I sometimes see people asking for the BPM (Beats Per Minute) of tracks either on here or commenting on the sites running the remix contests. I thought it would be a decent idea to write down a few ways of working out the Beats Per Minute of any track or remix stem so that people can do it for themselves (especially newbies) and also so I can point people to this post. Below are 4 different ways of finding out the BPM of a track.

Firstly here is our example drum beat we are going to find the BPM of using these 4 methods which you can download from here if you wish to recreate these BPM finding techniques for yourself.

Manual Beatmatching
Most DJs will be pretty proficient in this already, simply start a metronome or a programmed beat in your software on the 1st beat of a the bar to start on the 1st beat of a bar of the track you a finding the BPM of (like how a DJ cues a record up).

Next emulate what a DJ does by increasing or decreasing the tempo in your software until you meet that sweetspot and hit the BPM. Do this through trial and error until you know it matches. If you're a DJ you can probably do this within several bars to a reasonable degree of accuracy. If not you will need to keep trying and will learn how to do this after some practice.

This method is probably the most accurate way of doing things. I worked out our example to be dead on 159 bpm (beats per minute) using this method.

Finding BPM by Using Math
Firstly by either using a stop watch or selecting a few bars of music in some audio software, find out the length in time of a section. Make sure you select from the moment a 1 beat begins to the exact end of another beat. Also count the number of beats you have selected or timed.

For our example we are going to use the the whole phrase which is 16 beats long and 6.04 seconds long.

Now divide the time by the number of beats giving you the time for a single 1 whole beat. (6.04 divided by 16 = 0.377)

Next divide 60 (the number of seconds in a minute) by this number. (60 divided by 0.377) to give you the number of beats in a minute.

According to this math way, our example phrase is 159.15 bpm (beats per minute).

BPM analysis
There is software that will automatically scan a file for you and thankfully it is free too like the one released by Mixmeister called BPM Analyzer which you can download from their site.

Mixmeister BPM Analyzer

Simply open up a folder in this software and it will give you all the BPMs of the files in the folder worked out through analysing the waveform.
According to this method our example phrase is 159.20 bpm.

BPM counters
These allow you to tap along with a beat and are reasonably accurate depending on the person putting in the details. I have found one on the internet and one for the iPhone/iPod.

There are a few for iPhone but I chose the one called BPM because it is free. This keeps around the 158 to 160 mark for our example track, but it is not giving an definite reading like our other methods above.

There is also this one available online for free too, just keep pressing a key on your keyboard on the beats. This one floated around the 158.6 to 158.9 mark for me.

There are lots of these BPM counters on the net and for different devices. FlyingCheeseBurger.com has one for Macs to put on your dashboard as well as a iPhone version which also works in your browser.
These BPM counters are reasonable, but you will probably need to go back to the beatmatching method to tweak it correctly. These BPM counters depend also on the quality of the taps that you input.

A few hints and tips to help
Sometimes a track isn't the same BPM all the way through, especially non-electronic ones which have a real drummer playing. Some real drumming tracks can be dead on as they were played to a click track, but others are not or speed up during slightly towards the end of the track.

Your best option for beat matching is with the drum stem of a track, although it is possible to use other stems, you're best off getting an accurate bpm from the drums. The drums probably were the first thing to be recorded in the original track too.

Not all these methods are completely accurate, so make sure you double check it. You should know if you've got it wrong anyway and can adjust those few notches anyway.

Hopefully these methods show you the ways of getting the BPM and anyone who was struggling to do this before should feel a little bit more confident knowing how to find the BPM. IS there a way that I have missed, add it to the comments below if I have.