How to find the BPM of a song
There are three ways to find a song’s BPM: tap along and let a tap tempo tool do the arithmetic, let a microphone read the beat for you, or count beats against a clock and multiply. Tapping is the fastest reliable method for music playing in a room; letting a mic read it is faster still when the beat is clear.
Tap along
Play the music and tap once per beat — on a screen, a key, anything that registers a press. Eight beats of steady tapping is usually enough for the reading to settle. This is the method that works on any source at all: a record, a rehearsal room, a car radio, a song you cannot upload anywhere.
Can a microphone read it for me?
Yes, when the beat is clear and the room is not too quiet. Live BPM listens through the phone’s mic and reads the tempo without you tapping at all — on the device, with nothing recorded and nothing uploaded. When the room is too quiet or the beat is not steady, it says so instead of showing a number it cannot stand behind.
How do I count BPM by ear?
Count the beats for fifteen seconds and multiply by four. Counting for thirty seconds and doubling is more accurate, because a miscounted beat costs half as much. It needs no tools at all, and it is the least precise of the three: one beat of drift across fifteen seconds moves the answer by four BPM.
Why do I get half or double the right number?
Because the beat is not the only thing that repeats. Count the snare rather than the pulse and you get half the beats; count every hi-hat and you get twice as many. Drum and bass is the clearest case: the same track is 87 BPM if you count the half-time feel and 174 if you count the pulse, and neither is wrong. The fix is arithmetic rather than measurement — halve it or double it. Live BPM has ÷2 and ×2 for exactly this, and so does the tap tool here.
BPM, tempo and time signature
Tempo is how fast the music goes. BPM — beats per minute — is the number that measures it: 120 BPM is two beats every second. A time signature is a different thing altogether. It says how beats are grouped into bars, so 4/4 and 3/4 can both sit at 120 BPM and count at exactly the same speed.