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About this tool
Convert loop lengths between bars, beats, seconds and samples at any tempo, with a note-division delay table.
The Loop Bars Calculator converts a loop length between bars, beats, seconds, milliseconds and samples at any tempo, using the single relationship that one beat lasts 60 / BPM seconds. It works both ways: enter bars to get the exact length of the region, or enter the length of an existing clip to find out how many bars it covers and what tempo would make it land on a whole number. It also prints the standard delay-time table — plain, dotted and triplet values from a whole note down to a 1/64 — so tempo-synced delays and reverbs can be dialled in by hand.
Open Loop Bars Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Bars to seconds and seconds back to bars, with a flag for whether it lands exactly.
Gives the sample count at 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz for exact edits.
Plain, dotted and triplet times for every note division at the tempo you enter.
Exactly 8 seconds in 4/4. One beat is 60 / 120 = 0.5 seconds, a bar is four of those at 2 seconds, and four bars is 8 seconds — which is 384,000 samples at a 48 kHz sample rate.
A quarter-note delay is 60,000 / BPM milliseconds, so at 120 BPM it is 500 ms. Halve it for each smaller division: 250 ms for an eighth, 125 ms for a sixteenth. Multiply by 1.5 for dotted and by two thirds for triplet, giving 375 ms and 166.7 ms for a dotted and triplet eighth at 120 BPM.
Use tempo = beats per bar x bars x 60 / seconds. A two-second sample that should be one bar of 4/4 needs 120 BPM; if you want it to cover two bars, it needs 240 BPM, or half-speed at 120. Picking the bar count first is usually what makes a stubborn loop behave.
Because popular music is built in 4-bar and 8-bar phrases, so 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32-bar loops line up with where the arrangement changes. An odd loop length will drift against the phrase and need re-triggering every few passes.
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