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How to calculate delay time from BPM: the 60,000 trick
Divide 60,000 by your BPM to get one beat (a quarter note) in milliseconds. At 120 BPM that's 500 ms. Halve it for an eighth note (250 ms), halve again for a sixteenth (125 ms), and multiply an eighth by 1.5 for a dotted eighth (375 ms). Echoes timed like this land on the groove instead of fighting it.
How to do it
- Find your BPM.
- Work out 60,000 ÷ BPM. That's a quarter note in ms.
- Divide by 2 for an eighth note, by 4 for a sixteenth.
- Multiply by 1.5 for dotted notes, or by 2/3 for triplets.
- Or switch the delay to tempo sync, or use a calculator that does it for you.
Why it works
Echoes that land between the beats blur the rhythm. Echoes on the grid add to the groove, and the dotted eighth is the classic that bounces against straight beats.
Free tool: BPM, Delay & Reverb Calculator → Tap the tempo, then get delay times, LFO rates and reverb pre-delay and decay that fit it.
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