Online metronome · Free · No sign-up
If a tempo can be called standard, this is it. 120 BPM is two beats a second, the default tempo of nearly every DAW, the pace of a military march, and the spine of disco and early house.
Beats per minute
120
Press Space to start and stop · ↑ ↓ to nudge off 120 · or
The tempo
At 120 BPM a beat is exactly half a second and a bar of 4/4 is exactly two, which is why it turns up everywhere from click tracks to marching bands. Logic, Ableton Live, FL Studio, GarageBand and Pro Tools all open a new project at 120. It is also the most common tempo across recorded pop music, so if you are guessing at a song’s BPM, guessing 120 is a reasonable first move.
Where you hear it
Counted in half time, this is the same music as 60 BPM: the click marks beats one and three instead of all four. If a part at 120 feels frantic, try the half-time click and play across it.
Wondering whether a particular track is 120 BPM? Tap along with it and compare, or let the MagicBPM app listen and tell you.
Practice note: Two beats a second means you can check the click against a stopwatch: ten seconds should give you twenty beats. Handy for confirming a metronome you do not trust.
Presets
Every one opens the metronome already running at that BPM.
Need something in between? The full metronome covers 40 to 220 BPM.
MagicBPM for iPhone and Android
The app pairs the same metronome with a real-time BPM detector that hears the music around you, so you can lift a tempo off a track and practice to it straight away.
Good to know
Two beats every second, a brisk march. The most common tempo in pop music. A beat lands every 0.500 seconds, so one bar of 4/4 lasts 2.000 seconds and a three-minute song runs to about 90 bars. Press Play above to hear it.
120 BPM is moderately fast. It sits right on the line between Moderato and Allegro, twice the speed of 60 BPM and comfortably danceable.
Pop, disco, and classic house; The default tempo of a new project in almost every DAW; Marching band and military march tempo. The list is a guide rather than a rule: tempo varies within every genre.
Counted in half time, 120 BPM is 60 BPM, with the click marking beats one and three instead of every beat. Both readings describe the same music, which is why two people, or two apps, can give different answers for one song and both be right.
This page opens already set to 120 BPM, so press Play or hit the spacebar. To move off it, drag the slider, type a number into the BPM box, or use the arrow keys to nudge a beat at a time.
Measuring instead of setting? Use the tap tempo tool to find a song’s BPM.
