liveBPM - Beat Detector

• Price: $3.99

Last verified 31 Jul 2026

4.1 115 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Live BPM

   I’m a new user to Live BPM. After working with it for many hours now, I’m happy to say it works easy and seamlessly. The one enhancement I would suggest is: Adding a regular Metronome feature that you can set at the beginning of each song on stage(to begin the song) then display the beginning tempo to the ongoing tempo during the performance. Not sure if you can do this. It would definitely be an enhancement.

   RipperJoe · 31 Jul 2026

2. 4/5Only 4/4 time...

   I absolutely love this app and would recommend it to any and all musicians!!! Sometimes I feel it’s more useful than a click track to be able to watch your tempo and adjust on the fly. It’s not a messy or difficult process like a click track can be. For me it was as simple as getting a phone mount and finding a spot for it on my drum kit. I use this app multiple times a week and I can say it’s well worth the money! Now to answer a few of the questions I had about this app.... It can detect a beat from any instrument, clapping, or pretty much any noise. It has about a 1-3 second delay on reading your tempo. If you have a simple 1-2-3-4 beat, it can easily read it and display your tempo. If you’re in a funky groove with lots of accents it may be a bit more delayed (based on my experience) Lastly, it only detects in a 4/4 time signature. Now this last one is my main issue with the app. I understand you can’t get an instant read on your tempo no matter what. And it’s very usable and helpful even with the slight delay. The main complaint I have is that there’s not a button or toggle switch to go from 4/4 to something like 3/4 or even 6/8. I would love for the developer to possibly add this feature. That being said, when you’re playing in 6/8 time (or anything but 4/4) you’ll still be given a tempo that is reliable and allows you to stay focused on keeping that same BPM in your music. What is frustrating is that if you’re learning a song that should be played at say 60bpm 6/8 timing. You CANT expect your app to tell you when you’re at 60bpm in 6/8... you’ll get something totally different! Since it is reading your beat based on 4/4 timing. Overall, I love the app and think the benefits far outweigh any and all negatives. It’s very manageable to get around these cons. It’s just not as easy and polished as it could be. Great app, I love it and thank you!!!!

   TJKesteleyn · 31 Jul 2026

3. 5/5Stop the bpm questioning

   Not so many musicians have a perfect feel for tempo. “We” as base players and drummers are the guides. This app is a must have and it closes out the complaints from singers and other not perfect timers. I (the drummer) set the tempo for the band. Without the app I was not able to SHOW the factual tempo and that is where it gets annoying sometimes. Now the tempo played is not a “feeling” anymore but a fact. Made my live easier. And I can see when I screw up before anybody else 😉. And yes sometimes the singer of solo players want some freedoms, that’s fine too! We than can show them how much freedom we gave them.

   PeteDrums · 31 Jul 2026

4. 5/5Stop the whining

   I say that in the title for both people in your band if your using the app, and some of the complaints I read about people who have purchased the app. I found this app when I was at a local jam session in DC. The house drummer has it on a phone on his bass drum. After on jam I immediately downloaded the app. It was that impressive to me. I rarely pay to purchase apps, but this was a no brainer. Years ago I had a thing called a beat bug. You put a trigger on your snare drum, and you’d get the space between hits as a number on a screen. It kind of worked, but had a lot of shortcomings especially since it only worked when you hit the snare on a consistently on the same beats. In most cases this app picks up the BPM in a few seconds, and holds on to it very well. I read reviews saying it’s bad at odd time signatures. They are wrong. Using the speaker from my iPad I played “Love is stronger than justice”, by Sting, and it had no problem keeping up with Vinnie Colaiuta’s perfect timing switching between a groove in 7/8 and a double time chorus in 4/4. I, going to say that folks that had those issues were experiencing user error. I’d say I’m a professional level musician who plays a semi pro amount of gigs each year. Last year I did over 70 gigs, and used this app on many of them. It give you invaluable information on the gig and stuff for you to work on when you get home. It is a speedometer for your drums. No more whining about what happened with the tempo. You’ll have actual documentation. I have had a number of drummers do the exact thing that I did when I first saw the app, which is just download it. You should do the same.

   DrSkillet · 31 Jul 2026

5. 5/5Detecting a click tract bpm

   I use it only to detect the click track count in for the backing tracks I purchase. Some producers publish the tempo but most don’t which makes it unclear visually where sections start and stop. I can have it listen to the count off click audio, set the discovered bpm in Reaper, load a track and see how it lines up many bars down the line. If the tune is played in good time, everything will line up visually and the snap function will be useable. Live bpm worked perfectly for this simple task.

   Joel1948 · 31 Jul 2026

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• 1.1.1
• 1.1.2

  metadata update

• 1.2.0

  - liveBPM is now available as universal app which ensures smooth rendering on iPad devices. - liveBPM now supports simultaneous monitoring of music which is being played on your device. - Added iOS 7 support. Users are now informed properly about microphone access. - Added a new zoom mode which lets you choose to view the last 2, 3, 5, .. or 30 minutes! - Generally improved beat detection, especially for triplet subdivisions. - Generally improved graph drawing and tempo smoothing.

• 1.2.1 · 9 May 2017

  This update from Apple will improve the functionality of this app. No new features are included. - added 64 bit support to improve performance on current hardware and to ensure compatibility for iOS 11 - fixed a bug where during startup, the audio output would move to the small speaker on the iPhone when not using line-out - updated connection to iOS audio, using the native sampling rate of 48 kHz - now using the measurement mode, minimizing the amount of system-supplied signal processing Version 2.0 is work in progress, featuring a new improved beat detection engine. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in beta-testing (via facebook or dev.daniel.bach googlemail com).