Tap tempo · delay times
Tap Tempo and Delay Time Calculator
Tap a key in time with the music and read the tempo back, then take the numbers you actually need: delay times in milliseconds for every note value, a reverb pre-delay starting point, the length of a bar, and a ladder of practice tempos. Every tap is a timestamp taken on your own device — no microphone, no upload, nothing stored.
Results
At 120.0 BPM a quarter note lasts 500.00 ms, an eighth note 250.00 ms, and one bar of 4/4 lasts 2000 ms.
Delay times at 120.0 BPM
| Note value | Delay | Repeats/second |
|---|---|---|
| Whole note1/1 | 2000.00 ms | 0.50 |
| Dotted half note1/2. | 1500.00 ms | 0.67 |
| Half note1/2 | 1000.00 ms | 1.00 |
| Dotted quarter note1/4. | 750.00 ms | 1.33 |
| Quarter note1/4 | 500.00 ms | 2.00 |
| Quarter-note triplet1/4T | 333.33 ms | 3.00 |
| Dotted eighth note1/8. | 375.00 ms | 2.67 |
| Eighth note1/8 | 250.00 ms | 4.00 |
| Eighth-note triplet1/8T | 166.67 ms | 6.00 |
| Sixteenth note1/16 | 125.00 ms | 8.00 |
| Sixteenth-note triplet1/16T | 83.33 ms | 12.0 |
| Thirty-second note1/32 | 62.50 ms | 16.0 |
| Sixty-fourth note1/64 | 31.25 ms | 32.0 |
A dotted value is one and a half of the plain note (1/8. = 1.5 × 1/8); a triplet is two thirds (1/8T = 0.667 × 1/8). Repeats per second is the same figure read the other way round, and it is also the rate to dial into a tempo-synced LFO.
Reverb pre-delay
31.50 msstarting point at this tempo
One 1/64 note at 120.0 BPM is 31.25 ms. That is a sensible place to begin: short enough that the reverb still reads as part of the note, and it moves with the tempo instead of being a fixed number.
- Tight — 10 to 25 msThe reverb stays glued to the note. A common choice on fast parts, where a longer pre-delay would smear the articulation.
- Medium — 25 to 50 msThe usual starting range on guitar: long enough that you hear the pick attack first, short enough that the reverb still reads as part of the same sound.
- Spacious — 50 to 120 msA clearly audible gap between the note and the reverb. Useful on slow exposed parts; past roughly 100 ms it stops reading as reverb and starts sounding like a second, separate hit.
Pre-delay is the gap before the reverb starts. It is a taste decision and it depends on the room you are imitating, so the figures below are starting points to adjust by ear — not settings a rule book gives you.
Practice grid
2000 msper bar of 4/4
- Quarter note500.00 ms4 per bar
- Eighth note250.00 ms8 per bar
- Eighth-note triplet166.67 ms12 per bar
- Sixteenth note125.00 ms16 per bar
| Step | Tempo | 1/4 | 1/8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Now | 120.0 | 500.00 | 250.00 |
| +5 | 125.0 | 480.00 | 240.00 |
| +10 | 130.0 | 461.54 | 230.77 |
| +15 | 135.0 | 444.44 | 222.22 |
| +20 | 140.0 | 428.57 | 214.29 |
The ladder is not a target to race through. It is the site's metronome advice written as numbers: play the passage cleanly at the tempo you are on, then move up one step. The 1/8 column is there because the eighth note is usually the first subdivision to fall apart.
How to tap an accurate tempo
- Find the pulse before you tap. Nod or count along with the track for one bar first. Tapping cold, before you have located the beat, is the usual reason a tap tempo comes out wrong.
- Tap the beat, not the notes. In most songs that is the kick-and-snare pulse or the strumming hand. If you tap every eighth note you will read exactly twice the tempo.
- Tap at least four times, then keep going. The readout averages your last eight intervals. Two taps give you a number; four taps start to give you a trustworthy one.
- Watch the steadiness line, not just the number. A tempo built from taps within a few milliseconds of each other is worth trusting. A wide spread means the figure moved while you tapped, so try again with a smaller motion.
- Use the space bar if clicking moves your hand. The pad accepts the space bar and ignores key repeats, so a long press counts as one tap.
What each number is for
- Delay time for a note value. A delay repeats whatever you play after a set number of milliseconds. Choosing a note value keeps those repeats on the grid: the repeat of beat 1 lands somewhere you counted. Quarter notes give one repeat per beat, eighths give two.
- Dotted values. One and a half times the plain value. The dotted eighth is the classic rhythmic delay — the repeats fall between the beats and turn a single note into a figure instead of a smear.
- Triplets. Two thirds of the plain value. At 120.0 BPM a quarter-note triplet is 333.33 ms, and three of them fill two beats.
- Pre-delay. The gap before reverb starts, not a repeat that comes back. Too short and the reverb blurs the pick attack; long enough and you hear the note first and the room after it.
- Bar length. One full bar in the meter you chose. Useful for lining up a loop, a phrase or a one-bar delay, and for checking that a loop you recorded is actually one bar and not one beat.
- The ladder. The current tempo plus a few steps above it, with the delay times that move with each step, so a tempo change does not quietly put your delay out of time.
Example delay times
The same arithmetic the tool runs, written out for five common tempos. A steady tempo is what every figure below assumes — delay times only work if the playing is in time in the first place.
| Tempo | Marking | 1/4 | 1/8 | 1/8. | 1/8T | Bar 4/4 | Pre-delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 BPM | Larghetto | 1000.00 | 500.00 | 750.00 | 333.33 | 4000 | 62.50 |
| 90 BPM | Andante | 666.67 | 333.33 | 500.00 | 222.22 | 2667 | 41.50 |
| 120 BPM | Allegro | 500.00 | 250.00 | 375.00 | 166.67 | 2000 | 31.50 |
| 140 BPM | Allegro | 428.57 | 214.29 | 321.43 | 142.86 | 1714 | 27.00 |
| 168 BPM | Presto | 357.14 | 178.57 | 267.86 | 119.05 | 1429 | 22.50 |
All figures in milliseconds.
Tempo names in one table
Tempo names overlap from one source to the next — the numbers above are the ranges most often published. Treat the name as a label for the figure you measured, not as a rule about how the music should feel.
| Marking | Range | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| Grave | 20–40 | Very slow. Below the range of most songs; a tempo this slow is usually a deliberate effect or a practice speed. |
| Largo | 40–60 | Broad and slow. The widest ballads live here, and the click starts to feel like a pulse rather than a beat. |
| Larghetto | 60–66 | A little faster than Largo. Slow, sustained playing where every note has room to ring. |
| Adagio | 66–76 | Slow but moving — the walking pace of a slow soul or gospel tune, and a good tempo for working on tone. |
| Andante | 76–108 | A walking pace. Most strumming, most singer-friendly keys and most first-version songs sit in this band. |
| Moderato | 108–120 | Medium. Comfortable for most players, and roughly the top of the range where open chords still ring cleanly. |
| Allegro | 120–168 | Fast and lively. Most rock, punk and dance-floor tempos are in this band, and delay times get short quickly. |
| Presto | 168–200 | Very fast. Practice is usually short bursts at this tempo rather than full passes of a song. |
| Prestissimo | 200–400 | As fast as it goes. Check the delay table before you commit: at this speed some subdivisions are not physically playable. |
The site's metronome page publishes the same scale from Largo (40–60 BPM) through Presto (168–200 BPM), so a tempo you tap here reads the same way there.
Limits worth knowing
- Every figure is arithmetic on the tempo you gave it: 60,000 ÷ BPM for a quarter note, scaled for the other values. There is no genre database, no song lookup and no opinion about which delay sounds good.
- A tap tempo measures the taps, not the track. Tap along with a live recording that drifts, or with a drummer who pushes and pulls, and the average will be a compromise rather than the tempo at any one moment.
- The taper's own timing is the error bar. Taps within a few milliseconds of each other give a figure you can set a delay to; a wide spread means tap again rather than trusting the middle of a sloppy set.
- Tempo names such as Largo and Presto describe ranges, and published ranges differ from one source to the next. They label the number you measured; they do not change it.
- Pre-delay and delay times are starting points for your ears and your room. A number that is perfectly in time can still sound wrong, and a number slightly off the grid can be the one that works.
- Delay time is not the whole sound of a delay: feedback, mix, modulation and the tone of the repeats all change what you hear. This page only gives you the time.
- Nothing you tap or type is uploaded, saved or shared. Timestamps live in the page and disappear when you close it, and the tool makes no network request of any kind.
Questions
How many taps do I need for an accurate tempo?
Four taps give you three intervals and a usable figure; eight give you seven and a steadiness reading worth trusting. The readout averages your last eight intervals and drops a single tap that is far off the others, so an accidental double-tap will not throw the number out — but it also will not rescue a count where every tap landed somewhere different.
Why did the BPM change when I paused and started again?
Because a pause is not a slow beat. Any gap longer than three seconds begins a new count instead of being averaged in, and gaps that fall outside the 20–400 BPM window are ignored outright. Without that, a five-second pause would read as 12 BPM and pull the average apart.
Which delay value should I start with?
Start with the dotted eighth (1/8.) if you want the repeats to become a rhythmic figure — at 120.0 BPM that is 375.00 ms. Choose the plain eighth (1/8) if you want a straight echo that doubles the pulse, the triplet (1/8T) for a shuffle feel, or the half note if you want the repeat to stay out of the way entirely. Then adjust by ear: the grid gets you close, not perfect.
Is pre-delay the same as delay time?
No. Delay time is how long before a repeat comes back, and you hear that repeat as a separate sound. Pre-delay is the gap before a reverb starts, and the reverb is heard as part of the same sound as the note. They share the units and nothing else — a good delay time is usually hundreds of milliseconds, a good pre-delay usually tens.
Can I use these numbers in a DAW or a delay pedal?
Yes. The millisecond figures are exactly what a delay plugin or a digital pedal expects, and hundreds of pedals also let you pick the note value directly, in which case you only need the tempo. For a tempo-synced LFO or tremolo, the repeats-per-second column is the rate in hertz. Copy the numbers button copies the whole set as plain text.
Does tapping record or upload anything?
No. A tap is a timestamp taken with the browser's own clock and kept in memory for the length of the visit. There is no microphone, no audio recording, no file, no cookie holding your tempo and no request to a server. Reload the page and the count is gone.
Where to go next
- Online pitch pipe — play a sustained reference tone for every string of any tuning before you record anything to a click.
- Note to frequency converter— turn a note into hertz, or a frequency back into a note and its cents offset.
- Guitar tuning frequency chart— the target notes and hertz for every tuning, tuning by tuning.