MEtronome

Learning to play a musical instrument is quite the challenge, and there are a lot of variables you need to take into account. For instance, you need to be fully prepared to keep up with the beat, or tempo. To help out when practicing, you can rely on specialized applications like MEtronome, letting you set tempo and signature.

First of all, the application saves you the time and effort otherwise required to go through a setup process, so you can also carry it around on a thumb drive in case you want or need to use it on other computers. What’s more, registry entries are not modified to ensure functionality, so the health status of the target PC remains intact.

Truth be told, the visual design is not really something to make the application stand out from the crowd, with all of its functions bundled in a rather simplistic, classic window frame. A couple of sections are there to help you set the desired tempo, as well as the time signature, while beats are shown in a larger panel, with real-time updating preview.

You start off with a default configuration, but it can easily be changed. Tempo can either be manually written down, or fine-tuned through the corresponding arrow buttons. Various time signatures are at your disposal, starting from 2/4, and ending up to 19/16.

Chances are you don’t understand a great deal out of the preview section. Luckily, audio preview is also implemented, providing better support. Unfortunately, there aren’t any customization options, such as changing the theme, or audio chime.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that MEtronome might not spark a great deal of confidence, at least not at a first glance, but it does come equipped with a great deal of time signatures, configurable tempo, and clear audio feedback.