Instantly calculate delay times in milliseconds for any BPM — or try our interactive browser-based tape delay simulator. No download, no login.
Enter your song's BPM — or tap the button to detect it — and get exact delay times for every note value.
Common BPMs and their quarter-note delay times (60,000 ÷ BPM).
| BPM / Tempo | ¼ Note (ms) | ⅛ Note (ms) | ⅛ Triplet (ms) | 1/16 Note (ms) | Dotted ⅛ (ms) |
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Play a tone through a real tape-style delay effect — right in your browser. Adjust delay time, feedback, and tone.
Click a sound button to hear the tape delay effect in action.
Everything you need to know about one of music's most beloved effects.
Tape delay is an audio effect originally created by feeding sound through a magnetic tape recorder. By varying the speed of the tape or the distance between the record and playback heads, engineers created warm, organic echo repeats — the backbone of '50s rockabilly and '60s psychedelia.
Delay time is simply 60,000 ÷ BPM (milliseconds). At 120 BPM, a quarter note = 500ms. An eighth note = 250ms. This keeps your delay rhythmically "in time" so it grooves with the track instead of fighting it.
Echoplex EP-3 — the jazz and rock standard. Watkins Copicat — The Beatles, Pink Floyd. Roland RE-201 Space Echo — dub reggae, ambient. Each had unique wow and flutter characteristics that made them sound alive.
Feedback controls how many repeats you hear. At low values (20–40%) you get a classic slapback. Push it past 70% and the signal builds into self-oscillation — a wall of cascading echo beloved by ambient artists and experimenters.
The "dotted eighth" trick (750ms at 120 BPM) — made famous by U2's "The Edge" — creates a flowing, rhythmic shimmer that sits perfectly between beats. It's calculated as three-quarters of the quarter-note delay time.
Today's producers use plugins like Waves H-Delay, Universal Audio Echoplex, and free options like TAL-Dub-X to get that warm, slightly degraded tape sound — complete with wow, flutter, and subtle high-end rolloff that digital delay lacks.
Everything musicians and producers ask about delay time calculations.