Metronome

Metronome is a free metronome for Mac OS X. (Requires Mac OS 10.3 or later. Metronome is a Universal Binary which runs 'natively' on both Intel and PPC Macs.)  Download Metronome 1.8.1a (Zip file about 398 KB)

Metronome 1.8.1a is a 'bug-fix' version. If you previously downloaded version 1.8, please update to the new version.

Metronome is designed with the practicing musician in mind which means that it's fast and easy to use. Nearly all of Metronome's functions and settings can be changed by using a single key. You won't have to put your instrument down to change the tempo (arrow keys) or the accent beat (number keys). Stop and start by tapping the space bar (or the Enter or Return keys).

All these things can be done 'on the fly' without having to stop and restart the metronome.

Metronome comes with a swag of useful features:

• An accurate Tempo Finder which allows you to tap any key to set a tempo.
• Easy keyboard input to set two bell accents on any beat from 2 to 9, and a text field to enter any other arbitrary beat as the accent.
• Stop and start the metronome by pressing the space bar or the Enter or Return keys.
• Fast and easy tempo changing using buttons on the main window or the arrow keys.
• Easily change the sounds.
• The unique Accelerator which allows you to make Metronome speed up at a rate which you determine. This feature is designed to let you play a difficult passage at a slow tempo and gradually (at the rate you set) increase the tempo until it reaches whatever speed you want it to stop increasing.
• Save and re-load groups of settings so you can quickly reset favoured groups of settings.
• Runs at any tempo from 0.1 beats per minute (once every six minutes!) up to 999.9 bpm.

Even though Metronome is packed full of useful features, it's still very easy to use. You won't need to read the help.

There is, however, a comprehensive online help.

Metronome and VoiceOver

Metronome is fully compatible with VoiceOver, the alternative interface for Mac OS X for people with visual disabilities. The community of VoiceOver users maintain a database of applications which are compatible with VoiceOver in any way. Metronome has been listed on their database with the highest possible compatibility rating of 5. Here's a link to their site: VoiceOver compatibility list

what's new in metronome version 1.8

• Added a speaking bars feature which speaks bar numbers as Metronome runs. The voice used is whatever you have set in System Preferences > Speech.
• Added Auto Pilot which, when activated, allows you to play an Acceleration until maximum tempo, then reverse that Acceleration back to it's starting tempo.
• Added AppleScript support:
• Commands: start, stop.
• Properties:-
• tempo -- Get or set the tempo
• 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
• bar time -- Get the length of a bar in seconds
• speak bars -- turn speech on or off

July 2007

what's new in metronome version 1.7

• Added a Favourites section to the Settings menu for quick access to your most used saved settings.
• Added the ability to set the tempo by typing into the beats per minute text field.
• Added an Other Bell accent.
• Added a "Bell Accent" menu for setting the Main Bell and Other Bell accents.
• Added a text field showing the name of the range of the current tempo. The names can be shown in Italian (the default), English, French, German or none.
• Added a popup slider to set the tempo.
• Metronome now comes with a few more built-in sounds. These are available via the new Sounds menu.
• Added the ability to use multiple custom sounds.
• Added a "Plugins" folder to Metronome's folder in ~/Library/Application Support. You can place any sounds you like in this folder and Metronome will list them in it's "Built-in Sounds" menus. Some useful sounds are here.
• Added the ability to make any sounds be the default.
• Added menu commands which produce sample Settings which are made available in the Load Settings window. This behaviour replaces the 'Factory Settings' supplied in previous versions.
• Added the ability to drag saved settings files into any order in the Load Saved Settings window.
• Added the ability to constrain tempo values to those found on a traditional metronome, namely: 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. Using any method to set the tempo, hold down the shift key and you'll only get the listed tempos.

May, 2007

what's new in metronome version 1.6

• Added the ability to make the Accelerator slow down as well as speed up. To slow down, simply add a '-' (minus, or subtract) symbol before the rate of acceleration in the Accelerator panel.
• Added the ability to lock saved settings files to prevent accidental deletion
• Reduced the size of the Accelerator and Tempo Finder panels to increase available screen space.
• Made the bell sound on the first beat of the bar, instead of the last beat(!).
• Fixed a bug I'd introduced where the state of checkboxes in the Preferences window weren't being saved correctly.
• Added a warning sheet when Metronome first runs to alert the user to the fact that the Metronome may beat unevenly in some cases where the computer has third party non-standard sound hardware.

March 2007

what's new in metronome version 1.5

• Added an ability for the good-looking, intelligent user to donate a few dollars to yours truly via the Kagi website. If you can't part with $8, that's OK, everything will still work and nothing bad will happen (I hope).
• Cleaned up the various windows such as the Load Settings, Save Settings and Preferences windows. They now have an easier-on-the-eye design and are therefore easier to use.
• You can now save either Tempo and Bell settings, Sound settings, or Accelerator settings, or any combination of the three.
• In the Tempo Finder panel, you can use the Enter/Return keys to add the tapped tempo to the metronome.
• In the Tempo Finder, improved the accuracy of the timing of the first few taps (before ten taps are recorded).
• Added ability to halve or double the tempo. Press the 'D' key to double, the 'H' key to halve the tempo.
• Added buttons to alter the tempo by 0.1 of a bpm, up or down. This ability was present in earlier versions of Metronome, but could only be accessed by using the up and down arrow keys. Adding the buttons just makes it more obvious to the new user. (The arrow keys still do the same job.)
• Added version checking.
• Updated the Help.
• Re-designed the menus.
• Re-designed a few internal blocks of code which will make Metronome easier for me to maintain and improve.
• added a 'hidden' preference. If you want, you can log each time the Metronome clicks to check the accuracy of the timer under different CPU load conditions. In Terminal type:

  	defaults write org.savetheworld.Metronome "log click" -bool YES

  and then in the console log you'll get a (perhaps very long) list of times up to 1000th of a second accuracy with the word 'click' at the end. To set it back, just type the same command in Terminal but give it a NO. I was surprised at the accuracy of the (standard Apple supplied) timer. Even if it stutters (almost a certainty under heavy load conditions), it corrects itself so that there is no 'drift' of time. At least that's the case on our 2003 G4 MDD Dual 1.25GHz running 10.4.9 and our iBook G4 800MHz (10.4.3).

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