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Tap Tempo

8 min read
0:0010:22

Some MIDI files carry the wrong tempo. The music plays fine, but the bar lines, the metronome and the BPM readout don’t match what you hear: the clicks drift off the drums, or the tempo reads double or half of what you feel. Tap Tempo fixes that. You tap along, and Orfeo redraws the beat to match the music. Your MIDI file is never changed.

IMAGE · play-tap-tempo.png · 1600 × 500 px · The red TAP pad next to the BPM box, and the Tap Tempo panel above the top bar showing a measured tempo (91.0 bpm · 4/4), “Lined up with the song’s notes”, Listen, Metronome, Move the 1, Clicks, and Keep for this song / Tap again / Cancel.

Turn on Tap Tempo

In Settings → Playback, turn on Tap Tempo. A red round TAP pad appears next to the BPM box. Right below the switch, choose how you count:

Counting

You tap

Every beat (default)

1, 2, 3, 4: every beat, like tapping your foot. Your first tap is the 1.

Only the 1

Just the first beat of each bar. Orfeo works out the other beats from the song’s time signature.

Tap at the speed you’d count the song, not the speed of the hi-hat. Tapping twice per beat gives double the tempo; tapping every other beat gives half.

Tap along

  • Put the playhead where the tempo goes wrong: the start of the song, or the bar where the groove kicks in if the intro is fine.
  • Click TAP. The song plays from exactly where the playhead is. The metronome stays silent while you tap, so it can’t throw you off. You can still scroll to a better spot before you start tapping; the start point moves to wherever you scroll to.
  • Tap with Space or any key on your MIDI keyboard. Start on a 1, once you’ve locked in; there’s no rush. Tap at least 4 times; 8 or more gives a steadier result. The pad counts your taps, and a missed or doubled tap is ignored.
  • Click TAP again when you’re done. The song pauses and a panel shows the tempo Orfeo measured, for example 91.0 bpm · 4/4.

Orfeo then lines your beat up with the song’s own notes, mostly the drums and bass, so the bar lines and clicks land exactly on the music rather than on your slightly early or late taps. The panel says Lined up with the song’s notes when it did. In free-time or very sparse passages it keeps your taps as they are.

Esc cancels a tap session at any point.

Listen and adjust

The panel stays open while you listen, so you can hear the result and adjust it as it plays.

Control

What it does

▶ Listen / ❚❚ Pause

Plays and pauses the song. Space does the same.

Metronome: on / off

Hear the new clicks while you listen, or not.

Move the 1 ◀ / ▶

Slides the bar lines one beat earlier or later, if they start on the wrong beat. The tempo doesn’t change.

Clicks ◀ / ▶

Slides the metronome 10 ms earlier or later, if it sits a hair ahead of or behind the music.

Then choose Keep for this song, Tap again or Cancel. When your tempo matches the file’s own, there’s also Original is fine: the file stays as it is and its tempo warning won’t come back.

Songs counted at double or half speed

Sometimes only the tempo number is wrong. Golden Brown, for example, reads 190 while you hear about 95, yet its bar lines and clicks are perfect. If your beat lands exactly on every second beat of the file, or exactly between its beats, the panel offers Bar lines: Keep the file’s (the default) or From my taps. Keeping the file’s leaves its bar lines, time-signature changes and clicks exactly as they are and only corrects the tempo number.

If your beat matches the file’s own beat exactly, the panel says so: the file’s tempo is already right there, and there’s nothing to fix. Press Original is fine.

What Keep does

  • Orfeo remembers the tempo for that song and uses it every time you open it, even after you rename or move the file, and when Orfeo saves a new version of it.
  • Your MIDI file is not changed and no new file is saved. The music sounds exactly the same.
  • From the point where you started tapping, the bar lines, the metronome, the bar counter, the BPM readout and the chord display follow your tempo. Everything before it stays as the file had it.
  • A small amber dot on the TAP pad shows the song has a kept tempo. Hover the pad to list them. Each one is also written to File Info → Orfeo History.

 Warning

Tap Tempo fixes live only in Orfeo’s settings file, not in the songs, so uninstalling Orfeo or moving to a new computer erases them. To keep them, back up Orfeo’s app-data folder too; see Where your data lives.

Several tempos in one song

For a slow intro and a faster groove, tap front to back. Tap the intro from the start and Keep it, then put the playhead where the groove starts, tap again and Keep. Each kept tempo runs until the next one starts. A new tempo that starts inside an earlier one replaces it from that point on.

Change or remove a kept tempo

Right-click the TAP pad to see every kept tempo for the song.

  • Click one to open it again in the panel: listen, move the 1, nudge the clicks, and Keep.
  • Click ✕ next to one to remove just that one.
  • Click Reset to the file’s own tempo to remove them all.
  • Click Show tempo warning again to bring back a tempo warning you dismissed for this song.

Every Keep, change and removal is listed in File Info → Orfeo History.

Tempo warnings

Turn on Tempo warnings in Settings → Playback (off by default), and Orfeo points out the songs whose bar lines and metronome don’t sit on the music’s steady beat: the ones Tap Tempo can fix.

Where

What you see

Top bar

When the open song is off, a small amber light pulses right under the TAP pad, or on the corner of the Key box if the TAP pad is switched off. Click it to see what’s off.

Library

Affected songs get a small amber dot. Orfeo checks your songs quietly while the Library tab is open, never while a song is playing, and remembers the result, so each song is checked only once (again if the file changes). Files over 5 MB are skipped.

Clicking the light explains what Orfeo found, in plain words. For example:

  • The beat sounds closer to about 91 than the file’s 60, check by ear. The file’s tempo is wrong.
  • The bar lines and metronome clicks sit off the played notes; the tempo may be right, or counted at double or half speed. Tap along to find out which.

Then choose Fix with Tap Tempo to start tapping from the playhead, or It’s fine, don’t warn me for this song if it sounds right to you.

  • Once you Keep a tapped tempo, the warning goes away, in the top bar and in the Library. Only the small dot on the TAP pad stays, as the sign that the song has a kept tempo.
  • If the file was right after all, press Original is fine in the Tap Tempo panel. Nothing changes and that song isn’t flagged again.
  • Freely played music, such as rubato piano, free-time intros or sparse lead sheets, is never flagged: there’s no steady beat to fix.
  • A song whose bar lines are right but whose tempo number feels doubled, like Golden Brown, isn’t flagged. That’s about how you hear it, not something Orfeo can measure in the notes. Tap Tempo still fixes the number.

Dismissed a warning by mistake? Right-click the TAP pad and choose Show tempo warning again for that song, or click Show warnings for … dismissed songs again in Settings → Playback for all of them.

Common situations

Situation

What to do

The whole song has the wrong tempo
The BPM box says 60, the song clearly moves at about 92, and the clicks never match the drums.

Put the playhead at 0:00, click TAP, tap every beat for a few bars and click TAP. Check the panel says Lined up with the song’s notes, press ▶ Listen and Keep. One kept tempo covers the whole song.

The intro is right, the groove isn’t

Put the playhead on the first beat of the groove, tap along, listen and Keep. Everything before that point keeps the file’s own tempo.

A slow intro, then a faster song

Two tap sessions, front to back: the intro from 0:00 and Keep, then the faster part from where it starts and Keep. Right-click TAP to see both.

The tempo reads double or half what you hear

Put the playhead on a bar line, tap the beat you hear and click TAP. Keep Bar lines: Keep the file’s: the bar lines, time-signature switches and clicks stay exactly as they were, and the tempo number is corrected.

The tempo is already right

The panel says your beat matches the file’s own beat exactly. There’s nothing to fix; press Original is fine.

The clicks are a hair early or late

While it plays, use Clicks ◀ / ▶ until they lock in, then Keep. For a tempo you’ve already kept: right-click TAP, click it, adjust and Keep.

The bar lines start on the wrong beat

Usually the first tap wasn’t on a 1. Use Move the 1 ◀ / ▶ to slide the bar lines one beat at a time; the tempo doesn’t change.

Counting every beat feels awkward

For slow ballads, or songs where you feel the bar, set Tap Tempo counting in Settings → Playback to Only the 1 and tap just the first beat of each bar.

Swing, shuffle and laid-back grooves

Tap the main beat, where you’d tap your foot, not the swung notes in between. If the band plays slightly ahead of or behind the beat, the clicks follow the band, which is where you hear it. Fine-tune with Clicks ◀ / ▶.

Live-played songs that drift, and free-time passages

Tap Tempo gives one steady tempo per section, so tap a drifting song in sections, front to back. Where Orfeo can’t line the beat up with the notes, it says using your taps as they are: tap carefully and listen back before you Keep.

Finding the songs that need fixing

Turn on Tempo warnings in Settings → Playback. Songs whose bar lines miss their beat get an amber dot in the Library and a pulsing light under the TAP pad when you open them. Click the light and choose Fix with Tap Tempo.

 Tips for tapping

Tap the speed you’d count the song at, not the hi-hat. Start on a 1, and only once you’ve locked in. 8 to 16 taps give a steadier tempo than 4. If the tempo in the panel looks wrong, press Tap again rather than Keep.