Wittner Metronome Review – Built Like A Tank!

Hello there and welcome back to another cool article for you! This time, we will look at the best mechanical metronome brand, Wittner metronomes! Even though most people do not use mechanical metronomes anymore, I still wanted to feature the Wittner brand here.

For those who have never heard of the Wittner brand, here’s a quick introduction. Wittner is a German company founded in 1895 by Gustav Wittner. Mr Wittner founded the factory to manufacture precision mechanical parts for the production of metronomes.

Later on, his son Rudolf Wittner worked on the expansion of the company and managed to scale up the factory to a medium-sized plant.

With the new standards they set in making mechanical metronomes, the company added the Taktell series on top of the Maelzel metronomes. Not surprisingly, these quickly became the industry-standard metronomes for professional and amateur musicians all over the world!

Along with Wittner metronomes, the company also started manufacturing many other musical instrument accessories such as tuning forks, string accessories and stands. Since 2005, the Wittner company has been run by third and fourth generations, Horst and Sabrina Wittner.

Mechanical Metronomes

Mechanical metronomes usually have a pyramid-like form that features a swinging pendulum down in the middle. While the pendulum swings left to right, the metronome produces a clicking sound each time the pendulum passes the centre.

I’m sure most musicians from younger generations have never used a mechanical metronome before. I believe if you are someone who was born into the computer and internet era, the idea of using it may not even exist! 🙂 However, mechanical metronomes still exist.

As with the development of digital metronomes with a vast array of features and the ability to count in different time signatures, in my opinion, mechanical metronomes are slowly fading away.

Even though Wittner also produces mechanical metronomes that can count in different time signatures, they are still limited in options than what digital metronomes can offer these days.

The biggest advantage of mechanical metronomes is that they do not require a battery or power supply to run, so you can actually use them anywhere without energy. On top of that, visualised movement of the beat is also another advantage of mechanical metronomes as well.

Wittner Metronome Review

Even though I rarely practice with a metronome these days, I started practising the guitar strictly with a metronome over two decades ago with my Wittner Taktell Junior 826 metronome.

My Wittner Taktell Junior 826 was the first metronome I bought back in 2000. The reason I wanted to feature this Wittner metronome is that it would be a really long long-term review, right? 🙂

It’s been 22 years since I got this metronome when I was a beginner guitar player. Back in that era, as taught by guitar tutors who got inspired by 80’s style guitarists and shredders, most guitar students would immediately go into 8 hours a day, in front of a metronome approach!

As far as I remember, digital metronomes and mechanical metronomes were also priced very similarly back in those days. However, there was no such big market in Turkey and we had limited access to metronome brands and models. Since the Wittner brand was always accessible in any music shop, I also went for it and got myself one.

As you can see from the image below, I used it so much that I caused some cosmetic issues on the front plate. 🙂

It’s been actually travelling with me to all the cities I relocated to and here in Bratislava now. Not so surprisingly it still functions without any issue, I really appreciate how this long-established German company, Wittner designed and manufactured these metronomes back in the day and they work forever!

There are no technical specifications that I can share apart from the Taktell series being made of plastic. One of the most important things I should mention here is that while recording a video of this Taktell Junior metronome, I noticed it ran over 15 minutes at 84 BPM!

You should also know that unless you have a flat surface to place your metronome on, these mechanical metronomes tend to swing a bit. But it’s in their nature anyway. If you have even a slight surface angle, you will notice the beats going off a little bit.

As I mentioned, my Wittner metronome has a lot of scratches on the face plate due to careless usage! Wittner suggests that you should set the metronome to the fastest tempo so the pendulum will not scratch while rehanging it.

Last but not least, you should not keep the metronome wound up for long periods of time if you are not using it frequently. This way you can maximise the life span of the spring tension.

Wittner Taktell Junior 826 84 BPM Test Video

Here’s a sample video I made with my Wittner metronome, feel free to practice along with it! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this brief article. Just wanted to feature this wonderful, long-established German brand on my website! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!

Osman Cenan Çiğil – cigilovic.com

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