Time Trainer Metronome

Category
Music

Description of App

Way more than a metronome, the Time Trainer adds three training tools to help you develop your own internal sense of time!

This is an accurate and stable metronome - you will find nearly all the metronome apps are not even close to accurate!! It has tap tempo, a few different sounds, accent control for odd time playing, visual metronome movement with a flash on the beat - but then we add to that with three training tools: Bar Breaks, Random Beat Drop and Speed Up.

  • Bar Breaks • will mute the metronome for a bar or more forcing you to keep your time solid and be perfectly syncronised when the clicks return! This is a superb exercise and will really help develop confidence in holding your tempo. You can adjust how many bars are solid at the start then how many bars are solid and how many bars are muted which will cycle for the duration of the session. You can also select "random" mode and a % of bars (that you set) that will be dropped for an even more challenging practice session!
  • Random Beat Drop • does exactly what it says on the tin... some of the beats (clicks) will be muted at random, forcing you to be confident with your time and not rely on the click too much. Many people chase the beat or try and anticpate it, and this exercise will help you stop those bad habbits! I've personally found that the "gradual" setting is most useful, a five minute session starting at 100% with more and more beats muted up to the % that you set.
  • Speed Up • is a tool I have wanted for years for my own practice so now I made one. Often when working on scales, arpeggios or licks you want to start at an easy speed where you are playing it 100% correctly and gradually push your technique by playing it faster and faster. With this tool you set a start tempo, end tempo and duration fo you practice session and off you go, no more stopping to bump the bpm up a few notches every minute!

I'm sure you will find all of the tools very useful, and of course you will find full support on the justinguitar community forum - please take the time to rate and review it, good things will help promote it and anything negative will help me improve it!

Wishing you many happy hours of practice :) Justin

Version

1.21

Free or Paid

Paid

Apple Watch Support

Not Known

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

Accessibility Comments

The app is useable, however it does require some minor improvements. For example, the buttons are graphics which are labled with their respective filenames. However it isn't difficult to glean from them what each one does. VO doesn't alert you which trainer mode is selected. It would also be handy if the tap tempo button could support Direct Touch. With that said, it is fairly easy to use.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

Few buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

There are some accessibility issues with this app, but it can still be used if you are willing to tolerate these issues and learn how to work around them.

App Store Link

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-trainer-metronome/id502491350?mt=8&ign-mpt…

Developer's Website

http://www.justinguitar.com/index.php

Recommendations

2 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Kara Louise 9 years 2 months ago

Options

Comments

By Aaron Linson on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 23:24

With the things you mentioned about the app. I wouldn't say that it's fully accessible yet. Just my thoughts.

By Scottsdale on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 23:24

Yeah, got to agree with the first comment. It's usable to the point where if you'll actually use those extra training modes it's worth the extra effort, but there still is that extra effort required, which should be reflected in the rating imho. If you're willing to put in the time, things can be improved with the iOS labeling feature. I discovered that, although VO won't tell you which training mode is selected on the screen that you'd expect it to, the button to launch that screen changes colour according to which mode is active, so you can label it differently in each state. This way, you'll be able to check how the app has been left as soon as you open it without fumbling about on the training mode screen to figure it out, much as the sighted user would just glance at that button. I contacted Justin some time ago and went through each screen with him, listing what needed to be done to make the app ideal with VO. He past the feedback along to the chap who actually crunches the code, and there have been slow movements in the right direction since. Still, if you'll use this as often as I do, wouldn't hurt to drop him a mail and add some weight I guess. Seems like a hella long comment for something as dull as a metronome, but really, the training modes are a winner. Bar breaks has done wonders to help me consistently stay in the pocket when playing. Pushing and dragging against the click seem easy when there's always that frame of reference, but for me at least, beat drop totally screwed with most grooves I thought I had nailed down. Probably don't need to say much about the speed up mode, everyone is gonna know how valuable that is. Happy practicing peoples!

By Kara Louise on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 23:24

Thanks for commenting, I really should have set them to more appropriate values. I'm going to fix it now.

By Chris Smart on Monday, September 21, 2015 - 23:24

I was going to review this app as well, so will just add my comments here.

I'm one of those folks afflicted with perfect pitch, so most modern metronomes that emit a beep or other pitched sound drive me crazy! Time Trainer emits clicks, pops, other short sounds that don't distract me at all, and those sounds are short enough that I can really work on getting in the pocket - meaning playing right on top of the click, so it seems to disappear. Awesome! Also, the training modes are excellent and not found in other metronome apps!

Most of the accessibility concerns mentioned seem to have been addressed so perhaps the review should be updated to reflect the increased usability.

That said, is there a way to quickly and confidently adjust BPM in the Speed Upper Options screen? The starting tempo default of 60 is fine, but if I wanted to adjust the upper limit to say 130, I end up swiping right at least a hundred times to get there. There seems to be no way to do this quickly unless I'm forgetting a Voiceover gesture for moving in larger increments. And, God help you if you mess up one of those swipes, and have to start over at 10 BPM or less! I must have spent ten minutes trying to get it to 130 and stay there! Is there something I'm missing here?

By the way, Justin's guitar lessons are great. I learned a lot from his introductory funk and Travis picking stuff. Not all great guitar players are great teachers, but Justin seems to be both. :)