BPM, beats per minute, is the tempo of a piece of music: how many beats fall in one minute, so 120 BPM is two beats every second.
At 120 BPM a beat (a quarter note) lasts 60,000 ÷ 120 = 500 ms, an eighth note 250 ms and a bar of four beats 2 seconds.
Tap along to find a song's tempo and its delay times.
Also used in: Online Metronome
Tempo is the grid everything else lines up to. Producers use it to set delay and reverb times, DJs to mix two songs together, and video editors to cut on the beat so a Reel or a lyric video feels in time.
One beat lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM milliseconds, so knowing the BPM gives you every note length and every cut point.
A videographer is cutting a 15-second Reel to a song at 100 BPM. One beat is 600 ms, so a bar of four beats is 2.4 seconds.
She places cuts every two bars, at 4.8, 9.6 and 14.4 seconds, and the edit lands on the music without her having to nudge each clip by ear.
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