PC Quality metronome

Al Scribani

Junior Member
Are there any GOOD metronomes for PC use. By good I mean, it contains the following features:

- Can store tempos
- Easy tempo change and can stop and start button
- Tap tempo
- Various accents/time signatures

The software needed for these functions doesn't seem too difficult to program, so it surprises me that I haven't come across better PC metronomes.

I'd make a metronome like the one I would like, except I don't know how and don't have the software needed.
 
Yes Bounce Metronome can do all that and much more

* Can store tempos
You can set a list of any number of tempi, with time signatures too for each tempo if you like.
http://bouncemetronome.com/#tab2

* Easy tempo change and can stop and start button
Yes you can use the left and right arrow keys to change tempo by one BPM at a time and the up and down arrow keys to change by one notch at a time. Optionally you can use the arrow keys instead to step through your pre-entered list of tempi and rhythms.
Tempo Dial FAQs
Youtube video of the Tempo dial in use

You can stop and start the metronome at any time by pressing the return key - chosen because it is nice and big and easy to press while practising.

* Tap tempo
Yes, you can tap at tempo with the backspace key and the dial gets set to the tempo of your taps - again chosen because it is a big key easy to press.
Tap at tempo

* Various accents/time signatures
Right Click on any beat to accent it. You can also use auto accents to apply accents to the entire measure and adjust the level of accents. You can also skip beats as well.
Accent and Skip Beats

As for time signatures it can play any time signature you like, any number of subdivisions, also combined as polyrhythms, as beat preserving polymeters - or one after another as additive rhythms, you also have the option to enter rhythms in rhythm notation with a mixture of different note values, and play those polyrhythmically / polymeters and with Steve Reich style rhythm phasing. Also has some drum rudiments programmed as well like paradiddles, rolls and buzz rolls, and you can fine adjust the timing of any beat in the rhythm as well.
Pro Rhythms and Features

Basically it can probably play just about any rhythm you can think of that you would like a metronome to be able to play. If you find anything it can't do be sure to say and I might be able to program it right away, or else add it to the wish list and many of the wishes get programmed eventually.

To give an idea of its flexibility, here it is doing Steve Reich style rhythm phasing - a new feature of Bounce 4.3 which I released a couple of days ago:
Rhythm phasing example in sixteen parts with Bounce Metronome Pro

Many more videos on the Robert Inventor Youtube Channel - you can start with the playlists at the bottom of that page.

It is for Windows only sadly.

If you have a Mac / iPad / iPhone etc. as many musicians do, the best way to play Bounce is to get yourself a second Windows machine. You can get a low price netbook these days for not much more than the cost of the windows OS + Virtual PC / Parallels desktop and it's a much better way to run it - and there is no need to connect to the internet from your Windows machine, you can install Bounce from a USB stick just download the installer onto the USB stick from the download page, put it onto your Windows machine and you are good to go.

Do have plans for a Mac version eventually, maybe next year, but if it does work out which I'm not sure about then it will be a much simpler app for a long time to come.
 
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