metronomiconic 0.0.2

The music learner's metronome with double/half tempo feature

Metronome which does all you’d expect from a metronome, and has a unique double/half tempo feature! An iconic metronome.

Installation

pip install metronomiconic

It requires python3+ to run.

Do you know Victor Wooten?

In one of his videos on working with metronome, this incredible musician showed an exercise to build one’s rhythm feel: you play a groove/a phrase to a comfortable click tempo, say 120 bpm. Then, when you feel you’re in the pocket, you drop the tempo 2 times, but play the same. You just end up with less clicks to hear. When you’re confident you’ve caught the pulse, you drop it once again. In the end, you’re playing the same fast groove in 120 bpm, supported by only 1 click per 2 or even 4 bars. Isn’t that an incredible exercise?

But here’s the problem: when practicing, you need to stop and adjust your metronome tempo carefully for a few seconds, effectively losing the pocket and feel. With metronomiconic it only takes one keypress.

Please read further.

Usage

Install it.

Create a directory under your home directory called .metronomiconic. Place there two or three sound files (bar.wav, beat.wav, division.wav which can be omitted, and if it is, you will be unable to hear subdivision notes).

A collection of default click sounds from popular DAWs can be found here. The reason I do not include them in distribution in simple: they are not free, and the free ones I’ve heard… well I don’t like them.

You’re ready to go. Type metronomic in your favorite terminal emulator.

Press space bar to stop or start. Use arrow keys and arrow keys with shift to change tempo. Use digits, alt+up and alt+down to change time signature (1 to 9 for beat count and 1,2,4,8,16 for beat length are supported). Tempo is measured with quarter notes.

Press p to stop/start play subdivisions. Press t, q or s to switch triplet, quintuplet or septuplet subdivision mode starting with the next bar (normally, every beat is subdivisioned in sixteenth notes).

And now for the most cool part: doubling and halfing the tempo.

Press u or d to double or half the tempo from the next bar.

Notes

I’m a learning bass player, and I couldn’t get why I can’t find a metronome that would do this half/double thing for me, so I had to come up with my own. The ‘learning functions’, as I call them, that include half/double and tri-, quintu- and septuplet modes work from the next bar played. All the other changes take place immediately.

I’ve tested metronome’s accuracy for a little while, but so far I can say it’s pretty accurate, compared with a few hardware, DAW and online metronomes.

Do not look in the code! It’s very messy and unmaintainable, and there is at least one very dirty hack.

Released under MIT license.