BPM Counter
Tap the big button, the space bar, Enter or T on each beat. The counter averages your taps and shows the tempo in BPM, the beat length in milliseconds and how steady your tapping was.
Exact average
—
0 intervals measured
Last 4 taps
—
drifts if you speed up or slow down
Beat length
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60,000 ÷ BPM
Beat length at common tempos
Once you know the BPM, one beat lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM milliseconds. That single number sets every tempo-synced delay, reverb and LFO in the session, which is why it sits next to the tempo above. The table is the same arithmetic for the tempos songs actually land on.
| BPM | Beat (ms) | Bar of 4/4 (s) | Taps in 10 s | Where you hear it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | 1000.0 | 4.00 | 10 | Ballads, slow blues, one beat per second |
| 70 | 857.1 | 3.43 | 12 | Dubstep half-time feel, slow R&B |
| 80 | 750.0 | 3.00 | 13 | Boom-bap hip-hop, reggae |
| 90 | 666.7 | 2.67 | 15 | Hip-hop, lo-fi, downtempo |
| 100 | 600.0 | 2.40 | 17 | Pop, funk, mid-tempo rock |
| 110 | 545.5 | 2.18 | 18 | Pop and rock |
| 120 | 500.0 | 2.00 | 20 | Pop, disco, the DAW default |
| 128 | 468.8 | 1.88 | 21 | House, the club standard |
| 140 | 428.6 | 1.71 | 23 | Techno, trap at half-time (70) |
| 150 | 400.0 | 1.60 | 25 | Hard dance, fast punk |
| 160 | 375.0 | 1.50 | 27 | Drum and bass low end, jungle |
| 174 | 344.8 | 1.38 | 29 | Drum and bass |
Getting a clean reading
Tap on the drums, not the vocal. Start on a downbeat and keep going through at least two bars. If the song has a strong half-time feel, decide up front whether you want the felt tempo or the written one; DJs and producers usually want the written one, which is what a DAW project would be set to. A spread under 60 ms means your taps are steady enough to trust the average; above that, reset and try again on a simpler part of the song.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does a tap tempo BPM counter work?
It records the time of each tap, measures the gaps between them, averages those gaps, and divides 60,000 by the average gap in milliseconds. Eight evenly spaced taps 500 ms apart give 120 BPM. This counter keeps the last 16 taps, shows both the overall average and the average of the last four, and starts over if you pause for more than 2.5 seconds.
How many taps do I need for an accurate BPM?
Four taps give a rough figure; eight to twelve steady taps usually land within one BPM of the true tempo. Human tapping jitters by 20 to 40 ms either way, which at 120 BPM is a spread of roughly ±5 BPM on a single interval, so the average over many taps is what removes the noise. Watch the spread figure under the counter: under 60 ms is steady.
The number keeps drifting. Why?
Either you are speeding up or slowing down, or the song is. The 'last 4 taps' figure tracks your most recent taps and will lead the overall average when that happens. Reset, listen for a few bars, and tap on the kick or snare rather than the melody. Live recordings and older songs recorded without a click genuinely drift by a few BPM.
Should I tap quarter notes or every beat I hear?
Tap the pulse you would nod your head to, which is the quarter note in nearly all popular music. If the reading comes out roughly double or half what you expect (say 170 when the song feels like 85), you tapped eighth notes or half notes; halve or double the result. Drum and bass and footwork sit around 160 to 175 BPM by convention even though the half-time feel is 80 to 87.
What are the common tempo ranges by genre?
Rough conventions: hip-hop and trap 80 to 100 BPM (often written at double, 160 to 200), pop 100 to 130, house 120 to 130, techno 125 to 140, trance 130 to 145, dubstep 140 (half-time feel at 70), drum and bass 165 to 175, rock 110 to 140, ballads 60 to 80. Plenty of songs break these, which is why you tap.
These tools use the standard tempo, pitch and timing formulas (60,000 ÷ BPM, A4 = 440 Hz equal temperament, 1,200 cents per octave). They run in your browser; the tap counter uses your keyboard or mouse timing, so expect a beat or two of settling before the reading is stable.