Tap tempo, find the BPM by tapping.

A tap tempo tool finds the BPM of a song by timing your taps. Tap the big pad, or press any key, on every beat you hear. From the second tap on, the page shows the tempo in beats per minute, an exact figure with one decimal place and a rounded one. It also shows half time and double time, the length of one beat in milliseconds, and the delay times for common note lengths. Nothing is uploaded, so you can use it with any music playing on any device.

How to use the tap tempo tool

1. Start the song and find the beat. Tap your foot first if that helps.
2. Click or tap the pad, or press any key, on each beat. The first tap only starts the count. The BPM shows from the second tap.
3. Keep tapping for a few bars. A longer run gives a steadier number than a short one.
4. Read Exact tempo. If the song feels twice as fast or half as fast as the number, use Half time or Double time.
5. The Steadiness card shows how far your gaps strayed from the average, in percent. Lower is steadier.
6. Switch on Click sound on each tap if you want to hear your taps. It is off at first.
7. Press Copy BPM to copy the rounded number, or Open in the metronome to hear a click at that tempo.
8. Press Start over or the Escape key to clear the taps. If you stop for longer than the pause you chose, the next tap starts a new count by itself, and the last reading stays on screen until then.

How the BPM is worked out

The tempo is 60,000 divided by the average gap between taps in milliseconds. If you tap at 0, 500, 1000 and 1500 ms, every gap is 500 ms, so the tempo is 60,000 / 500 = 120 BPM.

Real taps are never perfect. Say you tap at 0, 520, 1010, 1535 and 2040 ms. The gaps are 520, 490, 525 and 505 ms. The average gap is 2040 / 4 = 510 ms, so the tempo is 60,000 / 510 = 117.6 BPM, shown as 118 when rounded. Taken one at a time the gaps would read 115, 122, 114 and 119 BPM. That is the range the page shows, from 114 to 122. The gaps stray from the 510 ms average by 10, 20, 15 and 5 ms, which is 12.5 ms on average, or 2.5%, and that is the Steadiness card. The average is much closer to the truth than any single gap.

Average over the last 4, 8, 16 or all taps

A short average reacts fast and suits music that speeds up or slows down. A long one smooths out your own mistakes and suits a steady track. Last 8 is the starting choice. Pick All when you want one number for a whole intro, and Last 4 when you want to follow a tempo that moves.

Half time, double time and delay times

Many songs can be felt two ways. A track tapped on every beat at 140 BPM can also be felt as 70 BPM when you tap only on the backbeat. The Half time and Double time cards give both numbers so you can choose the one your software or your dancers expect.

The delay card helps with effects. At 120 BPM a quarter note is 500 ms, a dotted eighth is 375 ms, an eighth is 250 ms, an eighth triplet is 166.7 ms and a sixteenth is 125 ms. Type those into a delay or reverb pre-delay to keep the echo in time.

Tips for steadier taps

• Tap with a key rather than the screen if you can. A key reacts the same way each time.
• Count the beat in your head for a bar before you start tapping.
• Tap the quarter notes, the beat you would nod your head to, not every drum hit.
• A wireless keyboard or a slow display adds a small delay, but it adds the same delay to every tap, so the gaps and the BPM stay right.
• Live tracks and old recordings drift. Run the tool twice, once near the start and once near the end of the song.

To find the BPM of an audio file without tapping, use the BPM finder. To practise at the tempo you found, open the metronome.