THE UBUSTU FEED

GTick is a slick little metronome app with a few extremely useful features. It supports all the common time signatures but also includes a custom field allowing for uncommon meters such as 5/4, 7/4, 16/4, and so on. It can handle tempo speeds anywhere from 10 to 1000 beats per minute. Perhaps the most striking feature of GTick is the ability to tap out custom tempos with a few clicks of the mouse.

GTick really isn’t much more than a metronome app. You enter the tempo and the meter and you’re done. Although at first glance GTick appears to be quite simplistic, a little investigation reveals three additional tools which can be added onto the main interface.

The Visual Tick

Keep the time with your eyes with the Visual Tick. By expanding the GTick program into full-screen mode the colored squares and rectangles become very large. This is extremely useful when recording or practicing with several musicians at once. Each musician needs to keep time but cannot always hear the metronome’s tick.

The Accent Table

The Accent Table allows you to modify the feel or groove of your rhythms. Accented notes have a higher pitch and flash red. Try honing your accenting skills by experimenting with an usual meter like 7/4.

Custom Profiles

The Profiles interface allows you to name and store your own customized rhythms. You can organize your profiles by tempo and BPM or keep it abstract with names like “spooky and fast” or “slow crawl”.

The Tap

We think the Tap is the greatest feature of all time. By clicking with your mouse, or tapping on your spacebar, you can produce the approximate tempo of every idea that pops in your head.

The Whole Nine Yards

Useful Shortcuts

Ctrl-S Start/Stop
Ctrl-+ Speed: Faster
Ctrl– Speed: Slower
Ctrl-1…Ctrl-9 Base Meter
Alt-W Double Speed
Alt-Q Half Speed
Alt-A Speed: -10
Alt-S Speed: +10
Alt-Z Speed: -2
Alt-X Speed: +2
Shift-W Double Volume
Shift-Q Half Volume
Shift-A Volume: -10
Shift-S Volume: +10
Shift-Z Volume: -2
Shift-X Volume: +2