Obsidian Metronome 🎵

Use this plugin to add interactive metronomes to your notes. Use just the visual metronome or turn on a click or beep. Customize the tempo, meter, instrument, size, and more. Pair it with obsidian-plugin-abcjs to have your score and metronome living in harmony in a single note!

This markdown in your Obsidian note:

# My Metronome

```metronome
bpm: 120
meter: 3/4
size: medium
```

Produces this interactive metronome:

Why?

I use obsidian-plugin-abcjs for writing out music notation in Obsidian and sometimes during live performances I have a need to know what tempo to play a song. This plugin provides a visual metronome that I can have right alongside my music that serves as a great reminder of the correct tempo for a live performance. During practice, I can unmute it and practice alongside it as it clicks on the beat.

Install

1. In Obsidian, go to Settings > Community Plugins and disable safe mode if it is enabled.
2. Select Browse and search for the Metronome plugin.
3. Install the plugin.
4. Enable the plugin.

Usage

Open a note and place a code block in your note like the one below. Give it a bpm (beats per minute) for your tempo. In the example below, I've set bpm to 120.

# My basic metronome

```metronome
bpm: 120
```

This produces a visual metronome in your note. By default it is muted, but you can press the unmute button to hear it click (or change the muted option so it clicks by default — see below for more options).

You can customize the metronome further:

# My more fancy metronome

```metronome
bpm: 120
meter: 12/8
size: large
instrument: beep
tickNotes: A5
tockNotes: A4
```

Metronome Options

These are all the options you can change when creating a metronome. Only the bpm option is required.

Option	Type	Description	Default
bpm	number or string	Tempo in beats per minute. Must be greater than 0. Supports simple math expressions using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, because sometimes you want to double a tempo (60*2), halve it (140/2) or perhaps increase or decrease a tempo but keep track of what the original value was for your reference later (90+12).	(required)
meter	string	The time signature (meter) to play in. The bottom number must be 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64. Examples: 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, 12/8.	4/4
muted	yes or no	Whether or not the metronome's audio starts muted.	yes
autoStart	yes or no	Whether or not the metronome starts flashing visually right away. If autoStart is yes and muted is no, then the metronome's sound will also start playing immediately.	yes
stopAfter	duration like 30s, 1h, 1h30m	Automatically stop the metronome after the given duration.	none
countdown	always, or duration like 30s, 1h, 1h30m	When used in conjunction with stopAfter, this controls how long the "Stopping in..." countdown button appears for before the metronome automatically stops. Set to always to always show the countdown.	10s, or the value of stopAfter if shorter than 10 seconds
size	small, medium, large, or xlarge	Control the size of the metronome in the note.	small
style	pulse, pendulum, line, dots	Control the style of the metronome. pulse makes the whole area flash color. pendulum shows an illustration of a metronome with a swinging pendulum. line shows a vertical line moving left and right. dots shows dots. Only pulse is available when size is small. The other styles are only available on size = medium and up.	pulse
instrument	click, beep, AMSynth, DuoSynth, FMSynth, MembraneSynth, MetalSynth, MonoSynth, or PluckSynth	Change the metronome's instrument.	click
tickNotes	string	This determines the note(s) played on the downbeat, specified in scientific pitch notation. (For example, middle C is C4.) Multiple tones can be played at the same time by providing a comma-separated list of tones. If there is no meter, every beat is considered a downbeat. Has no effect when instrument is click.	C6 F5,A5,C5
tockNotes	string	This determines the note(s) played on the upbeat, specified in scientific pitch notation. (For example, middle C is C4.) Multiple tones can be played at the same time by providing a comma-separated list of tones. If there is no meter, every beat is considered a downbeat. Has no effect when instrument is click.	C5 F4,A4,C4

Examples

Setting autoStart: no on a metronome

If a metronome has autoStart: no, it won't start flashing when you open the note. You can also edit metronomes inline using Obsidian's live preview feature.

Include alongside music notation

The metronome works great when placed alongside music notation using the obsidian-plugin-abcjs plugin.

Play multiple tones at once

Set tickNotes and tockNotes to a comma-separated list of tones to play those tones all at once in a chord.

```metronome
bpm: 80
meter: 4/4
instrument:beep
tickNotes: F4,A4,C4
tockNotes: D4,F4,A4
```

Using different instruments and tones

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: AMSynth
tickNotes: C5,E5
tockNotes: D5,F5
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: DuoSynth
muted: no
tickNotes: A3
tockNotes: B3
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: FMSynth
tickNotes: A4
tockNotes: C#5,E5
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: MembraneSynth
tickNotes: B6
tockNotes: B5
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: MetalSynth
tickNotes: G3
tockNotes: D0
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: MonoSynth
tickNotes: C5,E5,G5
tockNotes: F5,A6,C6
```

```metronome
bpm: 90
meter: 4/4
instrument: PluckSynth
tickNotes: A4
tockNotes: E4
```

pulse style (default)

```metronome
bpm: 125
size: large
style: pulse
```

pendulum style

Works best on large and xlarge sizes.

```metronome
bpm: 125
size: large
style: pendulum
```

line style

Works best on large and xlarge sizes.

```metronome
bpm: 125
size: large
style: line
```

dots style

```metronome
bpm: 86
meter: 3/4
size: large
style: dots
```

stopAfter and countdown

You can have the metronome stop after an amount of time:

```metronome
bpm: 120
meter:4/4
stopAfter: 12s
```

By default the countdown button appears for the last 10 seconds of the stopAfter duration, but you can have it show for a longer period of time:

```metronome
bpm: 120
meter:4/4
stopAfter: 1m
countdown: 30s
```

Or you can have the countdown button always show:

```metronome
bpm: 120
meter:4/4
stopAfter: 1m
countdown: always
```

Works with themes

The metronome works great with Obsidian's community themes in light or dark mode.

Theme: Obsidian Default (dark mode)

Theme: Minimal (light mode)

Theme: Obsidian Atom (dark mode)

Theme: Cecilia May Primary (light mode)