BPM Delay Time Calculator

Type the tempo in BPM, or tap along to a song with Tap tempo.
Choose the unit: milliseconds for delay plugins, hertz for LFO rates, samples if your software asks for them.
Read the table: each note value has a straight, a dotted and a triplet time. Click a value to copy it.
Check the reverb block for pre-delay times and tails that fit the beat or the bar.
Download the results as CSV, or copy them as text.

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How do you calculate delay time in milliseconds from BPM?

A quarter note lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM milliseconds, so at 120 BPM it lasts 500 ms. Other note values follow from it: an eighth note is half of that (250 ms), a dotted note is 1.5 times longer (a dotted eighth is 375 ms) and a triplet is two thirds as long (an eighth-note triplet is 166.67 ms). For an LFO or a tempo-synced rate, divide 1000 by the time in milliseconds: 500 ms is 2 Hz. A reverb pre-delay between a 1/64 and a 1/16 note at 120 BPM is 31.25 to 125 ms. This free calculator gives all these values for any tempo, in milliseconds, hertz or samples.

What are straight, dotted and triplet delay times?

A delay repeats a sound after a short time. When that time is a fraction of the tempo, the echoes fall on the rhythm of the music instead of fighting it. A straight time divides the beat into equal parts: a quarter note, an eighth note and so on. A dotted time is one and a half times longer, which gives a bouncing, syncopated feel. A triplet time is two thirds as long and fits three echoes where two would go. For reverb, the pre-delay is the short gap before the reverb starts, which keeps a vocal clear, and the tail is how long the reverb rings, which you can fit to one beat or one bar so it does not blur the next note.