Enter the tempo of your track and read off delay times for every note value — straight, dotted and triplet — and reverb settings that breathe with the beat.
1. Type the BPM of your session, or tap along with the track. 2. Pick a note value — 1/4 for a slap on every beat, dotted 1/8 for the classic rhythmic echo, 1/8 triplet for a swung bounce. 3. Type the millisecond value into your delay plug-in if it has no sync button.
The Hz column is the same value as a rate, for syncing LFOs, tremolo or auto-pan to the tempo.
A minute has 60,000 milliseconds, so one beat (a quarter note) lasts 60,000 ÷ BPM ms: 500 ms at 120 BPM. Halve it for an eighth, double it for a half note. A dotted note is 1.5 times as long, a triplet two-thirds as long.
For reverb, the table splits one note length between pre-delay (the gap before the tail starts) and decay, so the tail dies away just as the next beat or bar arrives and the mix stays clear. These are starting points: trust your ears after that.
What delay time is a dotted eighth at 120 BPM?
375 ms. A quarter note is 500 ms, an eighth is 250 ms, and dotting it multiplies by 1.5.
Should reverb always be timed to the tempo?
No. Timing the pre-delay and decay keeps a busy mix tidy, but a vocal ballad may sound
better with a longer, untimed tail. Use the numbers as a starting point.
Why does my DAW show slightly different numbers?
Some plug-ins round to whole milliseconds or use samples. A difference of a millisecond or
two is inaudible.