160 BPM

Beat, bar and phrase lengths at 160 BPM

At 160 BPM one beat lasts 375 ms and a 4/4 bar lasts 1.5 s. That beat is a whole number of milliseconds, so delay and gate times can be typed in exactly, without rounding. That is 2.667 beats per second, or 40 bars of 4/4 per minute.

Dance tracks are usually arranged in 8-, 16- and 32-bar phrases. At 160 BPM a 16-bar phrase takes 24 s and a 32-bar intro or outro takes 48 s. That is 8 s shorter than the same 16 bars at 120 BPM. A six-minute track at this tempo contains about 240 bars.

Delay times at 160 BPM

Straight values follow the beat; dotted values are 1.5 times as long and triplets are two-thirds as long. At 160 BPM the popular dotted-eighth delay is 281.25 ms and a quarter-note slapback is 375 ms. The Hz column is the matching rate for an LFO, tremolo or auto-pan synced to the straight note.

Reverb times at 160 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 160 BPM a 1/64-note pre-delay is 23.44 ms and a 1/32-note pre-delay is 46.88 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 160 BPM

160 BPM is a fast tempo that is often felt at half-time. It sits at the top of the hardstyle range (145–160), in the middle of the footwork/juke range (155–165), at the bottom of the drum and bass range (160–180) and at the bottom of the hardcore/gabber range (160–200).

Heard at half-time (80 BPM) it lines up with ambient/downtempo, hip-hop and reggae/dub. 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.

• Hardstyle: typically 145–160 BPM — most releases sit near 150.
• Footwork/juke: typically 155–165 BPM — built around 160 with half-time and triplet patterns.
• Drum and bass: typically 160–180 BPM — modern releases mostly sit at 170–176; often felt at half-time.
• Hardcore/gabber: typically 160–200 BPM — speedcore and some gabber go well beyond 200.

Mixing into 160 BPM

To bring a track at another tempo up or down to 160 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 160 BPM reaches 147.2–172.8 BPM; a ±16 % range reaches 134.4–185.6 BPM.

Half-time, double-time and nearby tempos

Half-time of 160 BPM is 80 BPM and double-time is 320 BPM.

320 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 2.33 ms, so neighbouring tempos are close enough to beatmatch with a small pitch move.

• Half-time: 80 BPM
• 155 BPM
• 158 BPM
• 159 BPM
• 161 BPM
• 162 BPM
• 165 BPM
• Half/double-time converter
• All tempos from 60 to 200 BPM