Practice guide

Why there is no 200 BPM ceiling

Most online metronomes stop between 200 and 250 BPM. For a guitarist working on speed that is exactly where the interesting part begins. Alternate picking in sixteenths at 200 BPM is 13.3 notes per second; at 240 BPM it is 16. Tremolo picking, palm-muted eighth-note riffs at 220 to 260 BPM and sweep arpeggios in sextuplets all live above the cap.

The ceiling hurts more in meters based on the eighth note. BPM always refers to the beat unit of the time signature, the note in the denominator. In 7/8 at 240 BPM the click is an eighth note, so a riff that feels only moderately fast already asks for a number a capped metronome cannot show.

The usual workaround, halving the tempo and doubling the subdivision, wrecks a speed trainer session: a +1 BPM step becomes +2 at the real tempo, “every 4 bars” becomes every 8 real bars, and the accents land on every other downbeat. In 7/8 you cannot halve at all, because 3.5 beats is not a bar. Here the range is 1 to 1000 BPM and the click is the note you asked for.

How to use the speed trainer

The trainer raises or lowers the tempo for you, always on a bar line, never in the middle of a bar. A complete run from 220 to 240 BPM, the classic “last twenty” for a fast picking line:

1. Set the time signature and subdivision first, for example 4/4 with sixteenths, so the grid you hear is the grid you play.
2. Set the start tempo to 220 and the target to 240.
3. Set the step to 1 BPM. Steps go from 1 to 100.
4. Choose when the tempo changes: every 4 bars. Seconds work too, and even then the change waits for the next bar line, so a stage never ends mid-phrase.
5. Add a count-in of one bar. It plays a low knock instead of the click and the readout is framed, so you always know the plan has not started yet.
6. Press Space. After the count-in you get four bars at 220, then 221 on the next bar line. Switch on the stage chime if you want an audible marker at every change.
7. 220 to 240 in +1 steps is 21 stages of 4 bars, 84 bars. A bar of 4/4 at 220 BPM lasts about 1.09 seconds, so the run takes roughly a minute and a half.
8. Decide what happens at the target: stop, keep playing at 240, or loop; a looping run goes straight back to stage one without repeating the count-in. “Go back down to the start after the target” turns one run into a warm-up and a cool-down.

Choosing the step

Use +1 for the last ten percent below your goal, where every beat per minute is felt. Use +2 below that, and +5 for warm-ups, where you are not learning anything new. Open the speed trainer and try 160 to 200 in +2 steps every 4 bars: 21 stages, 84 bars, about one minute fifty-five.

Practising above 200 BPM

High tempo is a different kind of work. Stages should be shorter, two to four bars rather than eight: at 230 BPM four bars of sixteenths are 64 pick strokes in just over four seconds, and fatigue arrives fast.

Follow the clean-speed rule: the highest tempo you may use is the highest tempo at which every note is still separate. The moment two notes blur into one you are rehearsing the blur. Drop 5 BPM and stay there.

Use subdivision muting as a test. Play sixteenths with the subdivision clicks on, then mute them and play the same passage against quarter notes only. If your notes still fall evenly between the clicks, the speed is yours.

Hearing the click at extreme tempos

At 300 BPM the clicks are 200 milliseconds apart, so each one is shortened to keep them from smearing together. Try all three sounds; which cuts through a distorted guitar depends on your amp. In 4/4 a click at 300 BPM is often more useful as 150 BPM with eighth-note subdivisions. That trick does not apply to x/8 meters, where the eighth is the beat and the grouping accents have to fall on the right eighths.

Odd time signatures and grouping

Any signature from 1 to 32 beats over 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 works. Two settings make odd meters usable rather than merely available: grouping and per-beat muting.

Grouping is how a bar is felt. Seven eighths are almost never counted as seven equal beats; they are two twos and a three, or a three and two twos. Set 7/8 to 2+2+3, 3+2+2 or 2+3+2 and the first beat of each group is accented, so you hear “ONE two ONE two ONE two three” instead of a flat row of seven. 9/8 as 3+3+3 gives the compound feel of a jig; 2+2+2+3 gives the Balkan version. Every beat can still be changed by hand afterwards.

A 7/4 metronome at 200 clicks quarter notes, so eighths run at 400 per minute. 7/8 at 200 clicks eighths, and the quarter-note equivalent is 100. When a chart says “quarter = 100” in 7/8, you set 200. The odd time metronome opens in 7/8 grouped 2+2+3.

Guitar practice routine

A metronome only helps if the routine around it is honest.

• Record yourself once a week at your top tempo. The phone microphone hears the missed notes your hands hide from you.
• Use the three-of-five rule: play the passage five times at one tempo and move up only when three of them are clean. That is roughly one stage of the trainer.
• Alternate weeks: one of pushing tempo, one of playing fifteen percent below your top speed and cleaning up tone, muting and dynamics.
• Put the click on beats 2 and 4 by muting beats 1 and 3. It exposes whether you are leading the beat or leaning on it.
• Practise subdivisions on purpose: eighths, triplets and sixteenths against a quarter-note click, then the same phrase with the subdivision muted.

The guitar practice metronome opens with sixteenths and a 160 to 200 plan, which is a reasonable picking block to start from.

Free, private and offline

The metronome is free. There is no account, no sign-up and no cookie banner, because the app sets no cookies. Your settings stay in this browser’s local storage and never leave the device. Install it from the browser menu if you want it on the home screen; after the first visit it works offline, and the clicks are synthesised on your device, so nothing is downloaded during practice.

How the timing works

Clicks are scheduled with the Web Audio API on the audio clock, ahead of when they play, so a busy page or a slow frame cannot push them late. Browsers block sound until you interact with the page, which is why the first start needs a tap or a key press. On desktop and Android the metronome keeps running in a background tab; iOS pauses web audio when the screen locks, so keep the screen on there.

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