beats per minute

[cacodemon]

I play a lot of fast tremolo picked stuff and I was wondering how do I tell how many beats per minute I am playing?

[zappatude]

Metronome. By the way, what do you mean by "tremolo picked stuff".

[cacodemon]

I know that I need to use a metronome but I'm just not sure how to use it. Would setting the bpm high and play a note on top of each downbeat be the proper way to measure the bpm I'm capable of?

[JerBear]

You could also use a drum machine. Upbeat or downbeat don't matter for what you are trying to find out. I think on a metronome each click is a beatso it's calculated by each beat and not by up or down. I could be wrong since I don't use one but I thought that is how they work. The drum machine is easy. Set up a beat and alter the tempo to the beat count that you want.
Jer

[StoneDragon]

First of all... I'm not so sure that BPM is what you're actually talking about here.

BPM is a flexable designation of tempo.

Are you trying to figure out how many pickstrokes you do per minute?

If so, figure out how many strokes you make per second and multiply by 60.

If you're trying to figure out the fastest tempo you can play at, then you need a qualifier. What note value are you playing?

[cacodemon]

Sorry I was not able to explain myself better, I am still a beginner. I suppose the answer was obvious, although I had never thought of it like that before. As for note value, I am not sure what that means. Thanks for the help.

[roger24]

yeah man, its not that hard