BPM: Adieux

Give tempo and time signature

The speed at which music is played/performed is expressed as beats-per-minute or BPM. The more BPM, the faster the music goes. Most music uses the same BPM range as the human heartbeat: 60-140 bpm.
A base of 16 means that the bar is divided in 16 parts of length 1/16. The most common bases are 4, 8, 16 or 32. Use base 12 or 24 if you also want calculations for triplets.
This is also used in "Quantising": the process of snapping notes to the nearest beat subdivision.

Quick BPM overview

Beats per minute
74.8 BPM
Beats per bar
4 beats
Bars per minute
18.7
Length of 1 beat
0.8021 sec
Length of 1 bar
3.2086 sec
Beats per second
1.2467 Hz

Fractions for base 16

These are some common fractions (handy for setting delays, LFO and modulation parameters)


1/16
1/16
6.25%
201 ms
4.99 Hz

2/16
1/8
12.5%
401 ms
2.49 Hz

3/16
3/16
18.75%
602 ms
1.66 Hz

4/16
1/4
25%
802 ms
1.25 Hz

5/16
5/16
31.25%
1 003 ms
0.997 Hz

6/16
3/8
37.5%
1 203 ms
0.831 Hz

7/16
7/16
43.75%
1 404 ms
0.712 Hz

8/16
1/2
50%
1 604 ms
0.623 Hz

9/16
9/16
56.25%
1 805 ms
0.554 Hz

10/16
5/8
62.5%
2 005 ms
0.499 Hz

11/16
11/16
68.75%
2 206 ms
0.453 Hz

12/16
3/4
75%
2 406 ms
0.416 Hz

13/16
13/16
81.25%
2 607 ms
0.384 Hz

14/16
7/8
87.5%
2 807 ms
0.356 Hz

15/16
15/16
93.75%
3 008 ms
0.332 Hz

16/16
1/1
100%
3 209 ms
0.312 Hz

24/16
3/2
150%
4 813 ms
0.208 Hz

32/16
2/1
200%
6 417 ms
0.156 Hz

48/16
3/1
300%
9 626 ms
0.104 Hz

64/16
4/1
400%
12 834 ms
0.0779 Hz

How to use this page

If you have a 135 BPM song, and you want a phase modulation of 4 beats: that is 1.778 sec
If you have a 98 BPM song in a measure of 3/4, and you want to know how long 8 bars is: 14.7 sec
If you have a 128 BPM song, and you want an audio delay of 2/3 of a beat: this is 313 ms
If you have a 80 BPM song, and you want an LFO of 5/4 of a bar: this is 4687.5 ms

Musical genres

These are some popular modern music genres with typical BPM speeds.

Slow dub/reggae
75 BPM
Fast dub/reggae
90 BPM
Deep house
96 BPM
Slow house
120 BPM
Electro house
130 BPM
Trance
135 BPM
Dubstep
140 BPM
Hard house
145 BPM
Jungle
160 BPM
Drum&Bass
175 BPM
Gabber
190 BPM

Music calculators & converters

Beats-per-minute
Convert BPM to Hz, bar length, fractions
Audio delay
Calculate audio delay length in msec
Music Frequency
Convert pitch to musical note and wavelength
Song length
Calculate song length from BPM
Music Scale
Generate scales with frequencies
Tap your tempo
Tap to find the BPM of a song or a heartbeat