In 1932 – Doron Kemp Antrim (1889–1961), editor from 1928 through 1939 – the magazine's tagline read "For Orchestra, Band, Radio and Motion Picture Theatre Musicians.

"[6] Edgar Bitner (né Edgar Franklin Bitner; 1877–1939), who headed Leo Feist, Inc., after its founder's death, was, according to author Russell Sanjek, a Tin Pan Alley pioneer, who, with Julius P. Witmark and Nathan Burkan (1878–1936) (a founding father of intellectual property law), was one of ASCAP's honorary pioneer members.

Writers for the magazine were its co-editors, Leonard Feather and Barry Ulanov; Miles Davis cited them as the only two white music critics in New York to understand bebop.

He changed the magazine's focus from articles on instrument-making and publishing to items about recordings and the noted big-band leaders of the day.

Metronome, under financial duress, was set to close after the December 1959 issue, but, in the words of author John Gennari, they "won a reprieve when photography editor Herb Snitzer prevailed upon his wife's uncle, Robert Asen, buy the defunct [sic] publication.

Resuming operation under the leadership of Snitzer, editor Dave Solomon, and art director Jerry Smokler [né Herbert Jerold Smokler; born 1935], Metronome became, briefly, a hip, avant-garde publication that surrounded its jazz coverage with cutting-edge Beat literature, ... "politically-charged cartoons, and other innovative visual material.

"Trouble came in July 1961 when a cover photograph of a Coney Island female stripper [and an accompanying article by Snitzer with more provocative photos] raised the ire of high school librarians, five or six-hundred of whom cancelled their subscriptions.