What is BPM and TEMPO? [Meaning and Use] | ‘From 0 to DJ’ #5 ✅

In this chapter, we will see in detail what BPM is and its relationship with other musical concepts such as Tempo and Pulse.
We will also know how to get the BPM of the tracks we want to play, what are the usual BPM in the main genres of electronic music and we will see some recommendations for mixes. 🙂

 BPM display on the screen of a Pioneer player

So we continue with the basic music theory knowledge that a DJ should have. In the previous chapter we saw (Beat, Bar and Phrase).

1. BPM, Pulse and Tempo, what should a DJ know about them?

We’ll start at the beginning, but don’t worry, it won’t be a long explanation.

1.1 What is the Pulse?

The pulse is the beat of a piece of music, it would be a simile with the heartbeat. It is a unit that will help us to find the Rhythm and Tempo. For example, when trying to find the rhythm of the music by beating with the hand or foot or clapping [each beat would correspond to a unit of the pulse].

1.2 What is TEMPO?

Tempo is the speed of the pulse. It can be indicated by:

• A number: indicating those pulses per minute (bpm) (This is the one we will need to know as a DJ).
• A word: words of Italian origin that categorize the intervals of those beats per minute, but do not offer a concrete data.
  • For example: Lento (45-60 bpm), Adagio (66-76 bpm), Andante (76-108 bpm)… Allegro (120-156 bpm), etc.
    Most of the electronic music we refer to in this website is in Allegro.

1.3 What is BPM and why should a DJ pay attention to them?

As we have said, Tempo can be measured in a number that indicates the beats per minute: the BPM.

Summary:

A song that goes at 128 BPM will be faster, than one that goes at 110 BPM.

In many genres of electronic music such as house, the kick drums coincide with the pulse. So those same drums will be the ones that will determine the rhythm.

For example, if we have a Deep House track produced at 120 BPM and we count the beats during one minute (in which there are no stops), we would count exactly 120 kick drums in one minute.

Electronic music, because it is produced with technology, computers and mathematical systems, has an exact precision, so if a track is produced at 120 BPM, it will be 120’00 constant if the producer wants it to be.

Logic Pro DAW editor (tempo)

2. When Mixing Music

2.1 How can we know the BPM of a track?

We can get the information of the BPM of each track or song from:

• DJ software: when we load a track on a deck, it will make an analysis of the audio file in which it will establish the beat per minute. Usually it is successful, but sometimes it make mistakes in the analysis.
• Music sales websites for DJs such as Beatport.
• Websites specialized in this information such as SongBpm.
• Searching in Google: “song title” + “bpm”.

Beatport, provides us with data such as BPM

2.2 What Tempo are the Main Electronic Music Genres?

If you’re wondering at what tempos the most popular genres of electronic music are produced, here are some interesting data for you to see where things are going nowadays:

2.3 Do not make brusque BPM changes in the mixes

All this information is useful to prepare your sets as a DJ. Remember that our goal is to make transitions seamless, so for learning you can use music with the same Tempo or with very little variation and set both at the same BPMs, as we will see in the next class, from the Pitch Control in your software, controller or mixer.

But we should not pretend to vary too much the speed of a track, because the final result may not be too professional and we will take away the original essence.

If a track is made at 100 BPM, we should not mix it at 130 BPM, with some exceptions, even if the next track we want to play is at 130 BPM.

In a normal session you should not intend to mix such different songs, unless you want to change genre or style at a given moment.

Now it’s your turn 👇

In this chapter we have defined the concepts of BPM, Pulse and Tempo and some recommendations and data to take into consideration for mixing. If you have followed the chapters one by one, with this knowledge you are already a little closer to being able to mix like a professional DJ, at least at a theoretical level.

In the next chapter we will talk about Pitch control, the tool that manages the Tempo during mixing.

Was it too confusing? I hope not, leave us your impressions in the comments.
Best regards and see you in the next one! 🙂