BPM Tapper: Tap to Find the Tempo

How to find the BPM by tapping

Tap along with the beat for a few bars, and the tool turns the time between your taps into beats per minute.

1. Step 1Play the songStart the music and find the beat you would clap or nod along to.
2. Step 2Tap on every beatTap the pad, or press the space bar or any letter key. Keep going for at least 8 beats.
3. Step 3Read the BPMThe number settles as you tap. When the status says Steady, the reading is ready.
4. Step 4Play it backSwitch to Metronome to hear a click at the tempo you found. Copy, share or save the tempo to keep it.

To start over, press Reset or Esc, or stop for 2 seconds: your next tap starts a new count. The tool only times your taps. It does not use the microphone, and nothing is recorded.

Online metronome

Switch the tool to Metronome to hear a click on every beat. It starts at the tempo you tapped, so you can tap a song and then play along at the same speed. Set the tempo from 30 to 300 BPM with the slider, or press −1 and +1 to change it one BPM at a time. ÷2 and ×2 halve or double it.

Choose 2, 3, 4 or 6 beats per bar. Beat 1 has a higher click, and the lamps show which beat is playing. Your browser's audio clock times each click, not a page timer, so the clicks stay even when the page is busy for a moment. A shared link with a tempo opens here, ready to play.

How accurate is tap tempo?

Tap tempo gets accurate to a fraction of a BPM once you have tapped about a dozen beats, because the tool averages your taps and their small errors cancel out.

No one taps exactly on the beat. At 120 BPM, a tap that is 15 ms late makes the gap before it read 116.5 BPM. So the tool does not trust single gaps. It fits one steady beat to your last 12 beats, and the same late tap moves that reading by about 0.1 BPM. In our simulations, where every tap was up to 15 ms early or late, 13 taps at 120 BPM read within 0.6 BPM every time, and within 0.2 BPM on average.

Slips are handled too. A tap more than a quarter of a beat off is left out of the average, and it shows in amber on the Last taps strip. A missed beat counts as two beats, so it does not drag the reading down.

For the best result, tap at least 8 beats and wait for the status to say Steady. Steady means the average holds at least 8 taps and its error estimate is under half a percent of the tempo.

Half time and double time

Half time means the music feels half as fast as its tempo, and double time means it feels twice as fast.

Your taps follow the pulse you feel, so a reading can come out at half or double the tempo a track was made at. For example, most dubstep is made at about 140 BPM with the snare on the third beat of each bar, which makes it feel like 70. Trap beats are often written in half time at around 140 BPM too.

The ×2 and ÷2 buttons fix this. If you tap a drum and bass track at 87 BPM, ×2 shows 174. If you tap every hi-hat of a 120 BPM song and get 240, ÷2 shows 120. The tool keeps your tapped value next to the result, and each new count starts at ×1. Not sure which one is right? The beat is usually the pulse you would count as 1, 2, 3, 4 in each bar.

FAQ

• Pitch detector

  Find the note you sing or play, in Hz and cents.

• Tone generator

  Play a steady tone at any frequency.