I followed this whole heated discussion and now I want a drum machine plugin.
@howard: can you advise on a cheap/free & versatile plugin?
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I would check out Steven Slate SSD5 for good natural sounding drums. Also several DAWs have them, and the free one with Cakewalk is not terrible.
Bitwig and Ableton have excellent drum samplers, and Logic and Garageband have the drummers that are also a bit different.
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The fact remains that a drum machine can perform any function that a metronome can and far, far more.
That said, use whichever means you choose. Thankfully, no one can hear it but the user. 
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And I never stated otherwise, I only said both have their uses and I utilize them both.
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The fact that we can have an impassioned debate over … checks notes … using a metronome or not means we can all hopefully agree on two things:
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Keeping time and developing an internal time feel is a super important aspect of music, rhythm, and playing bass.
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Whatever means you use to accomplish this that works for you, works for you.
There’s a lesson that Rich Brown did that sticks with me. I think of it often, but I’d be hard pressed to find a link to it at the moment. But the gist of it was all about moving your body, feeling the rhythm, and completely internalizing it.
Whatever means you choose to personally use, more power to you!
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Yep. Probably our most important skill as bass players.
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The OP said:
But as we politely explained you can use a drum machine i.e using just the kick drum to do the same this. Start at 120 bpm 4/4 and slow to 60bpm 4/4 but treat as 120bpm and ‘count’ the missing beats.
I understand the exercise @GingerBug originally described. I just don’t want to listen to a cheap chirpy metronome in my spare time. I think that’s reasonable. When my lovely BeatBuddy pedal can do the same thing and more. 
@fennario I think this is the Rich Brown exercise:
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I know you wanted cheap/free but one I feel compelled to call out as one of the best overall plugins for electro-sounding synthesized drums would be Microtonic. It’s old but just fantastic:
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Which ever one you choose, I highly suggest that you select one the offers a standalone option, so you don’t need to load a plugin host to use it.
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I’ll chip in with one little comment. I enjoy playing a number of (short, simplified) classical pieces on my bass and I sometimes use a metronome to drill my timing on them. No matter how much I dislike the, yes, boring clicks, somehow a drum machine really does not sound appropriate.
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Steven Slate SSD5 doesn’t have this 
In fact I was hoping for something very simple, where I just select a pattern, drop it into my DAW and the drums play to the (dynamic) tempo of the background track.
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If you want the drum machine to play at the background track’s tempo, you’ll need to use a plugin host and a drum machine plugin that supports syncing to a host. If you have a DAW, it most likely has a built-in drum plugin. As long as the drum machine itself or the host includes a sequencer, you can achieve what you want with what you already have, but it would like take some effort to create your drum metronome.
The Cherry Audio KR-55C is 49 € (VAT included). It’s got a 32-step sequencer and a bunch of presets in different genres. Pretty much ready to go, with minimum work on your part.
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Cherry underprices their stuff and has great sales too.
Yes but very little.
interesting discussion, thanks. ive watched some of the youtube vids posted and theyre all a bit too complicated for me (im a beginner wanting to improve my timing). i dont particularly want hundreds of synth sounding drum beats, id prefer something really simple that just plays normal sounding drums so i can play along with sex pistols, ramones etc. does such a beast exist?
thanks
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My go to for practice and teaching is still
Not a fan of the icon, but I love the app.
It costs around $10 to download all the loops.
It’s less for about 10 loops.
You can just go in and get the “Rock” loops and you’d have a nice sounding tempo-adjustable rock drum beat to practice to.
If you get all of them, you get heaps of wild drum loops, funk, jazz, world, etc. to mess with.
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Just had a quick look, says it’s only available on iPhone. I’m android 
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Ah!
I think I can help there:
Does that work with android??
I truly don’t know, but hope it does!
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It works, I downloaded it. Looks like 3 freebies then you have to purchase whatever else you may want.
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I forgot all about this app. I purchased it with the full loop pack years ago. I wonder if the Google Play store will remember that. I was using a different email for my Google account back then, so I doubt it. I’m going to install it on my phone and Pixel tablet.
There was a comment in the Google Play store that Drumgenius is heavy on jazz loops. That’s not surprising since the dev’s website is ProJazzLab.com!