Special notes about video streaming and audio synchronisation
These animation videos give you an idea what the software is like. But you may get streaming issues.
You may find that the animations pause for a moment or two and resume - and that the audio gets out of sync with the sound.
Be reassured, this is a web page and movie playback issue, not a problem with the program. It can happen in the same way with any movie especially when streamed over the internet but even off-line as well. It's more obvious for a movie of a metronome as your attention is closely focussed on the timing at the millisecond level.
Bounce Metronome Pro is especially programmed to keep the video in sync. with the sound all the time. It uses a variable frame rate to deal with temporary peaks in CPU load and shows each frame for the exact time for the audio. For details see Animation glitches.
This is an animation from Bounce Metronome Pro. To vary the tempo, try other time signatures etc you need to download the program.
This video shows how the visual bounces help with rhythms with irregular timings. Try clapping in time with the swung notes - and notice how the visual bounces help to make it easier to keep in time, with the same amount of swing as the video.
It helps you learn rhythms with irregular timing of all sorts, since you can see the beat before it happens. That's so much easier than a purely sound based metronome or one with flashing numbers or lights - where the only way to keep in time is to rely on your memory of the rhythm.
Also notice the bounce effect, how natural it is, like the bounce of a bouncing ball. This makes it easy to keep in time since we are used to how things bounce under gravity.
This "gravity bounce" approach is a style often used by conductors as a way to show the moment of the start of the beat very precisely.
"The motion is like bouncing a golf ball on pavement. Your performers must be trained to play exactly at the bottom of the beat."
P 19, Brock McElheran, "Conducting Technique for beginners and professionals".
After you install the program, if you are especially interested in Swing, look for the Swing metronome in the drop list at the top of the main window.
Other features of interest in this video
The bouncing numbers may help by giving you less to think about as it means you don't need to count them yourself. Or they may help you to internalise the count and let it become more automatic and unthinking.
It shows another approach to the bounce pattern. Rather than use a conducting pattern, here we have the numbers bouncing back and forth. This may help you to see your position in the measure, with the measure as a "time line".
This shows the paradiddle, one of the standard drum rudiments, played very slowly. Of course you can play this and other rudiments at any tempo - or gradually increase it one BPM or one notch at a time. You can also set it to change gradually, over a number of seconds or minutes, e.g. to help you to learn to play precisely and accurately at a faster tempo than before.
After you download the program, look for the drum metronome in the drop list at the top of the main window.
This example is a feature of particular interest to drummers. Often the drummer is the member of the band with the prime responsibility for keeping the rhythm together and keeping a steady tempo. So if you are a drummer it is especially important to be able to keep a steady tempo and exact rhythm whenever you want to and for as long as you want to.
When you run the program with sound, the visuals help you to play exactly on the beat and in time,. This makes Bounce Metronome Pro eminently suitable for practicing all kinds of rhythm with irregular beat patterns, syncopated rhythms, swing rhythms, polyrhythms and so on.
Shows the words Bounce Metronome Pro bouncing in a 3/4 type conducting pattern. You can show any words for the beats, either lyrics, or words that you say to yourself to help you play in rhythm. You can show the words in various ways, this is one of them.
Since it can be used as a completely silent metronome it is also useful for situations where you don't want to hear the beats, or for use as a metronome for deaf musicians.
You may see pauses and stutters in the animations on this page. This can be caused by streaming issues depending on the bandwidth of your connection, or by the CPU load on your computer.
The program itself doesn't have these issues in the same way. Each frame is created by working out the position for the visuals, at the moment it's created, so that's a different situation from a playback of a previously recorded video.
Low frame rates for 3D graphics in the program itself
In the program itself you don't get these timing glitches, but you may get a low frame rate with the 3D graphics, especially if you have an older machine since 3D graphics are CPU intensive.
So, if you find the 3D animations slow, it can sometimes work the other way that the video animations are better than the program. If so you can make your own video animations for any favourite rhythms or tempi.
These animations can also be useful for other devices without Windows, so long as they can play avi files. Of course you can also use them on youtube or for your website.
So you may want to make your own animations.
How to make your own animations like these with Bounce Metronome Pro
To make animations like this, you can use the EXPORT ANIMATIONS window (Ctrl + 234).
Tips for playback of animations on slower machines
When you play your exported animations, make sure you have nothing else running that's CPU intensive (check the CPU column in the Processes tab in Task Manager Ctrl + Alt + Delete), and then you should be okay as far as the timing glitches are concerned.
If you still get problems perhaps on a very old machine, you may need to save the animation with a lower resolution or slower frame rate to make it easier to play it with less use of CPU resources.
