BPM tapper
Tap along to a beat and the tempo appears. The reading averages the last eight taps, so it settles within a bar or two and follows a tempo that drifts. Stop for a couple of seconds and the next tap starts a fresh measurement.
How to find a tempo by tapping
The two common mistakes both produce a confident wrong answer. Tapping the hi-hat instead of the beat gives exactly double the tempo, and tapping every other beat gives half, which is why a track that reads 174 might genuinely be 87, and why drum and bass at 174 and hip-hop at 87 feel related. If the number looks wrong by a factor of two, it almost certainly is, and the half-time and double-time rows exist to make that easy to spot.
Questions
Four is usable, eight is steady. The reading averages the last eight and settles quickly.
You are probably tapping the hi-hat rather than the beat. Check the half-time row — it is often the answer.
Yes. The space bar and Enter both register a tap.
How much your tapping varied. Under 2% is steady; a large figure means the average is not worth much.
After about two and a half seconds without a tap, the next tap starts a new measurement.