BPM Tapper
Tap along to a song to measure its tempo in BPM, with note and delay times in milliseconds.
Click the pad, or press Space or Enter anywhere on the page, on every beat. Four or more taps give a much steadier reading.
—
0.0 BPM exact · —
- Taps
- 0
- Beat length
- — ms
- Steadiness
- — ms
- Half time
- —
- Double time
- —
Delay & note lengths at this tempo
| Note | Straight | Dotted | Triplet |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/4 note | — ms | — ms | — ms |
| 1/8 note | — ms | — ms | — ms |
| 1/16 note | — ms | — ms | — ms |
How it works
A BPM tapper works out the tempo of a song from your own timing: every tap is stamped with
the browser's high-resolution performance.now() clock, the gaps between taps are
averaged, and 60 000 divided by that average gap gives beats per minute. Tap along to the
snare or the kick for four to eight beats and the reading settles very quickly — the
averaging window lets you keep only the most recent taps so an early sloppy tap does not drag
the result, and the steadiness figure shows how far your taps wandered from the average.
The table underneath converts the detected tempo into note and delay times in milliseconds, including dotted and triplet values, which is exactly what you need when dialling in a delay pedal or a plugin in a DAW. Half time and double time are shown too, because tapping on the backbeat is an easy way to land on half the real tempo. Everything runs in your browser with plain JavaScript — no song is uploaded, no microphone is used, and nothing is stored.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find the BPM of a song by tapping?
Play the song, then tap the pad (or press Space or Enter) once on every beat — usually the kick or the snare. After two taps you get a first reading, and by four to eight taps it settles. The tool averages the gaps between your taps and divides 60,000 milliseconds by that average to get beats per minute.
How many taps do I need for an accurate BPM?
Two taps is the minimum, but four to eight taps in a row gives a much steadier number. The averaging window setting keeps only your most recent taps, so an early sloppy tap stops dragging the result, and the steadiness figure shows how far your taps drifted from the average in milliseconds.
Why does the tapper show half or double the tempo I expected?
Tapping on the backbeat or on every bar instead of every beat gives half or a quarter of the real tempo, which is why the half-time and double-time values are shown next to the reading. If 85 BPM feels too slow for the track, the true tempo is almost certainly the 170 BPM double-time figure.