100 BPM

Beat, bar and phrase lengths at 100 BPM

At 100 BPM one beat lasts 600 ms and a 4/4 bar lasts 2.4 s. That beat is a whole number of milliseconds, so delay and gate times can be typed in exactly, without rounding. That is 1.667 beats per second, or 25 bars of 4/4 per minute.

Dance tracks are usually arranged in 8-, 16- and 32-bar phrases. At 100 BPM a 16-bar phrase takes 38.4 s and a 32-bar intro or outro takes 1:16.8 min. That is 6.4 s longer than the same 16 bars at 120 BPM. A six-minute track at this tempo contains about 150 bars.

Delay times at 100 BPM

Straight values follow the beat; dotted values are 1.5 times as long and triplets are two-thirds as long. At 100 BPM the popular dotted-eighth delay is 450 ms and a quarter-note slapback is 600 ms. The Hz column is the matching rate for an LFO, tremolo or auto-pan synced to the straight note.

Reverb times at 100 BPM

A common way to keep a reverb in time is to tie its pre-delay to a short note value and let the tail fade within a longer one. At 100 BPM a 1/64-note pre-delay is 37.5 ms and a 1/32-note pre-delay is 75 ms.

The decay control on most reverbs is RT60, the time it takes the tail to fall by 60 dB, so the audible tail ends earlier than the number shown. Treat these values as starting points and adjust by ear.

Genres at 100 BPM

100 BPM is a moderate tempo, a little below the usual club range. It sits at the top of the ambient/downtempo range (60–100), at the top of the hip-hop range (70–100), at the top of the reggae/dub range (70–100), at the top of the reggaeton/dembow range (88–100) and near the low end of the pop range (90–130).

Counted at double-time (200 BPM) it matches hardcore/gabber. A detector or a tag in your library may report either reading, so check by ear which one the drums suggest.

These ranges are common practice rather than rules: genre is decided by rhythm, sound and scene as much as by tempo, and plenty of tracks sit outside the usual numbers.

• Ambient/downtempo: typically 60–100 BPM — beatless ambient may not have a useful BPM at all.
• Hip-hop: typically 70–100 BPM — boom-bap often sits around 85–95.
• Reggae/dub: typically 70–100 BPM — the off-beat skank can make the pulse feel faster than it is.
• Reggaeton/dembow: typically 88–100 BPM — the dembow rhythm repeats every beat, so the tempo is easy to hear.
• Pop: typically 90–130 BPM — a wide band; the genre is defined by songwriting, not tempo.

Mixing into 100 BPM

To bring a track at another tempo up or down to 100 BPM, move its pitch fader by the percentage below. Without key lock the key moves too, by the number of semitones shown; about 6 % is one semitone, so changes beyond that are where key lock (master tempo) starts to matter.

A ±8 % pitch fader on a track at 100 BPM reaches 92–108 BPM; a ±16 % range reaches 84–116 BPM.

Half-time, double-time and nearby tempos

Half-time of 100 BPM is 50 BPM and double-time is 200 BPM.

50 BPM is outside the 60–200 range of these pages; the half/double-time converter works with any value.

Each 1 BPM step at this tempo changes the beat by about 5.94 ms, so neighbouring tempos are close enough to beatmatch with a small pitch move.

• Double-time: 200 BPM
• 95 BPM
• 98 BPM
• 99 BPM
• 101 BPM
• 102 BPM
• 105 BPM
• Half/double-time converter
• All tempos from 60 to 200 BPM