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BPM to Delay Calculator

Find delay and reverb times in milliseconds that sync to your track's tempo.

How it is calculated

To make an echo or delay repeat in time with a song, its length must be a musical fraction of the beat. The tool first finds the length of one quarter-note beat: quarter (ms) = 60000 / BPM. Then delay (ms) = quarter × division, where division is the note length measured in quarter-note beats: 1 = quarter note, 0.5 = eighth, 0.25 = sixteenth, 2 = half note, 1.5 = dotted quarter, 0.75 = dotted eighth, and 0.3333 is approximately an eighth-note triplet. The tool also shows the repeat rate in hertz, 1000 / delay. If the division is empty or not positive, 1 is used. BPM must be greater than zero. Both results are rounded to two decimals.

Worked example

A song runs at 120 BPM and you want a dotted-eighth delay, a division of 0.75. One quarter note lasts 60000 / 120 = 500 ms. Delay = 500 × 0.75 = 375.00 ms. The echo repeats 1000 / 375 = 2.67 times per second. Set the delay plug-in to 375 ms and each repeat lands exactly on the rhythmic grid. At 90 BPM the same dotted-eighth would be 500 ms instead.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering 1/8 or 8 for an eighth note; the division is in quarter-note beats, so an eighth is 0.5 and a sixteenth is 0.25.
  • Using the tempo in half-time or double-time, such as 60 BPM for a song that feels like 120.
  • Rounding a triplet to 0.33 or 0.3 instead of 0.3333, which makes the echo drift against the beat.
  • Forgetting that the dotted values are 1.5 times the plain note: a dotted quarter is 1.5, not 0.75.
  • Confusing the delay time in ms with its rate in Hz, which are reciprocals of each other.

About this calculator

This calculator converts a track's tempo (BPM) and a chosen note division (quarter, dotted eighth, triplet, etc.) into a delay or echo time in milliseconds, plus the equivalent frequency in hertz. The formula starts from the quarter-note delay time = 60,000 / BPM, then multiplies by a factor for the chosen note value.

Music producers, mixing engineers, and sound designers use it to set delay, reverb pre-delay, and LFO rates on plugins and hardware so the effect locks rhythmically to the song instead of drifting out of time.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    Triplets repeat at exactly two thirds of the straight note, so type enough digits. At 120 BPM an eighth-note triplet is 166.67 ms, but entering 0.33 gives 165 ms, 1.67 ms early on every repeat, which adds up to roughly 13 ms by the eighth echo. Using 0.3333 or 0.33333 keeps the echoes on the grid. Which note divisions do you use most on your delays?

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