What BPM is UK garage?
UK garage is 130-135 BPM, and 133 is a fair single number. The machine above is playing UK garage at 133 BPM - press Space to hear it, then move the tempo and listen for where it stops sounding like UK garage.
Why UK garage lives at 130-135 BPM
UK garage is 130-135 BPM - 2-step, speed garage and the vocal garage of 1997-2001 all sit inside that five-beat window, and 132-134 is where most of it lives. The tempo came from pitching US garage house records up: London DJs played 124 BPM New Jersey records at +8 on the turntable, and when producers started making their own the sped-up tempo stayed while the kick pattern changed. Speed garage kept the four-on-the-floor; 2-step took the kick off beat 3 entirely.
The reason it cannot go much faster is the swing. UK garage is the most heavily swung dance music there is - 30-40 on this machine, well past house's zero - and heavy swing needs the 16ths to be long enough to hear the delay. At 133 a 16th is 113 milliseconds and the swung ones land almost 40 late, which is the skip. Push to 140 and the skip blurs into a shuffle; slow to 125 and it is swung house. The groove above is at 134 with 34 swing.
133 BPM in milliseconds
For setting delay times, checking a sample's length, or programming by ear: at 133 BPM one bar of 4/4 is 1,805 ms and a 16th note is 113 ms.
| At 133 BPM | Length | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| One bar (4/4) | 1,805 ms | 0.55 Hz |
| Quarter note (one beat) | 451 ms | 2.22 Hz |
| Dotted 8th | 338 ms | 2.96 Hz |
| 8th note | 226 ms | 4.43 Hz |
| 8th-note triplet | 150 ms | 6.65 Hz |
| 16th note | 113 ms | 8.87 Hz |
| 32nd note | 56 ms | 17.73 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. UK garage with its nearest neighbours by tempo:
| Genre | BPM | Typical | Felt pulse | Swing | Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afro House | 118-126 | 122 | as written | 8-14 | Dance |
| House | 120-128 | 124 | as written | 0-8 | Dance |
| UK Garage | 130-135 | 133 | as written | 30-40 | Dance |
| Techno | 128-140 | 134 | as written | 0 | Dance |
| The Amen Break | 136-137 | 136 | as written | 0-8 | Breaks |
Frequently asked
What BPM is 2-step?
130-135, the same as the rest of UK garage; 2-step is a kick pattern, not a tempo. Take the kick off beat 3 in any garage beat and it is 2-step at the tempo it was already at.
Is UK garage faster than house?
Yes, by about ten beats: house is 120-128, garage 130-135. The bigger difference is swing - garage swings hard, house barely at all - which is why garage at 133 feels lighter than house at 128 rather than faster.
Can I make UK garage 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 UK garage 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 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 drill?138-145 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.