I would like to set it to go slower than 30 bpm. Is that possible? if so, how?
Hey Joel you could multiply or divide by factors of 2 using half notes or whole notes. The default is quarter notes, so it creates 30 quarter notes per second whereas 1/2 notes would be 15 Bpm and whole notes would be 7.5 BPM. So change the time signature from 4/4 to 4/2 or 4/1 to go under 30. and you would go with 4/8 4/16 to go above 300. You are just using the time signatures to get the higher and lower speeds. If you disable the measures sounds it helps!
Dave
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Dave, thanks for the reply. If I understand your suggestion(and I’m not really sure that I do), I don’t think this will get me where I want to be. Perhaps if I explain what I’m trying to achieve, you can tell me if your suggestion will help, even if I don’t get it right now.
I’m working on improving my sense of time, obviously. I attended a workshop in which Frank Russo, a great drummer and even better instructor, suggested that using the metronome can actually hurt your sense of time if it becomes a crutch. So he suggested that the way to use a metronome to improve your time instead of hurting it, space out the beats so you only get a metronome stroke on one beat every measure or two, instead of 2 or 4 beats to the measure. Tis will make you really internalize the tempo. Start on the first beat on 1 measure, then stretch it out to the 1st beat on every other measure. then instead of having the metronome strike on the first beat, move the metronome beat to the second, third, or fourth beat.
I’ve been doing my Hanon exercises with the metronome. With my regular metronome cadence, I’m playing at about 100bpm. To get to where I want to be, I need to be able to set the metronome to 25.
So as I understand your suggestion, I’m not following how it will achieve this result. Let me know if I’m misunderstanding you.
Joel, show me your metronome bar please … does it look like this?
Yes. When I drag it to the left, the lowest it goes is 30. I’ve tried clicking the “-” sign to make it go lower, but that didn’t work.
Try this, set the tempo back to 100 and turn the balance knob fully counterclockwise and the measure beat will be the only sound. See if that is what you want, it still 100 bpm but the beats are removed and only the measure beat sounds
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Hello
Skipping some beats in the metronome is definitely not a whim for practice. This is conceptually different from having a tempo below 30bpm.
You have several ways to achieve this that I know of:
- In simple cases, you may just have to change the time signature to 2/2 instead of 4/4
- You can simply activate “Enable Measure Sounds” and/or change the “Measure/Beat balance” all the way to “beat: -infinity”
- You may use custom sounds for Measure and Beat sounds (where your beat sound is a silent wave) in Options > General
Going above 300bpm now… is this really a life use case?
Cheers
EDIT: of course @dave_dore beat me to this… pun intended
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Set the meter to 1/1. Then it will beat once per measure. (Or 1/2 or 1/4, but if it will do 1/1 that will get you the slow tempo you want.)
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And this is my "measured " response … pun intended
Dave
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Thanks, Toto. Don’t follow what you meant by “Skipping some beats in the metronome is definitely not a whim for practice,” but dropping the time signature to 2/2 and the bpm to about 40-45 gives me a pulse about where I need it for now.
Ah sorry, just wanted to go with you and tell there were cases where this is useful!
No worries. The important thing is that your suggestion works!
I could pretty easily extend the range of this… just never imagined anyone wanting to go below 30. Anyone else want this?
Personally I don’t see the point, the OP got what he wanted now, even if he didn’t completely see the point of changing time signatures (because 1/1 would have given him exactly one beat per bar which is what he asked for). Using this method you can already go down ridiculously low in tempo. I’ve never seen any dedicated metronome that goes below 20 or above 400 and I’ve never actually used one below 50 or above 240.
You don’t see the point? Oh, well. I guess that’s it, then, isn’t it?
What crap! Someone who is one of the best educators on rhythm I have ever met already provided a very good “point.”
I’ve not seen metronome that go this low either. But I’ve also never heard this exercise suggested before either.
Changing time signature to 1/1 is hardly intuitive. Not much music written in that meter. But this is a great great rhythm exercise. I want to progress to the point I have internalized the meter well enough to limit the beat to once every few bars, and an expanded metronome range would make that easier. I’m not convinced the present parameters well easily facilitate this, even at 1/1. If it’s easy to do, which it sounds like it is, why not do it?
The very first word of my post was “personally” so of course I don’t feel my opinion is the only valid one, but Brad asked for opinions.
Also, and I really don’t mean to offend but you seem to take it that way, you don’t completely see the point of changing time signatures. You can try to misuse the metronome if you want but the fact is that 1/1 at 120BPM corresponds a lot better to “one beat per bar” for a song at 120BPM than 30BPM does. What if you have time based fx like delays, some reverbs, or synced LFOs for chorus, phasing, LPF etc. All of those will follow song tempo.
It’s not like an expanded metronome range would get in my way (probably), I just wouldn’t use it and I’d rather Brad spend his time on something else. Just my opinion, of course.
By the way, I’d be interested to hear if you can ever manage to reliably hit the 1 every second bar at any tempo if that’s the only metronome click.