MetroPitch

Not only am I an absolute beginner acoustic ukulele player, but I know almost nothing about music, having never studied it or played another instrument. Choosing to remedy that, I ordered a Pono tenor ukulele from TheUkuleleSite.com. Having read dozens of ukulele articles, books, and blogs, I knew I’d also need a metronome and digital tuner. So, after a bit of online research, and after reading the Amazon reviews, I ordered the black Kliq Metropitch Digital Tuner Metronome from Amazon.com It arrived about a week before my ukulele arrived, so I first tested it against the Online Ukulele Tuner at Get-Tuned.com. Based on that test, the Kliq Metropitch tuner is dead on.I’ve now had both my ukulele and the Kliq Metropitch for several days. As a beginning ukulele player, I’m learning the basics at my computer via the wealth of free online ukulele lessons. To begin, I place the Metropitch on my mouse pad within easy reach. It lies back on its wire kickstand, facing me and the ukulele. I first use it to tune the ukulele (using the Metropitch’s built-in mic), and then I switch to metronome mode when practicing strumming.The Metropitch has several nice or useful features that may not be evident from the online reviews. For example, all of its edges are nicely rounded, so there are no sharp edges. The Metropitch also has a sturdy, wire kickstand. When not being used, the kickstand folds into a U-shaped groove on the back of the Metropitch. This allows the Metropitch to lie flat, without wobble.But....what about that kickstand? Is it really useful? Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought it would be useless. Not so! I don’t use a ukulele strap, so at least one of my hands is holding the ukelele. And that makes doing smartphone thumb gymnastics on the Metropitch a bit clumsy. This is when the kickstand shines. With the kickstand extended, the Metropitch reclines at a fixed angle that is ideal both for viewing the LCD readout and for one-handed operation of any of the five rubberized buttons [Power, Mode, Function, Tap In, and Mute].With the kickstand extended, the back of the Metropitch also is raised just enough to permit single-handed [right hand] operation of the Jog Dial. Placing your right middle finger on the back of the Metropitch in the upper right corner, and placing your right index finger along the upper right top edge allows you to place your right thumb in the concave circle of the Jog Dial and then securely hold the Metropitch while your thumb easily and quickly turns the Jog Dial in either direction to make a selection, such as increasing or decreasing the tempo in Metronome mode or running through the various pitch selections in the Tone Generator mode.In use, the kickstand also is stable. For example, with the Metropitch on my mouse pad with the kickstand extended, pressing the Power button on the far left does not send the Metropitch flying across the room. The Kliq development team designed the kickstand so that it is offset to the left of center, nicely accommodating one-handed, off-center button presses.From online reviews, it was not clear to me that the digital LCD screen was high resolution. In some of the videos it seemed slightly fuzzy. In person, however, the LCD screen is bright and very easy to read. The numbers, letters, words and graphs are all sharp and perfectly legible—no fuzziness at all.A nice feature of the digital tuner is that not only does the needle-type display turn from red to green when a string is in tune, but the entire face of the LCD display turns green and holds for a few seconds. That’s a nice feature for those who misplace their reading glasses—you don’t have to be able to see that the “G,” “C,” “E,” or “A” center needle is green because the entire screen tells you that.If you don’t input anything or use the metronome, tuner, or tone generator for about 3 minutes, to save the lives of its two AAA batteries, the Metropitch turns itself off. But, it has a memory, and when you turn it back on, it will be in the same mode and have the same settings you were using when you turned it off, or it turned itself off.Although my ukulele didn’t come with a mute button, the Kliq Metropitch has one. Also, using headphones via the 1/8 inch mini-headphone jack serves to mute the metronome and tone generator from other people while you continue to enjoy them.On the left side, next to the headphone input jack, is a small thumbwheel that controls the Metropitch’s sound volume. With the thumbwheel, you can decrease the volume almost to a mute, and you can increase it to as loud as a person with normal hearing should need—even while playing. If you need it louder, using headphones should work.For those with either extremely good eyesight or a magnifying glass, embossed into the back of the Metropitch is the following Tempo Range chart:LARGO----------------40-----60LARGHETTO--------60-----66ADAGIO--------------66-----76ANDANTE-----------76-----108MODERATO--------108----120ALLEGRO-----------120----168PRESTO-------------168-----200PRESTISSIMO-----200-----208For a good hands-on video review that allows you to see the Kliq Metropitch close up and in good lighting, see guitarlancer’s “Kliq Metronome Tuner Review and demonstration” on youtube.After you order the Metropitch, you may receive an email from Kliq Music Gear with an attached pdf file of the User’s Manual. This is a nice touch. Having the User’s Manual available on the computer during its first few uses was quite helpful.Because I’m just beginning, and because my ukulele is acoustic only, I did not use the electric input and output jacks, or the advanced features such as transposition settings. For my needs, the Kliq Metropitch is perfect. I can think of nothing I would recommend changing.

Excellent Tuner - with a Tone Generator (across a wide frequency range of tunings, 410-480 Hz), and a really good Metronome to boot!The tuner is very accurate, and gets surprisingly quicker and more stable readings than most other popular tuners I've used over the years. I like the fact that you can tune to the 432 frequency. My Boss TU-3 can't do this (only goes down to 436). I also use this tuner to check if pre-recorded music, chimes, and other musical instruments claiming to be precision tuned to 432 are actually tuned to that frequency. (The 432 music frequency has soothing and healing benefits that music tuned to 440 doesn't have.)The Tone Generator will work across the different Hertz calibrations. So you can set the tuner to 440 and hear the chromatic scale notes in that tuning, and then switch it to 432 (or any other Hertz frequency from 410-480 Hz) and hear the chromatic notes in that frequency. This could be a very useful tool for ear & vocal training.On the Metronome, I like that you can tap in your tempo if you prefer. This is a quicker and easier way to find out what the timing of a song is - especially if your band is getting ready to go into the studio and your drummer is going to be using click tracks. For those that don't want the chirp sound at the being of each measure, do this... while in the Metronome Mode, click the "Function" button and set the Beat to "0" (instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) and that chirp goes away. Personally I prefer to use a metronome this way (w/o chirps) when running scales. My old metronome wasn't loud enough when I'm playing through an amp. The MetroPitch Metronome has a good range of volume to it - from very soft to quite loud. Definitely usable with moderate guitar amp volumes.Overall you can't beat the value of this device, especially at this price. Even though it's so reasonably priced, the company cut no corners in the quality or the features. Three excellent products in one.The "Red" Metro is an especially nice decorative addition to brighten up any room : ) A work of art !

Great quality item! I love the style and features on the MetroPitch, very easy to navigate the menus and change from mode to mode: Tuner, Tone, Metronome. The dial is a nice tool and the buttons on the front are responsive, the display gives you everything you need. The metronome feature is very cool - different time signatures, you can add quarter, eighth and sixteenth note "bips" in between normal beats, which is a great option depending on the tune you're playing. Speed up, slow down, etc. Very versatile. The build quality is great - not a cheap feeling piece of plastic, it has a metal housing, and the red color is pretty sweet. Comes with a cloth sleeve to keep it in, which is a nice touch. I took one star off my review for a design element I think they'll probably update: When in tuner mode on U for Ukulele, it defaults to the key of D, when Sop/Concert/Tenors are key of C. You can change the key setting, and it holds that C as the setting as you go to other modes and return to the tuner, or turn it off/on. But it'll default back to key of D for Ukulele if you switch to other instruments in the tuner (like Guitar, Violin) then return to Uke. Then I have to reset it back to the key of C each time. I have to give Laura at KLIQ major kudos on their customer service. Super responsive and helpful. I explained this through email to see if I had a defective item. They verified it should stay in the last key you programmed, so they offered and mailed me a new MetroPitch at no cost. The new one functions the same as my original, so it must be the way it was designed. I'm still very happy with it other than this minor item. I might get another one just to have one in my case and different rooms in the house where I play my instruments.