How to use this online metronome
Set the tempo the way that suits you: click the number and type a BPM, step it with the arrows, drag the slider, or tap the beat you already have in your head. Press Start, or hit the spacebar, and the click begins. The row of dots runs with it so you can see the bar as well as hear it, with the downbeat marked in green.
Pick the time signature before you start: 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 click quarter notes, and 6/8 clicks eighth notes with the accents on 1 and 4. Switching while it runs restarts the bar, so the accent lands where the new signature says it should rather than wherever the count happened to be.
Practicing with a click
The point of a metronome is not to play fast, it is to play evenly. Take the passage that keeps falling apart, drop the tempo until you can play it cleanly twice in a row, and only then move up. Ten BPM at a time is enough. If you cannot hear the click any more you are rushing, and that is the useful information a backing track cannot give you.
Tap tempo earns its place when the tempo is not yours to choose. Tap along to the recording you are learning, read the BPM the metronome settles on, and you know exactly how far you are from it.
Common questions
How does tap tempo work?
Tap the TAP TEMPO button, or press T, in time with the music. From the second tap on, the metronome measures the gaps between your taps and sets the BPM to match. It averages the last few taps rather than only the newest one, so a single unsteady tap does not throw the tempo off, and a pause of about two seconds starts a fresh count.
Is this metronome really free?
Yes. It needs no account, no download and no payment, and there is no limit on how long you use it. It is part of Neural-Fretboard, a browser guitar app whose player, chord library and tuner are free as well. Only Practice Mode on your own songs and the unlimited video export are paid.
How accurate is a browser metronome?
Each click is scheduled ahead of time on the Web Audio clock, which runs on the audio hardware and not on the browser animation loop, so the timing does not drift when the page is busy. That is the same technique desktop audio software uses. A visual indicator can lag a click by a frame on a loaded machine, but what you hear stays in time.
How does the 6/8 setting count?
It clicks all six eighth notes and accents beats 1 and 4, the two groups of three that give 6/8 its swing. So the BPM value is eighth notes per minute here, not dotted quarters. For a slow 6/8 counted in two, set 2/4 and count three eighths to each click.
Can I practice a song at a slower tempo instead?
Yes, and for learning a passage that is usually the better tool. Load a MIDI or Guitar Pro file in the player and slow the whole song down while the notes light up on the fretboard. The 25 to 200 percent speed range is free; the deep slow-down below 25 percent is part of Creator.
In time? Check you are in tune with the guitar tuner, look up a shape in the chord library, or load a song in the player and play along.