BPM, Bars and Musical Timing
Understand tempo, four-beat bars and the ruler in your DAW.
What does BPM mean?
BPM is beats per minute. At 125 BPM, a beat lasts 0.48 seconds. In 4/4, four beats make one bar lasting 1.92 seconds.
Line up your tracks
Put kick, bass, melody and transitions on the same bar ruler. A bar begins at beat 1; place clips on the line, not arbitrarily between grid divisions.
Practice with SoundCode
Open Session, choose a tempo, enable a 1/16 grid and align a kick with the start of a bar. Then compare against a clip deliberately moved off-grid.