BPM counter
Work out a track's tempo from the beat in the bass, on your device.
- Runs on your device — the file is never sent anywhere
- No sign-up, no watermarks, no daily quotas
- Free, with no limit on how often you use it
How it works
Tapping along to find a tempo works, but it is slow and drifts. This finds the beat by looking at the bass, which is where the pulse actually lives in most recorded music.
How it finds the beat
The audio is put through a low-pass filter at 150 Hz, which keeps the kick drum and bass and discards the melody, vocals and cymbals. Peaks in what is left are the beats. The gaps between every pair of nearby peaks are converted to tempos and tallied, and the tempo that shows up most often wins — a histogram rather than a single measurement, which is what makes it robust to a missed beat here and there.
Double and half time, explained
Beat detectors very often report exactly double or half the tempo you would tap, and this one tells you which alternative it considered. That is not a bug in the method: 85 BPM and 170 BPM describe the same music, one counting every beat and one counting every other. Which is 'correct' is a matter of convention within a genre — drum and bass is counted at 170-ish, and the same track could honestly be called 85.
Where it does badly, said plainly
Live drumming that breathes, rubato piano, classical music, spoken word and anything without a clear bass pulse. If the confidence is low the result says so rather than presenting a guess as a fact. Solo acoustic guitar is a common disappointment.
How much to analyse
Sixty seconds from the start is usually plenty and is quick. If a track has a long ambient intro, that intro may have no beat in it at all — raise the length so the analysis reaches the part with drums.
BPM counter — questions
Why did it report double the tempo I expected?
Because both readings fit the music. The result shows the alternative so you can pick the convention your genre uses.
Does it work on any music?
It works well on steady electronic and pop. Live, rubato and classical playing, and anything without a bass pulse, are much less reliable.
How accurate is it?
On a steady four-to-the-floor track it is usually exact. The tool reports low confidence rather than pretending otherwise when the beat is unclear.
Can I use a video file?
Yes. The soundtrack is analysed.
Is my file uploaded?
No. The audio is decoded and analysed in your browser.