Tap Tempo and BPM Tapper
Tap along to any song to find its BPM and the ms per beat for delay times, then open the metronome at that tempo. Free, no sign up.
Tap at least 4 times on the beat.
Note lengths
| Note | Straight ms | Dotted ms | Triplet ms |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/1 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1/2 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1/4 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1/8 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1/16 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1/32 | -- | -- | -- |
Delay and reverb times for the tempo shown. Dotted is 1.5 times the note, a triplet 2/3 of it.
History
Saved readings appear here, the last 10, with a label of your own. They stay in this browser only.
Tap on each beat you would clap to. Four taps give a first reading and every tap after that refines it: the tempo is a fit over your last 24 taps, so one early or late tap barely moves it, and a missed beat counts as two beats instead of one long one. Space or Enter taps while the page has focus, and with the pad focused letter and number keys tap too; Esc resets. Timing comes from performance.now(), a monotonic clock that a system clock change cannot skew. A fixed input delay is the same on every tap and cancels out of the intervals; the jitter that remains is why tapping longer beats tapping precisely. To set a tempo by hand, open the full metronome.
Click or touch the pad, or press the spacebar, in time with any song and this tap tempo tool turns the gaps between your taps into beats per minute. Two taps give a first reading and four or more give a solid one, shown with its Italian tempo marking, a stability rating and the length of one beat in milliseconds. Below the pad you get a delay time table for every note value, ×2 and ÷2 buttons for half time and double time, and a button that opens the TuneStand metronome at the tempo you found.
How to measure BPM by tapping
Listen to the song and find the main pulse, the beat you would clap or nod your head to, then tap on each of those beats. A tap counts at the moment your finger or key goes down, not when it lifts, so a tap on a touch screen is timed the same way as a key press. Two taps give a first estimate, marked Rough estimate until you reach four taps. From the fifth tap on, the reading is a best fit through all of your recent taps rather than a plain average, so one early or late tap barely moves it, and a gap of about two or three beats is counted as a missed tap instead of dragging the tempo down.
Above the pad you see the number of taps, the stability of your tapping and the length of one beat in milliseconds. Stability needs four taps and compares your last eight beats: Steady means they vary by about 3.5% or less, Settling by up to 8% and Unsteady by more, with the spread shown in milliseconds. When the measured tempo differs from the rounded number, the exact value to one decimal is shown under it.
Stop tapping and the reading stays on screen, marked Final, and your next tap starts a fresh count. How long a pause ends a count is up to you: the Auto reset menu offers 2, 3, 4 or 5 seconds, 3 by default, and the choice is remembered in this browser. If you move to a clearly faster or slower tempo while you are still tapping, the reading follows within a few taps at the new speed. Reset or the Escape key clears the count at once.
Half time, double time and delay times
If you tapped eighth notes, or only every other beat, the result comes out at double or half the tempo the song is usually counted in. The ×2 and ÷2 buttons correct that without tapping again, and a badge shows which factor is applied. The Italian tempo marking under the number, from Largo to Prestissimo, links to a page about that marking and its usual BPM range.
The note length table turns the tempo into milliseconds for every note value from a whole note to a 1/32 note, straight, dotted and triplet, to two decimals. Use it to set delay and reverb times in time with the song. At 120 BPM a quarter note lasts 500 ms, an eighth note 250 ms and a dotted eighth 375 ms.
Send it to the metronome, save it or share it
The Start metronome button opens the metronome at your tempo. The metronome runs from 40 to 240 BPM, so a slower or faster reading opens at the nearest limit, with a hint when ×2 or ÷2 would bring it in range. When your tempo has its own BPM page, or one lies within 10 BPM, a link to that page appears as well.
Save reading keeps up to 10 readings in this browser, each with a label you can type, such as the song title. Show brings a saved reading back, Remove deletes one and Clear history empties the list. Download CSV saves the list for a spreadsheet with the label, BPM, exact BPM, number of taps and the main delay times. Copy link copies an address such as tunestand.com/tap-tempo?bpm=120 that opens this page with that tempo already filled in. In browsers with Web MIDI, Use a MIDI pad lets any pad, key or drum controller tap after you allow access.
Why tap tempo is useful
Knowing the exact tempo of a track unlocks a lot of practical work. Producers match the BPM of a sample or loop to their project so it sits in the grid. DJs beatmatch by lining up the tempo of two songs. Music teachers and students set a metronome to the real speed of a piece before slowing it down to practice. Even without any gear, tapping along tells you whether a song is a relaxed 90 BPM ballad or a driving 128 BPM dance track. Once you have the number, press Start metronome and practice at the same tempo.
Frequently asked questions
How does tap tempo calculate BPM?
It records the moment of each tap and measures the gaps between them. With two to four taps it divides 60,000 milliseconds by the average gap. From the fifth tap on it fits a straight line through tap time against beat number over your last 24 gaps, which uses every tap instead of only the first and the last, so a single early or late tap moves the result far less. A gap of about two or three beats counts as a missed tap.
How many taps do I need?
Two taps give a first reading, because one gap between taps is enough to calculate a tempo. The reading is marked Rough estimate until the fourth tap, and from four taps on the stability rating tells you how even your tapping is. Eight taps, a full bar or two of 4/4, make it steady. Pause longer than the auto reset time, 3 seconds by default, and your next tap starts a fresh count.
Why is my BPM double or half?
Because you tapped a different pulse than the one the tempo is counted on. Tapping on every eighth note doubles the reading, and tapping only on the backbeat or on every other beat halves it. Half time and double time grooves make this easy to do: a drum part with the snare on beat 3 instead of 2 and 4 can make a 140 BPM song feel like 70. If the number seems too fast or too slow for how the song feels, press ×2 or ÷2 to correct it without tapping again.
How do I turn BPM into delay times?
Divide 60,000 by the BPM to get the length of one beat, a quarter note, in milliseconds. At 120 BPM that is 60,000 / 120 = 500 ms. Halve it for an eighth note (250 ms), multiply it by 1.5 for a dotted quarter (750 ms) or by 0.75 for a dotted eighth (375 ms), and by 2/3 for a quarter note triplet (333.33 ms). The note length table on this page does this for every note value at the tempo you tapped.
Can I use the spacebar instead of clicking?
Yes. The spacebar and Enter tap from anywhere on the page, as long as you are not typing in a field or focused on another button or link. Once the tap pad itself has focus, letter and number keys tap too. Holding a key down counts as one tap. Many people keep time more evenly with a key than with a mouse. Escape resets the count.
How do I use the BPM I found?
Press Start metronome to open the TuneStand metronome at that tempo, read delay and reverb times from the note length table, or save the reading with a label so you can find it again. Copy link gives you an address with the tempo in it to send to a bandmate.
More music tools
Frequencies on this page are computed at build time from twelve tone equal temperament with A4 = 440 Hz, using the twelfth root of two (about 1.059463) per semitone. Nothing is typed in by hand. See the full method and sources. Maintained by FusionStudios. Last reviewed: .