120 BPM

Beat, bar and phrase lengths at 120 BPM

At 120 BPM one beat lasts 500 ms and a 4/4 bar lasts 2 s. That beat is a whole number of milliseconds, so delay and gate times can be typed in exactly, without rounding. 120 BPM is exactly 2 beats per second, which makes it a handy reference for counting along with a clock.

Dance tracks are usually arranged in 8-, 16- and 32-bar phrases. At 120 BPM a 16-bar phrase takes 32 s and a 32-bar intro or outro takes 1:04.0 min. 120 BPM is the reference point many producers use: 16 bars last exactly 32 seconds. A six-minute track at this tempo contains about 180 bars.

Delay times at 120 BPM

Straight values follow the beat; dotted values are 1.5 times as long and triplets are two-thirds as long. At 120 BPM the popular dotted-eighth delay is 375 ms and a quarter-note slapback is 500 ms. The Hz column is the matching rate for an LFO, tremolo or auto-pan synced to the straight note.

Reverb times at 120 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 120 BPM a 1/64-note pre-delay is 31.25 ms and a 1/32-note pre-delay is 62.5 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 120 BPM

120 BPM is squarely in the most common club and dance-music range. It sits near the upper end of the pop range (90–130), in the middle of the disco range (105–130) and near the low end of the house range (118–130).

Heard at half-time (60 BPM) it lines up with ambient/downtempo. 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.

• Pop: typically 90–130 BPM — a wide band; the genre is defined by songwriting, not tempo.
• Disco: typically 105–130 BPM — steady four-on-the-floor sections are easy to count.
• House: typically 118–130 BPM — most club house clusters around 120–128.

Mixing into 120 BPM

To bring a track at another tempo up or down to 120 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 120 BPM reaches 110.4–129.6 BPM; a ±16 % range reaches 100.8–139.2 BPM.

Half-time, double-time and nearby tempos

Half-time of 120 BPM is 60 BPM and double-time is 240 BPM.

240 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 4.13 ms, so neighbouring tempos are close enough to beatmatch with a small pitch move.

• Half-time: 60 BPM
• 115 BPM
• 118 BPM
• 119 BPM
• 121 BPM
• 122 BPM
• 125 BPM
• Half/double-time converter
• All tempos from 60 to 200 BPM