice
Each marker cycles through Normal, Accent, and Mute, with a symbol and an accessible label identifying its state. Mute suppresses clicks inside that denominator position, including subdivisions. It takes priority over the first-beat accent switch. In the online metronome, this creates useful gaps: mute a beat in 4/4 and check whether you arrive with the following click.
For scales, begin below the tempo at which your movement becomes tense. For rhythm reading, add subdivisions temporarily, then return to a sparse click. For ensemble preparation, count rests through a muted pattern. The optional five-, ten-, or thirty-minute practice timer stops the session, but the online metronome does not listen to or grade your playing.
Why Browser Timing Needs an Audio Clock
This online metronome checks its queue every 25 milliseconds and schedules roughly 100 milliseconds ahead against AudioContext.currentTime. JavaScript timers replenish the queue; Web Audio timestamps determine click starts. Advancing timestamps from the previous planned event avoids accumulating ordinary timer delays into the musical timeline. Visual markers consume the same event queue using the audio clock.
Stop cancels scheduling, clears visual events, and fades active or queued click nodes. Repeated Start actions cannot leave competing playback graphs. Device output latency remains outside that scheduling guarantee: Bluetooth buffering can delay the whole signal, and a busy browser can still miss a scheduling deadline. Digital click level is browser gain, not sound pressure in decibels.
Device Limits and Related Practice Tasks
The online metronome stops when this page becomes hidden, preventing an unreliable background timer from continuing unnoticed. Browser audio suspension also stops it; press Start after returning to resume. Wired headphones or built-in speakers are useful when wireless delay interferes with practice. Reduced motion changes presentation, while the audio schedule remains the timing source.
Tune your instrument before practicing, then use a reference tone if needed. To rehearse a recording more slowly, use the Time Stretcher; to move the recording into another key at the same duration, use the Pitch Shifter. The online metronome provides an independent tempo reference and does not synchronize automatically with either recording.
Before rehearsal, use the Instrument Tuner to check one live note at a time.
For a sustained reference rather than a click, open the Tone Generator and choose a quiet sine tone.
Clear answers
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this online metronome accurate?
Click starts use Web Audio timestamps rather than individual timer callbacks. Normal timer jitter is reduced, but hardware latency, browser load, and interruptions remain practical limits.
What does 120 BPM mean in 6/8?
BPM always counts quarter notes here. Six eighth-note positions span three quarters, so a 6/8 measure at 120 BPM lasts 1.5 seconds. Choose eighth clicks to hear all six positions.
Can the online metronome mute selected beats?
Yes. Activate a numbered marker until it shows × Mute. That position and its subdivisions are silent, including beat one even when the downbeat accent switch is enabled.
Will the online metronome continue in the background?
No. Hiding the page pauses the click. Return and press Start to begin again; the tool does not promise reliable background-tab audio scheduling.