Metronomes - Thoughts, Tips, Recommendations

Hi,

I'm thinking of buying a metronome to incorporate into my uke practice sessions and I would appreciate some recommendations. Personally, I think that the mechanical ones look cool but that an electronic one might be more practical/portable.

Also, I would be interested to hear if people have found them useful or not generally speaking. And maybe how people who like to use them get the most out of them.

Thanks

I bought a mechanical one to use at home, since we have multiple musicians in the house. It doesn't get much use. Personally I use a metronome app that I downloaded onto my phone.

Also metronomes online. Some clip on tuners have metronomes built in.

I just use an app on my phone. I think it's called "mobile metronome" but I'm sure there are a bunch of others.

I use the Tempo app on my phone.

I use my metronome most days & find it very helpful. I have an app on my phone, but I prefer to use an old Korg electronic metronome. I use it so often, I prefer not to drain my phone's battery...

I use the built-in metronome of Tunable, an iOS app. I had considered buying a dedicated metronome, but for now figured that it would just be another piece of clutter when the iPad gets this job (and numerous others) done.

Korg MA-1

Small/portable/pocketable.

Yesterday I narrowly missed out on a vintage Wittner Prazision on ebay. I agree that there is something appealing about the sound of a mechanical metronome, as well as the rhythmic swing of the arm. Having said that, I've been looking at the Korg MA-1 - seems like the sort of thing you could throw in a gig bag.

An app doesn't really appeal to me - I saw one that was advertised as 'free' but then you had to pay to unlock pretty much all of the useful features. Seemed like a bit of a dubious way to go about things to me, and put me off going down that route.

Thanks for all the input so far I just blew all my current uke budget on a new tenor, so the metronome is on hold for a little while.

I have heard folks play who realllly need to work on their timing though. A sweet couple comes to mind that played so erratically that the drummer and bass had to give up and the rest of us would have to keep starting and stopping. Someone really should have pointed them to a metronome.
I, however, have read the advice on how using a metronome as a practice tool and dissed it. I have pretty good, steady timing. But alas, I started playing fingerstyle, and now find that the metronome is supremely useful. There is one on my tuner, but I'm usually playing off my onsong ap on my iPad already, so I use the metronome on that. It's auditory and visual and easy to read and adjust. i find it helpful for working out the timing of an unfamiliar piece and I like to set it super slow on a new piece and only jump up by 10bpm when I can comfortably play the piece all the way through without falling off tempo. It keeps you honest. Otherwise, you wind up tapping your foot a little slower on the hard part. You wind up thinking you've "got it" only to find out that you really don't, once you are playing your part in an ensemble. It's a good motivator too. You can see your progress, as you keep increasing the beats. Without it, I really also would not know if I've gotten my piece "up to speed". Our leader will say something like, " let's have this piece up to 80 this week and 120 by next rehearsal". This way, I know I'm on target. Even if I wasn't playing with others, it would be helpful to anyone playing structured lessons or if you think you might be one of those folks with a timing problem. So, long story short, I no longer dis metronomes. Go get one, any one really.

I have a Planet Waves metro. My neighbor bought one and I liked it but didn't want to spend $25 on it at the Music shop. I found it on Amazon for a lot less and it is very portable and has all sorts of settings for different tempos.

I use a metronome for at least a few minutes every day. At home, I rely on a nice quartz metronome, but I keep a Korg MA-1 in my gig bag--being able to use headphones with the metronome is a very nice plus when it comes to practicing during my lunch break.

I recommend the Korg MA-1. It's got a nice set of features, and it's easy to use.

I finally got around to ordering a Korg MA-1 - it's on its way. I went with the Korg cos I decided that portability was important to me.

I've just started working my way through 'Music Theory For Dummies' and that pretty much begins with rhythm. So I have a pair of claves coming too. And soon I'll be tapping away, trying to get my head around the basics of standard notation

Jollyboy,
I know you just bought a little cheap one but if you want to step up to a proper digital metronome with pendulum motion then I would highly suggest the Wittner MT60.
https://www.amazon.com/Wittner-MT60-Pendulum-Metronome-Display/dp/B000EENFPE
Just under 50 on Amazon and works amazingly.
Johnson

The mechanical metronomes I see these days have all the quality of a First Act guitar.

The Tempo app is nice, has all the subdivisions I've ever needed, runs on everything and is inexpensive.

One feature one of my drummers uses is "Setlist" which keeps a list of tempi for the whols set.

cdkrugjr said:

The mechanical metronomes I see these days have all the quality of a First Act guitar.

Click to expand...

Wittner make great mechanical metronomes still, with wooden cases and all, but they do cost substantially more than the $20-30 plastic ones. $110 and up is where those seem to start.

I just use an app on my android device, called "Metronome Beats". It does what a metronome should, it beats !

Why not just download a free metronome app on your smart phone? The free ones work great, and the price is right.

I used a Wittner Piccolo metronome. As I started increasing my speed I thought that I might be off the beat. I now practice with a digital Wittner metronome and sat it to beep on the first beat of a measure. There are some mechanical metronomes that chime on a first beat. Also, I found that after a while the mechanical metronome would be a little slower on the beat. A quartz digital metronome does not have this problem. Also, with the digital metronome, you can set many of them to different rhythms.

A lot of the Wittner metronomes are really nice and I find myself very tempted to splurge - I wonder if there is such a thing as MAS?

What I think I will do is play around with the Korg when it arrives and see how useful I find it. If it turns out that I just can't live without a metronome then I might treat myself to a nice one

Another thing is that I'm something of a roving troubador atm, even at home - where I have no dedicated uke space. Hopefully this will not continue to be the case when, at some point in the coming months, I finally get around to comverting the back bedroom into a home office/practice room. Once I've got a decent desk in there I will need stuff to put on it - like a classic vintage all-wood Wittner!