Reference guide

BPM by genre: tempo ranges for every style

A quick-reference chart of typical BPM ranges for 24 music genres, plus how to find the exact tempo of any track.

Why BPM matters across genres

Tempo is the backbone of genre. A track at 128 BPM slots into a house set. Slow it to 85 and it sounds like hip-hop. Producers, DJs and playlist curators all think in BPM because it determines energy, flow and compatibility between songs.

The chart below gives you the standard BPM range for each genre. These are not hard rules — artists break them constantly — but they are the ranges you will find 90% of tracks in when you run them through a BPM finder.

BPM chart by genre

Sorted roughly by tempo. Ranges reflect the genre’s mainstream — outliers exist in every style.

Genre	BPM range	Notes
Ambient / Downtempo	60–90	Slow, atmospheric — often without a clear beat
Hip-Hop	75–100	Classic boom-bap sits around 85–95; trap overlaps with double-time at 130–170
R&B	60–100	Modern R&B leans slower; up-tempo R&B pushes toward 110
Reggae	60–90	Roots reggae is relaxed; dancehall edges higher
Reggaeton	88–100	The dembow riddim locks around 90–95 BPM
Pop	100–130	Chart hits cluster near 110–120, optimised for radio and TikTok
Disco	110–130	Classic four-on-the-floor disco; nu-disco may sit lower
House	118–130	Deep house at 118–122, tech house closer to 126–128
Electro	125–135	Electro house and electro-pop overlap here
Techno	125–150	Minimal and Detroit at the low end, industrial and hard techno higher
Trance	128–145	Uplifting trance at 138–140 is the genre's sweet spot
Breakbeat	120–140	Broken rhythms, not four-on-the-floor — diverse sub-genres
Dubstep	138–142	Written at ~140 but felt as half-time at 70; bass drops land on the 3
Drum and Bass / Jungle	160–180	Fast breakbeats — jungle often runs hotter above 170
Hardstyle	150–160	Hard-kick driven; hardcore and gabber push 160–200+
Rock	100–140	Ballads slower, punk faster — wide range driven by feel, not formula
Metal	100–200	Doom metal crawls at 60–80; thrash and speed metal exceed 200
Funk	100–130	The pocket groove — syncopated, locked, rarely rushed
Soul / Motown	90–120	Mid-tempo with swing; Motown hits land around 100–115
Country	80–140	Ballads at the low end, up-tempo country and bluegrass higher
Jazz	60–220	Ballads to bebop — tempo is part of the composition, not a genre rule
Latin / Salsa	150–220	Salsa and mambo are fast; bossa nova and bolero sit much lower (90–130)
Afrobeats	100–120	Laidback but driving; Amapiano sits at 110–115
K-Pop	100–140	Genre-fluid — any tempo that fits the choreography

Half-time, double-time and why BPM is ambiguous

A dubstep track at 140 BPM is felt as 70 — the snare hits every other beat, and listeners tap at half the speed. Hip-hop at 85 works the same way in reverse: if the hi-hats are running sixteenths, a BPM detector may report 170. Both numbers are correct; the question is which one you need.

The tempo finder on this site reports a primary BPM plus half-time and double-time alternatives, so you can switch with one click and get the number that matches the way the genre counts beats.

Using BPM ranges for DJ mixing

Beatmatching works when two tracks are close in tempo — usually within 3–5 BPM. A smooth transition between genres means picking songs from overlapping ranges: house at 124 blends into disco at 122, techno at 130 eases into trance at 132, and afrobeats at 112 crosses into pop at 114.

For wider jumps — say 90 BPM hip-hop into 128 BPM house — use the half-time trick: pitch the house track down to 64 BPM (its half-time) during the intro, blend the hip-hop out, then bring the house back up. Or simply cut, drop, and let the energy shift do the work.

Knowing the typical BPM range of each genre lets you plan transitions in advance. Analysing your actual files with a song BPM finder gives you the exact numbers to sort your crate by tempo.

Choosing the right tempo for production

If you are starting a beat from scratch, the chart above gives you a starting point. Making a house track? Set your DAW to 124. Making drum and bass? Start at 174. Working on a pop song? 110–120 is where most hits land.

When sampling, you need to know the tempo of the source material so your DAW can time-stretch or warp it to your session tempo without artefacts. Drop the sample into the BPM finder first, note the number, and your warp markers will line up on the first try.

BPM and key together

Tempo is half the picture. Harmonic mixing — matching songs by key using the Camelot wheel — keeps transitions smooth even when tempos align. A jump from 8A to 8B at 128 BPM stays in key; a jump from 8A to 3A clashes, no matter how tight the beatmatch.

The BPM and key finder analyses both in one pass, so you get the tempo, the musical key and the Camelot code together. For key-only questions, the key finder puts the key in the headline.

How to find the BPM of any song

The quickest way is to drop the audio file on the BPM finder. It reads MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A and most other formats, reports the BPM to one decimal place, and runs entirely in the browser — nothing is uploaded.

If you do not have a file — music is playing in the room, or you are humming a melody — the tap BPM counter turns your taps into a tempo reading. Tap along for 8–10 beats and you will have a reliable number.