Tap tempo

Tap in time with the music and read the tempo. Any key works, and so do the mouse, a finger on the screen, a game controller button and a MIDI pad. The page shows beats per minute, one beat in milliseconds, and the delay times that follow from it.

Tap it

Play the song, or count it in your head.
Tap on every beat: any key, the box, or a controller button.
Keep going for eight taps or more and read the number.
Pause for a few seconds to start a new count, or press Reset.

Four taps give a tempo, and every tap after that makes it steadier.

Read the numbers

BPM. Beats per minute, from the average gap between your last taps, up to sixteen of them.
One beat. The length of a quarter note in milliseconds: 60,000 divided by the BPM.
Eighth, dotted eighth, sixteenth. Half, three quarters and a quarter of a beat, the usual settings for a delay effect.
One bar. Four beats, in seconds.
Beats a second. The same tempo in Hz, for an LFO or a tremolo rate.

At 120 BPM a beat is 500 ms, an eighth is 250 ms and a dotted eighth is 375 ms.

Tap with a controller or a MIDI pad

A game controller needs no setup beyond one press, because a browser shows a controller to a page only after a button is pressed. For MIDI, press Listen to MIDI and allow it. Every note-on from a pad, a key or a drum trigger then counts as a tap, timed by the message's own time stamp. This needs Chrome, Edge or Firefox, since Safari has no MIDI for web pages. A pad under your hand is easier to hit on the beat than a key under one finger.

Read the tempo from MIDI clock

Gear and DAWs that send MIDI clock send 24 clock messages for every beat. With Listen to MIDI on, the page measures the spacing of those messages and shows the tempo they carry on its own line, next to anything you tap. If a drum machine and your taps disagree, the clock line is the tempo the gear is really sending. The MIDI tester shows the same clock tempo beside every other message a device sends.

Know what limits it

Your taps. Nobody taps perfectly evenly, which is why the page averages.
A changing tempo. A song that speeds up or slows down has no single BPM. Tap one section at a time.
The count. Tap half as often and you get half the tempo. Decide what a beat is before you start.

Round the result only at the end, after the number has stopped moving.

Put tap tempo on a pad in your music app

Most music apps have a tap tempo command of their own, usually on a key. On a Mac, InputConfig, the free app I make, puts that key on a game controller button, a foot pedal or a MIDI pad, so you can tap the tempo into the app itself with a hand that is not on the keyboard. Give the app's own tap tempo key to a pad, and the tempo goes where the music is. MIDI to keystroke on a Mac has the setup.

Questions

How do I find the BPM of a song?

Play the song and tap along on any key, on the box, or on a controller button. After four taps the page shows a tempo, and it steadies as you keep tapping. It averages the gaps between your last taps, up to sixteen.

How many taps do I need?

Two give a first number and four give a usable one. Keep going for eight or more and the average smooths out the taps that landed early or late.

How do I turn BPM into a delay time?

Divide 60,000 by the BPM to get one beat in milliseconds. Half of that is an eighth note, three quarters is a dotted eighth and a quarter is a sixteenth. The page works these out as you tap.

Can I tap tempo with a MIDI pad or a game controller?

Yes. A controller button counts as soon as you press it. For a MIDI pad, press Listen to MIDI in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, allow MIDI, and every note you play is a tap.

Can it read the tempo from MIDI clock?

Yes. After Listen to MIDI, a MIDI clock coming from a drum machine, a sequencer or a DAW is shown as its own BPM line. Twenty-four clock messages make one beat.

Why does the number change while I tap?

Because no one taps perfectly evenly. The page averages your recent taps, so each new tap nudges the result. A pause of more than two and a half seconds starts a fresh count.

Free. macOS 14 or later. No account, nothing leaves your Mac. Open source on GitHub.

Updated October 7, 2026