Metronome for iOS
Need an odd time signature like 6-6-6-7, 7/8 or 5/4? Build it in AnyBeat.
Most metronomes give you a dropdown of time signatures and hope that covers what you need. AnyBeat lets you build the bar out of blocks. You tap a beat to accent it, drag to add more, and play.
Stopped
This is a real metronome, running in your browser. Tap the blocks.
Why this exists
I was learning a song in 6-6-6-7 and I could not find a metronome that would just let me build it. Every app I tried had the time signatures buried in a dropdown, or the groupings locked behind a subscription, or a settings screen three levels down. So I made the one I wanted. Beats are blocks. You drag to add them and tap to accent them. Building a bar takes a few seconds.
How it works
Three gestures and you have your bar.
You do not open a settings screen to build a rhythm. You edit the pattern on screen directly, with taps and drags.
1. Set the length
Tap + for one beat, or drag it up to add several at once. A single pattern holds up to 300 beats, enough for a whole song section.
2. Shape the pulse
Tap a beat to cycle it through beat, soft and muted. Long-press for accent. Drag across a range to change all of it at once, or hold and drag to reorder.
3. Play it
Nudge the tempo one BPM at a time, swipe for big jumps, or tap along with a song. The current beat lights up as it plays.
A mixed cycle is just one long pattern
This is the part other metronomes cannot express. 6-6-6-7 looks like four time signatures, but it is really twenty-five beats with accents on 1, 7, 13 and 19, looping forever. Once you see it that way it stops being hard.
Features
Everything is included.
Other apps put the useful parts behind a subscription. Here they are all in the app from the first launch.
Four states per beat
Accent, beat, soft and muted. A muted beat still shows in the count but makes no sound, which is how you practise holding time on your own.
Phrase grouping
Break the pattern into phrases wherever you want. Long patterns wrap onto readable rows instead of one endless line.
Rhythm training
Silence random beats or whole cycles at three intensities while the visual count keeps running. It is the most direct test of whether the time is yours.
Custom sounds
5 built-in voices, or record your own accent, beat and soft samples and save them as a profile you can reuse.
Saved sets
Swipe between saved patterns on the main screen while playback continues. Reorder, rename and colour-code them.
Background and Lock Screen
It keeps playing with the screen off, with transport controls on the Lock Screen and a Live Activity.
Tap tempo
Tap along with a record and the tempo follows. Or nudge one BPM at a time when you are creeping a passage up.
Export as audio
Export one full pass of the pattern as an audio file using your current tempo, sounds and volume. Send it to anyone, even if they do not have the app.
Four grid sizes
Long patterns stay readable. Pick a zoom level and it is remembered with each saved set.
See it move
Quicker to try than to describe.
Stopped
3-2 clave: sixteen positions, five strokes
Muted beats keep the count visible while staying silent, so the clave reads as a shape instead of a row of rests. Tap play on the phone, it is live.
Read: clave patterns explainedSounds
Five built-in sounds.
A click has to survive the room you play it in. These have different frequency profiles, so one of them gets through your rig.
Pricing
$9.99. Once.
One time. No subscription. No ads. Nothing behind a paywall. Every feature on this page is in the app when you open it.
iOS 26 or later · Android version in development
Questions
Straight answers.
Can it do time signatures that change every bar?
Yes. That is the reason it exists. You build the whole cycle as one pattern, so a 6-6-6-7 sequence is a single 25-beat pattern with four accents that loops as one unit. You are not switching between bars.
How is this different from a normal metronome app?
A normal metronome asks you to pick a time signature from a list and then clicks it forever. AnyBeat has no list. A rhythm is a row of beats, and you set each one to accent, beat, soft or muted by tapping and dragging. You can build anything from 1 to 300 beats.
Can I share a beat with someone who does not have the app?
Yes. You export the current pattern as an audio file and send it however you like. Your bandmate plays the recording and gets your tempo and accents without installing anything.
Is there a subscription?
No. AnyBeat is $9.99 once and everything is included. Custom sounds, rhythm training, saved sets and audio export are all there from the first launch.
Does it do polyrhythms?
It handles polymeter, which is different groupings over a shared pulse. That covers most of what people mean by polyrhythm and most of what real music uses. For a true polyrhythm like 3 against 2, you build the shared subdivision and accent the beats each voice lands on.
Can I use my own click sound?
Yes. You record your own accent, beat and soft samples in the app and save them as a profile you can reuse. There are also five built-in sounds with different frequency profiles, so one of them will cut through your room.
Does it keep playing in the background?
Yes. Playback continues with the screen off, and you can control it from the Lock Screen and the Live Activity. You can also keep the screen awake while you practise.
Is there an Android version?
Android version in development. The iOS version is available now.
What is the tempo range?
20 to 600 BPM. You can nudge it one beat at a time or swipe for larger jumps, and you can change it without stopping playback.
Learn
How to play the hard ones
How to practise odd time signatures without losing the pulse
A practical method for counting and internalising 5/4, 7/8, 11/8 and other odd meters, by grouping them into small cells instead of counting to eleven.
TheoryAdditive meter: what 6-6-6-7 actually means
Additive meter builds a bar by adding unequal cells together rather than dividing a bar equally. Here is how to read, count and programme groupings like 2+2+3 and 6-6-6-7.
TheoryPolyrhythm vs polymeter: the difference, with examples
Polyrhythm divides the same span of time in two different ways at once. Polymeter runs two different bar lengths over a shared pulse. Here is how to tell them apart and practise each.
RhythmClave patterns explained: 3-2, 2-3 and why they matter
The clave is the five-stroke rhythmic key underneath Cuban and much Latin music. Here is how 3-2 and 2-3 son clave are built, how they differ, and how to practise them.