What BPM is drill?
Drill is 138-145 BPM, and 140 is a fair single number. It is felt at half that - 70 BPM - because the snare only lands on beat 3, so the written tempo is double the pulse you nod to. The machine above is playing drill at 140 BPM - press Space to hear it, then move the tempo and listen for where it stops sounding like drill.
Why drill lives at 138-145 BPM
Drill is 138-145 BPM, felt at 69-72, and the window is one of the narrowest of any genre. Like trap it is half-time - the snare only lands on beat 3 - but drill adds a thin second snare on the very last 16th of the bar, and that skip only works in a tight band: below 136 the skip sounds like a mistake, above 146 the sliding 808 has no room to travel between its two pitches. UK drill settled at 140-142 around 2015; Brooklyn drill, built on the same London beats from 2019, runs very slightly faster and hits harder.
The tempo also decides how the hats work. At 140 a triplet stutter fills exactly one beat with three or six hits and then stops, which is the drill hat signature - a hesitation, not a roll. Swing is zero because the triplets already carry the skip and swinging them turns a stutter into a shuffle. Everything is written at the double tempo so those triplets can be drawn on a 16th grid.
140 BPM in milliseconds
For setting delay times, checking a sample's length, or programming by ear: at 140 BPM one bar of 4/4 is 1,714 ms and a 16th note is 107 ms.
| At 140 BPM | Length | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| One bar (4/4) | 1,714 ms | 0.58 Hz |
| Quarter note (one beat) | 429 ms | 2.33 Hz |
| Dotted 8th | 321 ms | 3.11 Hz |
| 8th note | 214 ms | 4.67 Hz |
| 8th-note triplet | 143 ms | 7.00 Hz |
| 16th note | 107 ms | 9.33 Hz |
| 32nd note | 54 ms | 18.67 Hz |
The genres either side
Tempo windows overlap, and what separates neighbours is usually swing and where the snare falls rather than the number itself. Drill with its nearest neighbours by tempo:
| Genre | BPM | Typical | Felt pulse | Swing | Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trap | 130-150 | 140 | 65-75 (half-time) | 0 | Hip hop |
| Phonk | 130-160 | 140 | 65-80 (half-time) | 0 | Hip hop |
| Drill | 138-145 | 140 | 69-72 (half-time) | 0 | Hip hop |
| Dubstep | 138-142 | 140 | 69-71 (half-time) | 0 | Bass |
| Jungle | 160-175 | 170 | as written | 8-14 | Breaks |
Frequently asked
Is drill faster than trap?
Barely. Trap spans 130-150 and drill 138-145, so a 140 BPM beat could be either; what separates them is the last-16th snare, the sliding 808 and triplet hats rather than the tempo.
What BPM is UK drill vs New York drill?
UK drill mostly 140-142, New York drill 140-145 with the 808 slide pushed further forward. On this page the kit is at 140; try 144 for the Brooklyn feel and listen to how much less time the 808 has to slide.
Can I make drill at a different tempo?
Yes, and the edges of the window are where the interesting records live. The point of the range is that inside it a listener hears drill before they hear anything else; outside it, the same drum pattern reads as a neighbouring style. Drag the tempo on this page to hear the crossover happen.
Go deeper
Every genre's tempo
- What BPM is lo-fi hip hop?70-85 BPM
- What BPM is hip hop?80-100 BPM
- What BPM is boom bap?88-94 BPM
- What BPM is reggaeton?88-100 BPM
- What BPM is funk?95-115 BPM
- What BPM is afrobeats?100-115 BPM
- What BPM is amapiano?110-115 BPM
- What BPM is disco?110-125 BPM
- What BPM is afro house?118-126 BPM
- What BPM is house?120-128 BPM
- What BPM is UK garage?130-135 BPM
- What BPM is techno?128-140 BPM
- What BPM is the Amen break?136-137 BPM
- What BPM is trap?130-150 BPM · half-time
- What BPM is phonk?130-160 BPM · half-time
- What BPM is dubstep?138-142 BPM · half-time
- What BPM is jungle?160-175 BPM
- What BPM is drum and bass?170-176 BPM
- What BPM is neurofunk?172-176 BPM
BAP Studio is inspired by classic 16-pad sampler and drum-machine workflows. It is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Akai Professional, Roland, or any other manufacturer.
Made by Max Berggren.