Tap tempo

Find a tempo by tapping in three steps

1. Tap the big button, or press the space bar, on every beat of the music.
2. Keep going for at least eight taps until the stability reading settles, then read the BPM.
3. Start the metronome to check the tempo, or copy a delay time from the table.

How the tap tempo counter works

Each tap records the exact moment you pressed. The tool measures the gaps between your recent taps and turns them into beats per minute: 60,000 divided by the average gap in milliseconds. It uses a robust average, so a single tap that comes early or late is mostly ignored instead of dragging the number away. The stability reading shows how evenly you are tapping; when it settles, the tempo is ready. The tap count tells you how much evidence there is. If you stop for two seconds the counter resets on its own, or press reset to start over at any moment.

When tapping beats a detector

Tap tempo needs no file. Use it for a song on the radio, a drummer at rehearsal, a vinyl record, a tune in your head, or a video you cannot download. It also handles music that confuses automatic detection, such as swing, rubato, or tracks with no drums, because you supply the pulse. If you do have the file, the BPM finder on AudioClover can detect the tempo for you, and you can still tap along there to confirm. Once the page has loaded, the counter, the metronome, and the table run entirely in your browser, with no connection needed.

Metronome and delay times

Start the metronome to hear a click at the tempo you tapped. Play it against the music: if the clicks drift ahead or behind, tap again. The delay table turns the tempo into note lengths in milliseconds, from a whole note down to a sixteenth, with dotted and triplet values. A quarter note at 120 BPM lasts 500 ms, a dotted eighth 375 ms, and an eighth-note triplet about 167 ms. Type these into a delay plugin so the echoes land on the beat, or use a short value as reverb pre-delay so the reverb starts in time with the groove.

Getting an accurate reading

Tap on the strongest beat you can hear, usually the kick drum or the snare, and keep a steady motion rather than reacting to each sound. Tap at least eight times; twelve to sixteen is better for slow songs. Your accuracy is the tool’s accuracy, so a nervous or rushed tap gives a rushed number. If you get roughly half or double the tempo you expected, you are tapping every other beat or on every eighth note, and both answers can be right. On a phone, tap with a finger rather than a thumb, and keep the screen awake for a long song.