Tempo Delay Time Calculator

In short A delay set by ear rarely sits in the track; a delay set to the tempo always does. The arithmetic is one division: a quarter note lasts 60,000 divided by the tempo in milliseconds, so at 120 BPM a beat is exactly 500 ms, an eighth note 250 and a sixteenth 125. Dotted values are one and a half times the straight value and triplets are two thirds of it, because three triplets occupy the space of two straight notes. The single most useful number on this page is the dotted eighth — 375 ms at 120 BPM. Set against a straight eighth-note rhythm it produces the interlocking cross-rhythm behind an enormous amount of guitar music, most famously The Edge's, and it is the reason that particular delay setting has its own reputation. Reverb pre-delay is the other common use: a sixteenth or a thirty-second, 125 or 62.5 ms here, keeps the early reflections musical instead of smearing the attack of the sound. Two things worth remembering. A delay time in milliseconds is also a frequency — 500 ms is 2 Hz — which is the rate to set on a tremolo or filter LFO for one cycle per beat. And these are exact mathematical values: analogue delays drift, tape emulations wander on purpose, and many plugins quantise to their own grid, so use the number as a starting point and then trust your ears.