Delay time calculator
Convert a tempo into straight, dotted and triplet note lengths for a delay or modulation effect.
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One beat sets the grid
A quarter-note beat lasts 60,000 divided by BPM milliseconds. Other note values are multiples of that beat; dotted notes are 1.5 times the straight value and triplets are two-thirds.
What to enter in a plug-in
Use the row and feel you want, then round only as much as the device requires. The table describes timing; it does not claim one division will fit every arrangement.
The grid at 120 BPM
At 120 BPM a quarter note is 500 ms, an eighth is 250, a sixteenth is 125. Dotted values add half again, so a dotted eighth is 375 ms, and triplets take two thirds, so an eighth triplet is 166.67 ms.
Those three numbers cover most of what a delay is asked to do. A quarter-note delay repeats on the beat and sits inside the groove. A dotted eighth falls between beats and produces the rolling pattern heard on countless guitar and synth parts. Triplets swing against a straight arrangement, which is either the effect you wanted or the reason the part suddenly feels unsteady.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a dotted eighth delay sound like the classic guitar effect?
Because the repeat lands three sixteenths after the note instead of on a beat, so it interleaves with the part rather than doubling it. At 120 BPM that is 375 ms. Pair it with a quarter-note delay on a second send and you get the two-against-three pattern that made the sound famous.
Should I set the delay in milliseconds or use the plug-in’s sync mode?
Sync mode follows tempo changes automatically and is the safer choice inside a project. Milliseconds are what you need for hardware, for a plug-in with no host sync, and for the times you deliberately want the delay to stay put while the tempo moves. This table is there for the second case.
What about feedback and filtering?
Those are not timing and the calculator says nothing about them. Time sets where the repeat lands; feedback sets how many repeats you get; a low-pass or high-pass on the repeats is what stops a synced delay from crowding the vocal. Get the timing from the grid, then set the rest by ear.
Does it handle tempos with decimals?
Yes, the field accepts one decimal place, which covers the 89.5 and 174.3 kind of tempo you get from an audio-to-tempo analysis. Anything derived from a tapped estimate is worth rounding to a whole number first, because the tap is not that precise.
How do I convert one of these times to samples?
Use the samples and milliseconds converter with the sample rate of your session. At 48 kHz a 375 ms dotted eighth is 18,000 samples, which is the number an editor or a sample-accurate offset wants.
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