I have spent over twenty years practicing with metronomes and another decade watching students use them in lessons and practice rooms. For most musicians, the Korg TM-60 is the one to buy. Below are my picks for every budget and situation, and an honest section on whether you need to buy anything at all.
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Top pick
Who it's for: almost everyone. Band and orchestra students, singers, guitarists, college music majors. If a student asks me which metronome to buy and gives me no other information, this is my answer.
Why: the TM-60 pairs a full-featured metronome with a chromatic tuner, and both work at the same time on a large split display. That combination matters because tuning and timing are the two things every player needs at every rehearsal, and carrying one small device instead of two keeps it in the case where it belongs. The tempo range is wide, the beat and subdivision options cover everything short of odd-meter programming, the battery life is measured in months rather than hours, and it is usually under $30. Mine has been dropped more times than I can count and still works.
Drawbacks: the built-in speaker is quiet next to a drum kit or a trumpet section, so loud players will want the earphone jack or the DB-90 below. The click sound itself is a plain beep, pleasant enough but not adjustable in any meaningful way.
Check the Korg TM-60 on Amazon →Budget pick
Who it's for: beginners, parents outfitting a school-age player, and anyone who wants a dedicated click for the least possible money.
Why: the MA-2 is a slim, card-style unit, small enough to live in a pencil pouch, and usually under $20. It keeps the essentials the TM-60 has on the metronome side: a broad tempo range, common beat groupings, basic subdivisions, and a clear display, without the tuner. For a young student who needs a reliable click and nothing more, that is exactly the right amount of device. The honest alternative at this price tier is to spend nothing: our free online metronome does everything the MA-2 does, provided a phone or laptop is already on the music stand.
Drawbacks: the speaker is even quieter than the TM-60's, the buttons feel budget-grade, and there is no tuner. If the price gap does not matter to you, the TM-60 is the better long-term purchase.
Check the Korg MA-2 on Amazon →Upgrade pick
Who it's for: drummers, gigging rhythm-section players, and anyone doing serious tempo work such as click displacement, odd meters, or programmed accelerando drills.
Why: the DB-90 has been the practice-room standard for decades, and walk into any drum studio and you will probably find one. It is loud enough to hear over a full kit, it offers multiple click voices including a human voice count, and it lets you program patterns, set subdivision volumes independently, and store tempo presets for a whole set list. There is a rhythm coach mode with a built-in mic input that grades how closely you lock to the beat, which is the hardware ancestor of what our free Pulse Meter does in the browser. It typically costs several times what the TM-60 does, which is fair for what it is.
Drawbacks: it is overkill for a flutist or a choir singer, it is bulkier than everything else here, and the interface takes an evening to learn. Buy it when your practice has outgrown a simple click, not before.
Check the BOSS DB-90 on Amazon →Mechanical pick
Who it's for: pianists, piano teachers, and anyone who wants the traditional wind-up pyramid on top of the instrument.
Why: there are real pedagogical arguments for a mechanical metronome in a piano studio. The swinging pendulum gives young students something to watch, which helps them internalize the beat visually as well as aurally, and the wooden click sits more comfortably under an acoustic piano than an electronic beep. No batteries, nothing to configure, and a well-kept Wittner outlasts its owner. The German-made Taktell line is the one I trust; finishes range from plain plastic to genuine wood, usually somewhere between $50 and $100 depending on the model.
Drawbacks: no subdivisions, no volume control, and the mechanism drifts slightly if the metronome sits on a slanted or vibrating surface. It also has to be wound. This is a beautiful single-purpose tool, not a flexible one.
Check the Wittner Taktell on Amazon →Wearable mention
Who it's for: players in loud environments, and musicians who find an audible click intrusive, such as vocalists or performers who need a silent tempo reference on stage.
Why: the Pulse straps to your wrist, ankle, or chest and delivers the beat as a strong vibration, considerably stronger than a phone buzz. Feeling the pulse in your body rather than hearing it is a genuinely different experience, and several units can sync so a whole rhythm section shares one silent tempo. It pairs with a companion app for tempo and subdivision control.
Drawbacks: it depends on that app, it needs regular charging, and it usually costs around what the DB-90 does. I consider it a specialized second metronome rather than anyone's first.
Check the Soundbrenner Pulse on Amazon →These picks come from use, not spec sheets. I have owned a TM-series Korg since my undergraduate days, wound Wittners in piano studios, and stood next to more DB-90s in drum rooms than I could count. I weighted four things: reliability over years of being tossed into gig bags, a speaker or output you can actually hear over your instrument, controls a tired student can operate without a manual, and honest value, meaning the cheapest device that fully solves the problem rather than the one with the longest feature list. Every product here has been in continuous production for many years, which is its own evidence.
Maybe not. A dedicated device has real advantages: it does not ring, buzz, or tempt you toward other apps mid-session, its battery lasts months, and picking it up is a small ritual that says practice has started. Teachers also tend to prefer hardware in lessons for exactly the distraction reason.
But the click itself is a solved problem. Our free online metronome handles tap tempo, subdivisions, and ghost bars, and the Pulse Meter will measure how steady your internal clock actually is, something none of the hardware above except the DB-90 attempts. My suggestion: start free, and buy hardware when you notice the phone or laptop getting in the way of the work.
Whatever you end up practicing with, the device matters far less than the method. Read our guide on how to practice with a metronome for the techniques, starting tempos, and daily routine that make any of these tools worth owning.