Delay Time Calculator: BPM to Milliseconds Chart and Formula

How do you convert BPM to milliseconds?

Divide 60,000 by the BPM. A minute has 60,000 milliseconds and BPM counts quarter-note beats per minute in most DAWs, so 60,000 ÷ BPM gives the length of one quarter note in milliseconds.

MIDI works the same way at a finer scale. Tempo in a MIDI file is stored in microseconds per quarter note, and the default of 500,000 microseconds equals 120 BPM.^[1] Divide 500,000 by 1,000 and you get 500 ms, the same answer as 60,000 ÷ 120. If the idea of tempo itself is new, what BPM means covers it first.

1. Find the quarter note
   Divide 60,000 by the tempo. At 140 BPM: 60,000 ÷ 140 = 428.6 ms.
2. Divide for shorter notes
   Halve it for an eighth note (214.3 ms) and halve again for a sixteenth note (107.1 ms).
3. Multiply for longer notes
   Double it for a half note (857.1 ms) and multiply by four for one bar of 4/4 (1,714.3 ms).
4. Adjust for dotted or triplet values
   Multiply by 1.5 for a dotted note or by 2/3 for a triplet. At 140 BPM a dotted eighth is 321.4 ms and an eighth-note triplet is 142.9 ms.
5. Round to what the plugin accepts
   If a plugin only takes whole milliseconds, round to the nearest 1 ms. A fraction of a millisecond will not pull a delay audibly off the grid.

BPM to milliseconds chart: straight note values

Find your tempo in the left column and read across. All values are in milliseconds, rounded to one decimal place, and assume 4/4 time.

Calculate from the project tempo, not from the feel. A trap beat set to 140 BPM that feels like 70 still uses the 140 BPM row, because the DAW grid and every tempo-synced plugin follow the project tempo.

What are dotted and triplet delay times?

A dotted note is 1.5 times the length of the plain note, and a triplet squeezes three notes into the space of two, so it is 2/3 of the plain note. Both create echoes that fall between the straight grid positions.

The dotted eighth is a favorite creative delay time. Its repeats fall three sixteenths apart, so against a straight eighth-note part many of them land between the played notes, creating a galloping, rolling pattern that fills gaps without simply doubling the rhythm. Triplet delays give a swung, shuffling bounce that suits half-time beats and slow R&B. For the character of the delay engine itself, see the sibling guide to delay types.

Should you use synced note values or milliseconds?

Use sync by default and switch to milliseconds when you need something sync cannot do. A synced delay follows tempo changes automatically, while a millisecond value stays fixed.

Plugins usually offer both modes. FL Studio's Fruity Delay 3 runs from 1 to 1,000 ms with Tempo Sync off, and from 1/48 of a step to 16 steps, one bar, with it on; Image-Line notes that it can stay tempo-synced even while the project BPM is changing.^[3] Ableton's Delay, set to Time, covers 1 ms up to 5 seconds.^[2]

• Use sync when The song has tempo changes, you want to try several note values quickly, or the delay is part of the rhythm.
• Use milliseconds when You use a hardware pedal or an old plugin without sync, you need a value between grid divisions, or you want a fixed slapback of roughly 80-150 ms.
• Nudge for feel Shorten the calculated time by a few milliseconds to push the echoes forward, or lengthen it to make them lay back behind the beat.
• Short delays for width Very short times of about 10-30 ms on one side widen a sound instead of creating an audible echo. Using track delay for width shows the technique.

For how these times behave on a real vocal, delay throws for hooks walks through synced throws on a chorus.

How do you set reverb pre-delay and decay from tempo?

Use short note values for pre-delay and longer ones for decay, then subtract the pre-delay from the decay so the whole reverb ends on the grid. The result is a tail that breathes with the song instead of smearing across the next beat.

Keep realistic ranges in mind. Ableton's Hybrid Reverb manual says typical pre-delay values for natural sounds range from 1 to 25 ms, and the device lets you choose a time-based or beat-synced pre-delay.^[2] On vocals, Sound on Sound puts useful pre-delay anywhere from a barely noticeable 30-40 ms to well over 100 ms.^[4] Longer pre-delay also makes the space feel larger, because it mimics sound traveling further before reflections return.^[5]

Treat the decay values as a starting grid, not a rule. A reverb's decay setting usually describes how long the tail takes to fall by 60 dB, and in a busy mix the tail disappears well before that point, so you can often set decay a little longer than the gap you want to fill. For vocal-specific settings, read how to use reverb pre-delay on vocals.

How do you convert milliseconds to Hz for LFOs and tremolo?

Divide 1,000 by the time in milliseconds to get the rate in hertz. At 120 BPM an eighth note is 250 ms, so an LFO that cycles once per eighth note runs at 1,000 ÷ 250 = 4 Hz.

The same conversion helps whenever a plugin shows rate in Hz but you think in note values: tremolo, auto-pan, chorus rate and filter wobbles. It also works for compressor release: pick a note length that lets the gain recover before the next hit, such as a sixteenth or an eighth note, and enter its millisecond value.

Worked examples: delay times for common beat tempos

These examples show how the formula turns into real settings. The tempos are examples, not genre rules; use your own project tempo.