Practise with a tempo ramp and silent bars in Metronome

For SUS4 Metronome 1.3.06 min readUpdated 9 November 2026

A metronome is most useful when it stops being a crutch. Two practice tools in SUS4 Metronome do that. The Practice trainer raises the tempo for you in small steps so you can build up to a target without stopping to change it, and Mute every silences some bars so that you have to keep the time yourself.

This guide sets both up, shows how to use them together, and how to check that your timing really improved.

The short version

Choose the passage and the target. Pick a short passage you can play cleanly, and the tempo you want to reach.
Set the Practice trainer. Tap Practice trainer under Programs. Set Start slow enough to play comfortably, Target, Step in BPM and how many bars each step lasts.
Tap Restart, then Apply to engine. Restart arms the ramp from your Start tempo. Apply to engine sets the metronome to it. Tap Done.
Start the metronome. Press Start and play. The tempo goes up a step every few bars until it reaches the target, then holds.
Add silent bars. Once the ramp feels easy, use Mute every to silence one bar in every few, and play through the quiet bar without speeding up or slowing down.
Test the result. Check your timing against the click, for example with the Challenges at the target tempo.

Where the tools are

In SUS4 Metronome the main screen has a section headed Programs. It has two buttons, Practice trainer and Tempo program, and a Mute every control with a stepper. Practice trainer is the tempo ramp and Mute every is the silent bars. Tempo program is a different tool for chaining stages, and this guide does not use it.

The BPM readout is above them, with −5 and +5 buttons and a Tap button for tapping a tempo. The tempo runs from 20 to 300 BPM.

The tempo ramp: Practice trainer

The sheet says what it does: progressive tempo, ramp from start to target every N bars. It has four steppers, and these are the starting values:

Practice trainer, with its starting values and ranges
Control	Setting	Why
Start	60	Range 20 to 300 BPM
Target	120	Range 20 to 300 BPM
Step	4 BPM	Range 1 to 20 BPM
Every	4 bars	Range 1 to 32 bars

Arm it, apply it, start it

Two buttons on the sheet matter. Restart sets the current tempo back to Start and arms the ramp. Nothing climbs until you have tapped it. Apply to engine copies the current tempo onto the metronome. So tap Restart, tap Apply to engine, tap Done, and press Start.

Once the metronome is running, the tempo goes up by the Step at each bar line, once every set number of bars. It stops at the target and does not overshoot it: if the next step would pass the target, it lands exactly on the target. The sheet’s Current readout shows where the ramp has got to. To go again, open the sheet and tap Restart.

The ramp only moves while the metronome is running. If you stop and start again, the metronome keeps whatever tempo it had, and you will need to tap Restart again to arm the ramp for another run.

Choosing the numbers

Start at a tempo where the passage is easy, not just possible. A good rule is a start that feels almost too slow. Choose a small step: 2 to 4 BPM is gentle, and 8 or more is a jump you will feel. Choose a number of bars that lets you play the passage through at least once at every step, so Every should be at least as long as your passage. If your passage is four bars, Every 4 gives you one clean go at each tempo.

From 60 to 80 in steps of 4 is five steps. If you reach a step where you start to make mistakes, stop there. That is your real tempo for today. Next session start two steps below it.

Silent bars: Mute every

Mute every runs from Off up to 16 bars. Set to a number N, the metronome silences one bar in every N. It keeps counting through the quiet bar and the click comes back after it, so you can tell at once whether your time stayed true: when the click returns, are you on it?

Start with 4, so there are several bars of click for each silent one. The first time, listen to where the silent bars fall so you know what you are counting towards. When that is easy, try 2, which gives you a quiet bar every other bar. If you drift in the silence, that is useful: it shows where your pulse is unreliable, and you can go back to the ramp at a slower tempo.

The ramp and Mute every both act at the bar line, so they work together. Use them separately until each is comfortable. Climb with the ramp, then switch the ramp off and test the tempo you have reached with silent bars.

Check that it worked

The trophy button at the top opens Metronome Challenges: Adagio at 60 BPM, Andante at 80, Moderato at 100, Allegretto at 120 and Vivace at 160, each 30 seconds. You listen for a bar, then tap on every click, and the app gives you an accuracy percentage against a target. It measures your tapping, not your instrument, but it is a quick check on whether you can feel that tempo.

The real test is your own recording. Record yourself playing the passage at the target tempo with the ramp off, then listen back, in silence, for the places you rush. If the passage feels the same at the target as it did at the start, the ramp has worked.

If it does not behave

The tempo does not move: you did not tap Restart, the metronome is not running, or the ramp has already reached the target and stopped. Open the sheet and tap Restart.

The tempo changed in the middle of a bar: the ramp only changes at a bar line, so a step lands on the next bar. If you want a step in a particular place, set Every to the length of your passage.

You have used your free goes for the day: every time you press Start counts as one use of the app’s free daily allowance. Set everything up first, then start once and let the ramp run, rather than stopping and starting over and over.