Monoplug’s Metronom plays with time
Metronomes are dead exciting, right? Well, maybe not but the metronome tends to be one of those functions we use without thinking about it every time we sit down to make some music. The tick-tick-tick-tack is all very familiar but Monoplugs believe that Metronom can offer a but more tack with your tick. And it provides a solution I’ve been looking for for a long long time.
Metronom is a wonderfully visual metronome and rhythm trainer. It can cope with all sorts of time signatures and tempos. So what’s different about it? Well, you’ve got 4 different sound sets. OK, not that interesting on the face of it. But what is interesting is its ability to change tempo over time. You can set the start and end tempos, and the number of bars, and it will step up the speed each bar as you go. This is an excellent way to help you learn instruments and improve your timing.
But you don’t necessarily want to play along to a tick, which is where some more genius comes in. It has a MIDI sync option so that you can sync your DAW to it. So as it speeds up it takes your loaded song with it and could maybe tempt you to get creative with tempo changes on the fly.
Metronom Visuals
What I like about it is the visual side. I often play guitar alongside a set running on Ableton Live or Bitwig. If you’ve got a non-rhythmic piece playing, like a drone or pad that you want to join into, it can be really difficult getting the tempo right until the drums kick in. A nice big visual metronome would really help in this scenario. There’s an option in Metronom to mute the sound so you can just have the visual indication going – perfect for keeping time in a performance set.
Metronom has been available on iOS for about a year but now they’ve released a free beta version for Linux, Windows and OSX which opens it up to a larger world. The interface is excellent and a bit Star Trek like – very clear and touchy.
You can download the beta version from the Monoplug forum here.
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