MagicBPM

Online metronome · Free · No sign-up

80 BPM metronome.

Andante means “walking”, and 80 BPM is the unhurried end of it. Slow enough to hear everything, quick enough that nothing sags, which is why so much boom-bap hip hop and slow rock settles here.

Beats per minute

80

Press Space to start and stop · ↑ ↓ to nudge off 80 · or

Get the metronome on your phone Not sure of the tempo? Tap it →

The tempo

What 80 BPM feels like.

At 80 BPM a beat lasts 0.75 seconds and a bar of 4/4 lasts three. Classic sampled hip hop lives in this range because it is close to the tempo of the funk and soul records it was cut from, and because a rapper can fit a lot of syllables into a bar without the beat getting in the way.

Marking
Andante
76 to 108 BPM
One beat
0.750 sec
One 4/4 bar
3.000 sec
Bars in 3 min
60

Where you hear it

Music that sits at 80 BPM.

Double it and you land on 160 BPM, which is how a lot of this material is actually written. Same pulse, twice the counting.

Wondering whether a particular track is 80 BPM? Tap along with it and compare, or let the MagicBPM app listen and tell you.

Practice note: Eighth notes at 80 land at the same rate as quarter notes at 160. If a part feels awkward against the click, try counting the subdivision instead of the beat.

Presets

Other common tempos

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

Take 80 BPM with you.

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.

  • Subdivisions: practice against eighths, triplets or sixteenths, with the in-between clicks tucked under the beat
  • Compound time that counts properly: 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 group in threes, and 7/8 lets you pick 2+2+3 or 3+2+2
  • Pick your click: acoustic out of the box, with woodblock, claves, cowbell and more sound packs in Pro
  • Haptics on every beat, with a firmer pulse on the downbeat
  • Keeps clicking even when your phone is silenced
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Good to know

80 BPM questions

What does 80 BPM sound like?

An easy walking pace, three quarters of a second per beat. A beat lands every 0.750 seconds, so one bar of 4/4 lasts 3.000 seconds and a three-minute song runs to about 60 bars. Press Play above to hear it.

Is 80 BPM fast or slow?

80 BPM is on the slow side of moderate. It is the low end of Andante, faster than a ballad but well under the 120 BPM of most pop.

What kind of music is 80 BPM?

Boom-bap and sample-based hip hop; Gospel, slow blues and slower rock; Downtempo and trip hop. The list is a guide rather than a rule: tempo varies within every genre.

Is 80 BPM the same as 160 BPM?

Counted at double speed, 80 BPM is 160 BPM, which is how the same pulse is often written. 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.

How do I set a metronome to 80 BPM?

This page opens already set to 80 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.