Song7's metronome runs beside your chord charts while you play, and also stands on its own at song7.io/metronome — a free page anyone can use without an account.

What it does

Audible and visual beats at your chosen tempo
Tap tempo — tap the middle of the dial in time and it works out the BPM
Subdivisions — eighths, triplets, sixteenths or a swung offbeat
Accent patterns — accent, soften or silence any beat in the bar
Any time signature, including compound meters counted in dotted beats
Five click sounds with pitch and three-band EQ
Loads the song's tempo automatically when you open it over a song
Floats and collapses to a small pill you can park out of the way
Optional shared beat across devices (off by default — see below)

Opening the metronome

In the app

Open any song, or a setlist in Live View
Click the toolbox icon
Choose Metronome

The tempo and time signature load from the song's metadata. If the song has no tempo set, the metronome starts at 120 BPM.

Changing songs in Live View stops the click, so a new song never starts at the old song's tempo by accident.

On the web

Go to song7.io/metronome — no sign-in, nothing to install, and it keeps working offline once the page has loaded. Only the optional shared beat needs a connection.

Setting the tempo

The dial — press and turn. It rotates freely, so the whole 20–300 BPM range is reachable without lifting your finger.

The − and + buttons — one BPM per press. Hold either one to run the tempo up or down.

Tap tempo — tap the centre of the dial (marked TAP) in time with the music. After two taps it starts averaging; keep tapping to refine it. Ideal for matching a recording by feel.

Changing tempo while the metronome is running retimes it on the next beat rather than stopping it.

Common tempos

Range	Feel
60–80 BPM	Slow ballads, reflective songs
80–100 BPM	Medium tempo, many worship songs
100–120 BPM	Upbeat contemporary
120–140 BPM	Fast and energetic
140+ BPM	Very high energy

Time signature and subdivisions

Tap the time signature at the top of the metronome to open the meter view.

Beats per bar and beat value have their own steppers, so anything from 1/4 to 16/16 is available — 4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 7/8, whatever the song needs.

Subdivisions add ticks between the beats, quieter and higher than the pulse so the bar stays readable by ear:

Beats only — one click per beat
Eighth notes — two per beat
Triplets — three per beat
Sixteenth notes — four per beat
Swing — two per beat, with the offbeat pushed late for a triplet feel

6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 are counted in dotted beats by default — 6/8 gives you two pulses of three, which is how it is actually felt, rather than six even clicks. If you would rather count a slow 6/8 in six, turn off Count in dotted beats in the same view.

Accent patterns

The row of dots above the tempo shows the bar. Tap any dot to cycle it:

Accented — a larger outlined dot, played louder and higher
Normal — a filled dot
Silent — a dashed outline, played not at all

This is how you get odd groupings. For a 3+3+2 feel, set the meter to 8/8 and accent beats 1, 4 and 7. Silencing beats is useful for practising entries — leave a hole where you have to come in on your own.

Patterns are remembered per time signature, so your 7/8 grouping is still there the next time you choose 7/8. Reset accents puts the bar back to a plain downbeat accent.

Click sound

Tap the note icon in the transport row to choose a voice. Each row has a play button so you can audition it without starting the metronome:

Click — the default, short and neutral
Ping — a longer sine tone that carries
Stick — a dry stick tap
Wooden block — woody and resonant
Drum — a low pitched thump

All five are generated in the browser, so there is nothing to download and no delay the first time you use one.

Shaping the sound

The sliders icon in the top-left opens Modify sound:

Volume and Pitch (±12 semitones)
Low / Mid / High — a three-band EQ

Boosting the highs is the usual trick for making the click cut through in-ears next to a loud band. Reset returns everything to neutral. Your settings are remembered between sessions.

Muting

Click the speaker icon to silence the click while the beat dots keep flashing. Useful when you want a visual reference only, or when a click would bleed into a recording.

Moving and collapsing it

Collapse — the chevron shrinks the metronome to a small pill: play button, beat dots and the BPM. It keeps time while collapsed, so you can park it in a margin and read the chart.

Move — drag the title bar when expanded, or the grip handle on the left of the pill when collapsed.

Position and collapsed state are both remembered, so the metronome comes back where you left it.

Close — the X. Your tempo, sound and accent settings are kept for next time.

Shared beat (sync)

Sync lines several devices up on the same downbeat, so two phones in the same room count together instead of drifting apart.

It is off by default, because turning it on means waiting for the next shared bar before the first click — up to a full bar of silence after you press play.

Turning it on

Open the menu (top-right) on each device
Switch on Sync to shared beat
Set the same tempo and time signature on every device
Press play on each one

Each device measures its own clock offset against Song7's server, then starts on the next shared bar. Because the alignment comes from the tempo and meter rather than from a shared session, there is no leader and no host — devices do not need to be on the same song, or even on the same network, but they do need matching settings.

What it needs

A connection at the moment you enable it, to measure the clock offset. After that the click keeps running offline.
The same BPM and time signature everywhere. Different tempos cannot line up.

If the clock measurement fails, the metronome says so and falls back to your device's own clock — it still plays, it just can't promise the devices agree.

Automatic song integration

When you open the metronome over a song, its tempo and time signature load from the song's metadata, and they update as you move between songs in a set.

Your sound, EQ and sync settings are yours, not the song's, so they stay put as songs change.

Songs without a tempo fall back to 120 BPM. If you find yourself setting the same tempo repeatedly, add it to the song's metadata so it loads automatically.

Best practices

Practising

Start slower than the target and work up. Accuracy before speed.
Use subdivisions when a passage feels unsteady — eighths or sixteenths show you exactly where you are drifting.
Silence a beat or two once the passage is solid, so you have to keep time yourself.
Mute it occasionally and see whether you hold the tempo without it.

Rehearsals

Set the tempo before counting in so everyone anchors to the same pulse.
Let one person own the tempo to avoid conflicting changes.
Boost the highs if the click is getting buried.

Live

The metronome is a practice and soundcheck tool. Most bands use it to establish tempo before the set rather than during it — the goal is to internalise the time, not to depend on the click.

Troubleshooting

No sound

Check the speaker icon isn't muted, and that the volume slider isn't at zero
Check your device volume and that the browser is allowed to play audio
On iPhone, the silent switch mutes web audio in some browsers

Devices aren't lining up

Confirm Sync to shared beat is on for each device, not just one
Confirm every device shows the same BPM and time signature
If a device reports that sync is unavailable, it couldn't reach the server — reconnect and toggle sync off and on to re-measure

The first click is late

That's sync working as intended: it waits for the next shared bar. Turn sync off if you want the metronome to start immediately.

6/8 sounds like two beats, not six

That's the default compound reading. Turn off Count in dotted beats in the time signature view to count it in six.

Combining with other tools

Metronome + Autoscroll — timing and hands-free lyrics together; both float and collapse
Metronome + Chord diagrams — practise changes in time while you learn fingerings
Metronome + Live View — a clean setlist display with timing on top

Common questions

Do I need an account? Not for song7.io/metronome. The in-app metronome needs a Song7 account.

Does it work offline? Yes, once the page has loaded. Only enabling sync needs a connection.

Can devices in different locations sync? Yes — sync is based on corrected clocks, not a shared connection, so distance doesn't matter as long as each device could reach the server when sync was switched on.

Will it drain my battery? It uses some power like any active feature, but it is not heavy. Keep the screen awake if you plan to leave it running through a whole song.