128 BPM

Beat, bar and phrase lengths at 128 BPM

At 128 BPM one beat lasts 468.75 ms and a 4/4 bar lasts 1.875 s. The beat is not a whole number of milliseconds, so round to the nearest 0.1 ms when you type times in by hand, or use your plugin's tempo sync. That is 2.133 beats per second, or 32 bars of 4/4 per minute.

Dance tracks are usually arranged in 8-, 16- and 32-bar phrases. At 128 BPM a 16-bar phrase takes 30 s and a 32-bar intro or outro takes 1:00.0 min. That is 2 s shorter than the same 16 bars at 120 BPM. A six-minute track at this tempo contains about 192 bars.

Delay times at 128 BPM

Straight values follow the beat; dotted values are 1.5 times as long and triplets are two-thirds as long. At 128 BPM the popular dotted-eighth delay is 351.56 ms and a quarter-note slapback is 468.75 ms. The Hz column is the matching rate for an LFO, tremolo or auto-pan synced to the straight note.

Reverb times at 128 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 128 BPM a 1/64-note pre-delay is 29.3 ms and a 1/32-note pre-delay is 58.59 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 128 BPM

128 BPM is squarely in the most common club and dance-music range. It sits near the upper end of the pop range (90–130), near the upper end of the disco range (105–130), near the upper end of the house range (118–130), near the low end of the UK garage/breakbeat range (125–140), near the low end of the techno range (125–150) and at the bottom of the trance range (128–145).

Heard at half-time (64 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.
• UK garage/breakbeat: typically 125–140 BPM — shuffled and broken drums can make the count ambiguous.
• Techno: typically 125–150 BPM — from restrained 125 to fast, hard styles near 150.
• Trance: typically 128–145 BPM — a regular kick usually gives a clear pulse.

Mixing into 128 BPM

To bring a track at another tempo up or down to 128 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 128 BPM reaches 117.8–138.2 BPM; a ±16 % range reaches 107.5–148.5 BPM.

Half-time, double-time and nearby tempos

Half-time of 128 BPM is 64 BPM and double-time is 256 BPM.

256 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 3.63 ms, so neighbouring tempos are close enough to beatmatch with a small pitch move.

• Half-time: 64 BPM
• 125 BPM
• 126 BPM
• 127 BPM
• 129 BPM
• 130 BPM
• Half/double-time converter
• All tempos from 60 to 200 BPM