Tap Tempo

You can manually set the tempo for a Pro Tools session by tapping on your computer keyboard. You can also use a connected MIDI keyboard to tap tempo.

To set the Manual Tempo by tapping on a computer keyboard:

1 To view the MIDI controls in the Transport window, select View > Transport > MIDI Controls.

2 In the Transport window, click the Tempo Ruler Enable (Conductor) button so it becomes unhighlighted. Pro Tools switches to Manual Tempo mode. In this mode, any tempo events in the Tempo track are ignored.

 

Tempo Ruler button (unhighlighted), set to Manual Tempo mode

3 Click in the Tempo field so it becomes highlighted and tap the “T” key on your computer keyboard repeatedly at the new tempo.

You can apply the new tempo to the entire session by changing the default tempo of the Song Start Marker. See Song Start Marker.

To set the Manual Tempo by tapping on an external MIDI keyboard:

1 To view the MIDI controls in the Transport window, select View > Transport > MIDI Controls.

2 Choose Setup > Preferences and click the MIDI tab.

3 Ensure that Use MIDI to Tap Tempo is selected.

4 In the Transport window, click the Tempo Ruler Enable (Conductor) button so it becomes unhighlighted. Pro Tools switches to Manual Tempo mode. In this mode, any tempo events in the Tempo track are ignored.

5 Click in the Tempo field so it becomes highlighted and tap in the tempo by playing a note repeatedly at the new tempo on your MIDI keyboard controller.

To compute the new tempo, Pro Tools averages the last eight (or fewer) taps to determine the correct tempo. The computed BPM value appears in the Transport’s Tempo field.