Tech house BPM

How fast, and who says so

Where the two sources overlap: 125–128 BPM. Each in its own words:

• Beatportal, Step-by-Step Guide to Producing Tech House (2024): 120–128 BPM
• EDMProd, How to Make Tech House like FISHER (2025): 125–128 BPM

The groove on this page

Four on the floor at 126, the clap on two and four, open hats on every offbeat, closed hats in 8ths and one accented 16th just before beat four, two percussion hits, and the bass in the gaps. Swing at 56 % puts the off 16ths, here one hat, one percussion hit and the bass push before the bar line, 14 ms late: a shuffle you feel more than hear. It is house's swing kept small, so the bass stays the loudest rhythm in the bar.

On this page: the app's Silver kit at 126 BPM, swing 56 %, with the Donk bass sound.

Delay and LFO values

A delay in time with the track repeats once per note value: a quarter note lasts 60,000 divided by the BPM, in milliseconds. Dotted is one and a half times that, triplet two thirds. An LFO synced to a note value cycles at 1,000 divided by those milliseconds, in Hz. The table follows the tempo above: − and + move it, and so does a tempo you tap.

Genres near this tempo

• House: 115–130 BPM
• Deep house: 120–125 BPM
• Techno: 125–135 BPM
• UK garage: about 130 BPM

All twenty genres on one axis, with 126 BPM marked: the BPM chart.

Tech house BPM in practice

Most tech house is made at 124 to 128 BPM (Melodigging: "Aim for 124–128"). Deeper, more hypnotic records sit at 120 to 124; peak-time tracks push 128 to 130, where techno starts. The guides agree within a few BPM: Beatportal 120 to 128 (2024), EDMProd 125 to 128 (2025), Unison 125 to 130 (2023), ZIPDJ 120 to 130 (2025). The records that took the sound into the charts sit in the same place (SongBPM, 2026):

At 128 a tech house track is at full pace; 130 is the top of the window. At 140 nobody calls it tech house any more: that is techno, or hard groove.

Mixing tech house at different tempos

The window is narrow on purpose: records made at 124 to 128 mix into each other with a small pitch move, so a tech house set barely changes speed. From 124 to 128 is 3.2 %, under half the ±8 % of a Technics SL-1200's pitch fader. To bring a 122 BPM deep house record into a 126 one, match the incoming track to the one playing, mix, then lift the tempo a BPM at a time over the next records, the usual advice on r/Beatmatch. Without key lock the pitch moves with the tempo: 3.2 % faster is 0.55 of a semitone sharper, enough to sour two basslines in the same key. With key lock on, mix by key: the DJ tools list the keys that mix.

Tech house, house and techno

Most house runs 120 to 128 BPM, classic Chicago house nearer 120 (Sample Focus, 2025), deep house 120 to 125: swung, warm, carried by chords and voices. Techno runs 125 to 135 on these pages; most modern techno lands at 130 to 140, peak-time at 130 to 145 (Pulse, 2026): straighter, darker, the drums doing the work. Tech house sits in the overlap and takes from both: house's four on the floor and shuffle, techno's dry, tracky drums, and a hook that lives in the bass rather than in the chords. Bass house, its heavier, wobbling branch, keeps the same tempo. Melodic techno runs 120 to 127 (Pulse, 2026) and progressive house 122 to 128 (Melodigging), so both mix into a tech house set with almost no pitch move. So what genre is 130 BPM? The top of tech house, the middle of techno, UK garage and the slow end of trance.

Techno's own branches, by tempo (Pulse, 2026): dub techno 120–128, melodic techno 120–127, minimal 122–128, Detroit 125–135, peak-time 130–145, hardgroove 135–145, industrial 130–150, hard techno 145–160, schranz 150 and up. Each is on Techno BPM.

Why 120 and 128 BPM are so common

120 BPM is two beats a second, and it is the default: a MIDI file that sets no tempo plays at 120 (the Standard MIDI File default, 500,000 microseconds a quarter note), and Ableton Live opens a new set at 120. No rule sets 128. It is the middle of the window where house, tech house and festival EDM overlap, so a record made there mixes with the most other records at a few percent of pitch, and producers who make records for DJs keep landing on it.

Tech house artists, by era

London, mid to late 1990s. The Wiggle parties of Terry Francis and Nathan Coles, The Drop (Mr C and Paul "Rip" Stone), and The End, Mr C and Layo Paskin's club and the sound's home by the late 1990s, and from 1999 Fabric, where Terry Francis and Craig Richards held the residencies. On record: Eddie Richards, Layo and Bushwacka!, Charles Webster, Dave Angel, and from the US Derrick Carter and Stacey Pullen.

The 2010s. Jamie Jones and Lee Foss's Hot Creations, Hot Since 82, Solardo, Patrick Topping, and Claude VonStroke's Dirtybird in San Francisco, which helped spread it in the US.

The chart era, from 2018. Fisher ("Losing It"), Chris Lake, John Summit, Dom Dolla, Michael Bibi and PAWSA (Solid Grooves), Cloonee, Mau P, ANOTR, Acraze ("Do It To It", 2021) and Meduza. Beatport's tech house chart shows what is played this week; it keeps a Latin tech sub-genre of its own.

Then make something of it

The door opens Brumm at the tempo on screen, with this genre's swing on or off, and the app names the tempo once on its start screen. Its range is 90 to 150 BPM, so a tempo outside goes in at half or double, or at the nearest end when neither fits. No account, no upload: the tempo travels inside the link. Tap Play, hum a line over the beat, and it becomes an instrument.

Nothing is recorded: no microphone, only your taps, counted in the browser. The groove's sounds are the app's own samples, fetched when you tap Play. How the site counts visits.