Tap along to a track and get the tempo, the note lengths that follow from it, and how long your sections actually run.
You can usually tell whether a song is fast or slow, but “about a hundred and ten” is not a number you can hand to anyone, and guessing it is how a click track ends up two beats out by the second chorus. Tapping is the quickest honest measurement available: hit the pad in time with the track, and after four taps you have a tempo, a confidence reading based on how steady your taps were, and the practical numbers that follow from it — how long a bar lasts, how long sixteen bars takes, and where the eighth notes land in milliseconds.
Four taps gets you a tempo; eight or more gets you a reliable one. Pause for more than three seconds and it starts a fresh count.
Tap the pad four times and the tempo shows up here.
Why the median and not the average
One late tap drags an average badly. If you tap four intervals and one of them is twice as long because you hesitated, the mean tempo comes out noticeably slow, and you will spend the next ten minutes wondering why the click feels wrong. The median ignores the outlier entirely, which is why this tool reports the median interval and then separately tells you how inconsistent your taps were.
That consistency figure is the one to trust. A tempo derived from eight steady taps is worth acting on. The same tempo derived from four taps with a large spread is a hint, not a measurement, and the tool says which one you have rather than presenting both as equally solid.
How to use the result
- Tap to the beat you would count, not to every note. Tapping eighth notes halves your answer.
- Use the millisecond figures when you are programming anything. A sixteenth at ninety-two beats per minute is not a round number, and rounding it is what makes programmed parts drift.
- Check the section lengths before you plan an arrangement. Sixteen bars at a slow tempo is a lot longer than it feels.
- Play the click back at the detected tempo. If it drifts away from the track within a few bars, your taps were off rather than the track being uneven.
- If the spread stays wide after ten taps, the track probably is not at a fixed tempo — which is worth knowing before you build anything to it.
Questions people ask
- How many taps do I need?
Four gives you a tempo, eight gives you one worth trusting, and after twelve the tool uses only the most recent dozen intervals so a slow start does not hold the number back.
- Why did the number jump after my first few taps?
Because one interval is not a tempo. Early figures come from very little data and settle as you add taps; the consistency reading tells you when to believe them.
- Can it detect the tempo from the audio instead?
No. This measures your tapping. Analysing an audio file for tempo needs a real signal analysis pass, and doing it badly produces confident nonsense.
- Does the click keep exact time?
It is scheduled from the browser’s audio clock, which is far steadier than a visible timer, but it is not a substitute for a metronome in a recording session.
What this tool does not do. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and it works with the internet switched off. It measures your taps, not the music, so it inherits whatever inconsistency you tapped with — and if the track has no fixed tempo, no amount of tapping will produce one. It cannot listen to audio. See the site disclaimer. Written by Nico, who builds these tools and writes about writing at WrittenTone.