BPM Tap-Tempo & Metronome

Tap a key or click the big pad to find a tempo in BPM, then play a metronome click with a time signature, subdivisions, and an optional humanize jitter. The tap-tempo uses a median filter over the last 8 intervals, so a single sloppy tap doesn't throw the read. Runs in your browser, no upload, no tracking.

How to use it. Press Space (or click the pad) four or more times in time with what you want to measure. The headline shows the median BPM and a stability indicator. Pick a tempo with the slider or +/−, choose a time signature, hit Start. The first beat of every bar is the accent (higher pitch).

Detected tempo
—
BPM
Tap the pad to start.
BPM
Time signature
Subdivision
Volume
Humanize ±0 BPM
Click Start to hear the click. Web Audio is unlocked on first user interaction.
Bar 1 · Beat 1/4

Tempo ladder

Italian tempo markings with the canonical BPM range midpoint. Click to load.

How the math works

  • Tap-tempo. Every tap records a timestamp. Intervals shorter than 20 ms are debounce (you double-clicked). Intervals longer than 2 s reset the buffer (you walked away). Intervals that imply a tempo outside 30–300 BPM are dropped. The remaining intervals are kept in a rolling window of the last 8 and the median is the displayed BPM.
  • Stability. The coefficient of variation (stddev ÷ mean × 100) of the rolling intervals. Below 8% the indicator turns green; above it stays amber. A 120 BPM reading with a 2 BPM stddev would be ~1.7% — rock solid.
  • Metronome schedule. A 4/4 bar at 120 BPM is 2 seconds long. A Web Audio oscillator fires the accent (a short 1320 Hz triangle blip) on the downbeat and a quieter 880 Hz blip on the off-beats. Subdivisions (eighths, triplets, sixteenths) fire extra blips at the right fraction of a beat.
  • Humanize. A small Gaussian jitter (in BPM) added per beat. At ±0 it's a perfect metronome. At ±3 it sounds like a confident human player. At ±8 it sounds like a nervous human player — useful for practising with a drummer who has swing.

About this tool

BPM Tap measures tempo by tapping a key (or tapping the screen) along with the music or the rhythm you want to capture. The tool records the intervals between taps and reports the median beats per minute, which is more stable than the mean when a few taps are off. After four taps the estimate starts to converge, and after eight to ten taps it is usually within one BPM of the true tempo. The page also reports the closest musical note value at common tempos (BPM → ms per beat → note value at a chosen subdivision).

When to use it

  • Capturing the tempo of a song you are practising with — tap along with the kick drum, get the BPM
  • Setting a metronome rate from a reference recording that has no tempo metadata
  • Working out the BPM of a loop you want to sync to other elements in a track

When not to use it

  • You need sub-BPM precision — the median rounding lands on the nearest whole BPM. If you need a fractional value, measure multiple times and average
  • You need to tap poly rhythms — the tool measures a single pulse, not a 3-against-4 pattern
  • You need to capture the tempo of a live performance with changing tempo — the median is robust to a few outliers but not to a real accelerando or ritardando

Frequently asked questions

Why use the median instead of the mean?

A single mistimed tap can drag the mean BPM by several points. The median interval between taps is robust to outliers — one bad tap in ten has almost no effect on the result, while it would skew the mean by several BPM.

How many taps do I need?

Four taps is the minimum. The estimate tightens significantly with eight to ten taps. After about fifteen taps, additional taps add little precision, so you can stop there.

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