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Tap BPM counter

Updated October 13, 2026 by madebykamal

To find a song's BPM by tapping, tap once on every beat for a few bars: the tempo is 60,000 divided by the average gap between taps in milliseconds, so taps 500 ms apart make 120 BPM. Tap the pad below with a mouse, a finger, or the Space or T key to get the BPM to one decimal and rounded, half time, double time and note lengths in milliseconds for delay and reverb.

Click or touch the pad on each beat, or press Tab to reach it and tap with Space, Enter or T. A pause of 2.5 seconds ends the count.

Tempo

Ready

Rounded
Not yet
Taps
0
Half time
Not yet
Double time
Not yet

Tap the pad on every beat. The first tap starts the clock.

BPM to milliseconds

Fills in from your taps, or type a tempo from 1 to 999.

Note lengths in milliseconds at 120 BPM
NoteNormalDottedTriplet
Whole 1/12,0003,0001,333
Half 1/21,0001,500666.7
Quarter 1/4500750333.3
Eighth 1/8250375166.7
16th 1/16125187.583.3
32nd 1/3262.593.841.7

Quarter note = 60,000 ÷ 120 = 500 ms. A dotted note is 1.5 times as long, a triplet 2/3 as long.

The table counts the tapped beat as a quarter note, as in 4/4. Times are rounded to 0.1 ms, and to whole milliseconds from 1,000 ms up.

How it counts, and where each figure comes from
FigureSource
Tempo is the speed of the beat, counted in beats per minute; 60 BPM is one beat a second, so a beat lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM millisecondsUniversity of Puget Sound, Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom, 4.4 Meter
A whole note lasts four beats and a half note two; a dot adds half the note's length (× 1.5)Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom, 4.3 Dots and Ties
A triplet fits three notes in the time of two: three triplet eighths span one quarter note (× 2/3)Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom, 4.5 Tuplets
Delays are set in milliseconds or in note values synced to the tempo; four sixteenth notes make one beatLogic Pro User Guide, Stereo Delay; Ableton Live 12 Manual, Delay
More taps give a steadier tempo; a detected tempo can come out at twice or half the real oneAbleton Live 12 Manual, Tapping the Tempo and Even-Length Loops

Checked on . Each tap is timed with the browser's high resolution clock. The BPM is 60,000 divided by the average gap between taps in milliseconds, over the last 16 gaps (17 taps) at most. The first tap only starts the clock. A new count starts after a pause of 2.5 seconds, after Reset, or when one gap is less than 0.625 or more than 1.6 times the average so far (a skipped beat, an extra tap or a new tempo). Taps closer than 80 ms are ignored. Nothing you tap or type leaves this page.

How tap tempo works, and why more taps are steadier

Each tap is timed with your browser's high resolution clock. The first tap only starts the clock; from the second on, the counter divides 60,000 by the average gap between taps. Ableton's manual says the same of the Tap Tempo button in Live: the more you tap, the more accurate the detected tempo.

The average covers the last 16 gaps (17 taps, or four bars of 4/4). That equals the time from the first tap to the last divided by the number of gaps, so a tap that lands early shortens one gap, lengthens the next, and cancels out. Only the first and last taps move the result, and their error is shared across all 16 gaps, so the reading settles as you keep tapping. A new count starts:

Quint app icon

BPM, Key and Loudness: Quint

Song key, BPM and loudness finder

Get it on the App StoreAbout the app
QR code for BPM, Key and Loudness: Quint on the App StoreOn a computer? Scan this with your iPhone camera to open it in the App Store.

What BPM means

BPM means beats per minute, a standard unit for tempo. The University of Puget Sound's music theory text defines tempo as the speed of the beat or pulse, and gives 60 bpm as one beat a second, so a beat lasts half a second at 120 BPM.

Tap the pulse you would tap your foot or bob your head to, which Open Music Theory calls the tactus. The milliseconds table counts that beat as a quarter note, as in 4/4, where a whole note lasts four beats and a half note two.

Half time, double time, and why a tapped BPM can be off by 2

Music has pulses at several speeds at once, and hi-hats and cymbals often play at the beat or its divisions. Open Music Theory notes that between 80 and 160 bpm the kick and snare of a basic rock beat will likely be heard as the beat, but some grooves put the drums at twice or half the felt speed: double-time and half-time feels. In one of its examples the snare suggests about 320 bpm while listeners lock onto a pulse of 160.

Software slips the same way. Ableton's manual says its tempo estimate for a loop may come out twice as fast or half as slow, and offers ×2 and ÷2 buttons to fix it. So the counter shows half time and double time beside every reading: pick the one that matches the count you hear.

BPM to milliseconds for delay and reverb

A minute is 60,000 milliseconds, so a beat lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM ms: 500 ms at 120 BPM and 468.75 ms at 128. A dot adds half a note's length, and a triplet fits three notes into the time of two (three triplet eighths span one quarter note). At 120 BPM:

Setting a delay or pre-delay in milliseconds

Logic Pro's Stereo Delay sets its time in milliseconds, or in note values when synced to the project tempo. Ableton Live's Delay uses sixteenth notes when synced (four make one beat) or milliseconds from 1 ms to 5 seconds. Milliseconds are what you need when a pedal or plugin has no tempo sync. For reverb, Ableton's manual gives 1 to 25 ms as typical pre-delay for natural sounds.

In compound meters such as 6/8 the beat is a dotted quarter note, so there the beat lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM ms and each eighth note a third of that.

When tapping is not enough

Tapping measures the tempo of the bars you tapped, nothing more. A song that speeds up or slows down has no single BPM, and a recording made without a click can drift from bar to bar. Software can read the tempo from the audio itself: Logic Pro's Smart Tempo analyzes a performance recorded without the metronome, or an imported audio file, and places beat markers from its tempo detection, so material with flexible tempo keeps the nuances of its timing. To test a reading, play the metronome click below the table along with the song; if the two drift apart, the tempo is changing or the reading is off.

Reading the BPM from the file with Quint

Quint is a song key and BPM finder for iPhone. It finds the key, its mode and the BPM of a song file you own, or of one shared in from another app, and reads the key from the room when you hold the phone to a speaker for twenty seconds. It builds sets inside a tempo window you choose, sorts every reading by key, code, tempo or loudness, and measures loudness in LUFS, all on the iPhone with no account and no upload.

Questions people ask

How many taps do you need to find BPM?

Two taps give a first reading, but that one gap carries all of both taps' timing error. Each extra tap spreads that error over more gaps. This counter averages up to 16 gaps, so 17 taps, four bars of 4/4, fill the window.

How do you convert BPM to milliseconds?

Divide 60,000 by the BPM for one beat, a quarter note in 4/4: 60,000 ÷ 128 = 468.75 ms. Halve it for an eighth note, then multiply by 1.5 for dotted or by 2/3 for a triplet: a dotted eighth at 128 BPM is about 351.6 ms.

Why does my tapped BPM come out half or double the real tempo?

Music has pulses at more than one speed, so it is easy to tap twice per beat or every other beat. Open Music Theory describes grooves whose drums suggest twice or half the felt tempo, and Ableton's manual says its own tempo estimate can land at twice or half the real one. Check the half time and double time figures.

Related

Sources