Online metronome

Drag the tempo slider, type a number, or tap the beat and let the page find the tempo for you: any tempo from 20 to 300 BPM. Beats per bar follows the time signature, 4 for common time, 3 for a waltz, 2 for a polka, 6 for 6/8 and 12 for 12/8. Add subdivisions to hear the eighths, triplets, sixteenths or swing eighths inside each beat, which is what keeps you honest at a slow tempo, where the space between the beats is wide enough to drift.

The downbeat is a higher click than the rest, so you can hear where the bar starts. Subdivision clicks are quieter than the beat. If you need silence between the pulses, mute the page and watch the beat light up instead.

Every click is scheduled on your device when the beat is due, not downloaded ahead of time. Browsers keep that within a few milliseconds of the audio hardware clock, which is under what a person can hear: two clicks have to be about 20 ms apart before the gap is obvious. For practising, for playing to a click in a DAW and for cutting a guide track, that is accurate enough. A phone metronome that runs directly on the audio unit is the same maths with one less layer in the way, which matters more on a stage than in a practice room.

Browsers will not start audio until you have touched the page, so the click begins the moment you press Start.