Drum Metronome — Woodblock, Rim and Cowbell Kits

A drum metronome replaces the plain electronic click with a percussion timbre. Choose a kit — woodblock, beep, tick, rim or cowbell — set the meter and subdivision, and the click becomes something you can hear over a pad, a practice kit or a band. Nothing plays until you start it.

How to use it

1. Pick a kit. The Click sound row has five options. Picking one auditions it immediately, even while the metronome is stopped, so you can choose by ear. The choice is remembered on the device.
2. Set the meter. 4/4 is the default; the row also covers a free pulse, 2/4, 3/4, 5/4, 6/8 and 7/8.
3. Choose a subdivision — off, eighths, triplets or sixteenths — as a softer layer under the beat.
4. Set the tempo and press Start. The pendulum swings once per beat and the beat tape records the last eight seconds.
5. Play. Use the accent pattern as the bar line, not as your only reference; on a kit, the accents should feel like the start of a phrase rather than a louder click to survive.

The five kits

Kit	Character	Good for
Woodblock	Warm, short, pitched high	Default practice; cuts through cymbals
Beep	Pure electronic tone	Pitch work and clear beat-tracking
Tick	Very short, dry electronic click	Quiet practice and fast tempos
Rim	Sharp stick-on-rim attack	Pad work and rudiments
Cowbell	Metallic clank with an extra partial	Loud rooms and full-kit practice

Each sound is synthesized in the browser, not sampled from a recording, and the accent variants differ in pitch and level as well as loudness. That is why the accent is still obvious even on the metallic cowbell.

Click or groove?

A click is a neutral time reference: one sound, repeated, no musical opinion. A groove has accents, subdivisions and a relationship to the beat you play. This tool sits deliberately between the two. Its percussion timbres make the click more pleasant and more audible, and its accent pattern gives each bar a shape — but it will not play a bass drum and snare pattern for you. The rhythm you supply is the groove. If you want the metronome to play your part while you practise something else, you want a drum machine, and this is not one.

Accent placement, exactly as the tool plays it

• Every meter: beat 1 is the primary accent.
• 4/4: beat 3 is a secondary accent.
• 6/8: beat 4 is a secondary accent.
• 5/4: beat 4 is a secondary accent, expressing the 3+2 split.
• 7/8: beats 3 and 5 are secondary accents, expressing 2+2+3.
• 1 (free pulse): no accents at all.
• Subdivision clicks are never accented; they play at a much lower level than any beat.

If a fill or a groove does not line up with that pattern, the mismatch is information: either you are feeling a different bar shape, or the phrase is displaced across the bar line.

Backbeat feel

The snare backbeat lives on beats 2 and 4 in most popular music, but the metronome accents 1 and 3 in 4/4. Keep them separate in your head:

1. Set 4/4 with eighths and count “1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and” aloud.
2. Clap on 2 and 4 only, letting the metronome carry 1 and 3.
3. Swap: play the pattern you are working on and let a limb mark 2 and 4 while the click stays the grid.
4. Turn the subdivision off and keep the same backbeat placement — if it survives without the eighths, the feel is yours rather than the metronome’s.

Rudiment timing

• Single strokes: eighths at 60 BPM are two strokes per beat; sixteenths at 60 are four. Use the subdivision that matches the rudiment’s note value and increase tempo only when the strokes stay even.
• Paradiddles and doubles: sixteenths at a slow tempo expose weak doubles, because every stroke lands on a click you can hear rather than between them.
• Accents within a rudiment: the metronome accent marks the bar, not the rudiment’s internal accents. Count the rudiment’s accent pattern aloud against the bar as a separate layer.
• Flams and drags: use a slow tempo and triplets or sixteenths so the grace note has a grid position; at speed, the subdivision clicks show whether the grace note has drifted late.

Accuracy and limits

• One voice. The click plays one kit at a time; a second independent voice with its own subdivision is available on the polyrhythm generator.
• Synthesised timbres. These are oscillator-based percussion chirps, not recorded kit samples, so they read as clear practice sounds rather than realistic drums.
• No swing setting. Subdivisions are even; swing pairs are practised by accenting the triplet framework yourself.
• No kit in the URL. The page always opens with the woodblock selected; switching to another kit is one click on the Click sound row, and the choice persists on the device.
• The grid is the shared metronome engine. Accents, subdivisions, stage mode and the beat tape all behave as they do on the main metronome page.