Tap along with the music
Click the round pad in rhythm, or hover over it and press Space for each beat. A tempo appears after two taps. Keep tapping to settle the reading.
BPM uses the median gap between the latest eight taps and rounds the tapped result to a whole BPM. A pause longer than two seconds starts a new tap series. The tempo stays set during the pause.
Once a tempo is set, hovering over the pad makes it pulse at that rate. This is a visual preview, not an audible metronome.
Enter or adjust a known tempo
Right-click the pad to type a value. Press Enter or click away to apply it. Press Escape to cancel.
Values run from 40 to 240 BPM in steps of 0.1. A decimal comma also works.
Drag right or up to raise the tempo. Drag left or down to lower it. Hold Alt before starting the drag for tenths.
You can also scroll over the pad. The complete adjustment shortcuts are in the controls reference.
Detect an audio layer’s tempo
- Open the composition and select a layer with audio. Keep that layer’s audio switched on.
- Click the waveform button beside the pad. Its tooltip identifies it as Detect tempo when no audio is selected.
- Wait for the progress ring to finish.
- Choose a candidate tempo, or click the X to return to subdivisions while keeping the top result.
Detection sets the top candidate automatically and shows up to three choices in place of the subdivision chips. Hover a choice to see its confidence.
The choices pictured are an example. Your results depend on the audio. Listen for whether the strongest candidate feels like the beat, double time, or half time.
Detection reads the selected audio layer’s portion inside the composition, rather than only the work area. When several audio layers are selected, it uses the first audio layer it finds. Select only the one you want analyzed.
BPM temporarily uses After Effects’ Convert Audio to Keyframes command. It removes the analysis layer and restores the layer selection, solo switches it can change, and work area afterward. A locked, soloed competing layer cannot be unsoloed by BPM. Turn off its Solo switch before detection.
No clear beat in that audio means BPM could not find enough useful attacks to estimate a tempo. Try a more rhythmic passage or tap instead. The other audio failures and their fixes are in Troubleshooting.
Choose where the rhythm starts
Detecting a tempo does not lay markers or change First Beat. To line a steady grid up with the detected sound, choose On the first detected onset in Settings, then lay the grid.
Detected onsets are the sound attacks found during the latest successful analysis. Detect again after changing the audio or its timing. Tempo choices and onsets are temporary panel state, so detect again after reopening BPM when you need them.