Music production
Tempo, delay and modulation timing
Converts a tempo into the delay, pre-delay and modulation times that sit in the grid — straight, dotted and triplet — plus the frequency in Hertz for an LFO that will not sync and the sample count for hardware that asks for one.
The question this answers: “My delay pedal is in milliseconds and my project is at 128 BPM. What do I set it to, and what if I want a dotted eighth?”
Result
- Eighth note, straight
- 250 ms
- 4 Hz, for an LFO set in Hertz.
- Eighth note, dotted
- 375 ms
- Eighth note, triplet
- 166.67 ms
- One beat
- 500 ms
- A bar of 4/4 is 2000 ms.
- In samples
- 12000
- At 48000 Hz. For plugins and hardware that ask for a sample count.
Worth knowing about this answer
- These are the grid values. A delay landing exactly on the beat often disappears into the drums — nudging it a few milliseconds either side is what makes it audible as a delay rather than as a smear.
- Reverb pre-delay is the other common use, and the useful figure there is usually a short one: a sixteenth or a thirty-second, enough to separate the source from its tail without hearing a distinct repeat.
Show the working
- One beat
60000 ÷ 120500 ms - Eighth note (0.5 beats)
500 × 0.5250 ms - Dotted
250 × 1.5375 ms - Triplet
250 × 2 ÷ 3166.67 ms - As frequency
1000 ÷ 2504 Hz
Eighth note, straight: 250 ms. Eighth note, dotted: 375 ms. Eighth note, triplet: 166.67 ms. One beat: 500 ms. In samples: 12000
One beat is 60,000 milliseconds divided by the tempo. A note value is that multiplied by its length in beats — a quarter note is one beat, an eighth is a half. Dotted is one and a half times the straight value; a triplet is two thirds of it. The frequency in Hertz is 1000 divided by the millisecond figure, and the sample count is the time in seconds multiplied by the sample rate.
- Tempo is constant. Anything with a tempo map, live-played timing or swing will not sit exactly on these values, which is usually the point.
- A quarter note is taken as one beat, which is true in the simple metres almost all recorded music uses and not in compound time.
- The tempo is the one the project is actually at. Half-time and double-time projects are the commonest cause of everything being out by a factor of two.
- Grid values are a starting point rather than an answer. A delay landing exactly on the beat frequently disappears into the drums, and moving it a few milliseconds either side is what makes it audible as a delay.
- It cannot tell you which note value suits the track. That is an arrangement decision and the tool has no opinion about it.
- Below about 25 milliseconds a delay stops being heard as a repeat and starts colouring the sound. The arithmetic keeps working; the description stops applying.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Last reviewed 2026-08-14. More on Music production.