List of Delay Timings & Song Tempos

By Daniel V

Some guitarists prefer to dial in the timing on their delay pedal; some musicians also play with the metronome. Daniel has compiled a comprehensive list of tempos for your metronomes and delay pedals - in beats per minute (BPM), milliseconds between beats (MS), and milliseconds for the dotted 8th note delay. Example below, and download the file here.

BPM (beats per minute) is the unit in which we measure a song's tempo, like time is measured in minutes, hours, months & years. Song's tempos are measured in BPMs. The BPM is how many beats per minute the song has. A song with a BPM of 60 would have a beat every second.

MS (millisecond) is a measure of time as well, like a minute or hour. A millisecond is one thousandth of a second. So 1000 milliseconds equals a minute. MS are what most delay pedals use as a way to dial in your delay time, some pedals you can't *dial* in exactly like the DD-5 but you can tap the tempo in. Wheres some like the DD-20 you can use both your BPM or the MS to dial in exactly the time, and yes the DD-20 happens to also have tap tempo

To figure out the BPM of a song I use a program called 'Tap Tempo' which you can download for free: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/taptempo.htm. All you have to do is play the song you are working on and every quarter note press the space bar. Press it about 25 times to get a accurate time. I have had this for a few years and it is a very helpful tool to use. It will give you a accurate BPM of the song.

Now that you have established the BPM of you song lets find the correct time for your delay.
I found this program a while back and it is another useful tool to use, It's called 'Delay Time Calculator', here is the link http://www.brothersoft.com/delay-time-calculator-89931.html. Just type the BPM of the song into the field where it says tempo pick a note value click 'calculate' and it will automatically tell you the millisecond! You also have the choice of dotted or triplet notes.

United We Stand (BPM, MS, Dotted 8th note)
1. Intro 147, 408, 306
2. The Time Has Come 147, 408, 306
3. Take It All 150, 400, 300
4. From God Above 149, 405, 303
5. From The Inside Out 69, 865, 652
6. Came To The Rescue 82, 731, 548

9 comments:

Omar said...

This will be useful ~

Good job Daniel


- Omar

Still said...

Hi, I would like to seek an advise and guidance.

Do you add delays on all the section on a song?

Unknown said...

It depends on the song. It's really up to you man. Sometimes I do to make my guitar sound more full. but other times i don't want all that extra sound. it's totally up to you!!!

Unknown said...

Hi, please brothers help me set up my GT10 to have the same delay effects as what most hillsongs music are played. I bought this gadget out of adoration even without knowing much about effects. Please help! Thanks and God Bless!

Unknown said...

hey man, I would just use a digital delay on your GT10. the vol, and repeats would depend on the song. Hope that helped

godin said...

is the MS on the list refers to the analog delay milliseconds setting?

Adam said...

Hey, there are actually 60 000 ms in one minute. As for the GT10, the digital delay has a dotted 8th note setting and you can also set one of the CTL pedals to tap in the tempo of the songs. Hopefully you can figure that out.

Unknown said...

Hi Kenny!

Nice blog! Can you send me the list of delay times to my email - lesteramos@gmail.com. the file is not in the link you provided above.

This would be a big help.

Thanks and more power!

-Lester

Unknown said...

Nice delay calculator app! Thanks!