BeatScanner Analyses Your Music’s BPM To Build Perfect Workout Playlists

Probably. These things have been around since MP3s first came around.

puntai

Is there an equivalent for OS X?

@checkit.

@[synchstep.com] :)

Reminds me of [synchpod.com] , which does the same thing with the additional bonus of *selecting* your music based on your walking speed. It's in private beta now, but should be out any time now.

I like my party/club music to fall in that range as well actually

Bo Shonka

Selecting workout music by BPM is like judging a woman by her height. You'll overlook alot of good ones and you select alot that you'll wish your could delete...

I use J.River Media Center which allows me to create playlists by BPM, intensity, number of plays, and number of skips.

Selecting workout music by BPM is like judging a woman by her height. You'll overlook alot of good ones and you select alot that you'll wish your could delete...

I use J.River Media Center which allows me to create playlists by BPM, intensity, number of plays, and number of skips.

Mac alternatives: [www.mixmeister.com] , [www.beatunes.com] (shareware), [dekstasy.sourceforge.net] (FOSS itunes plugin)

Linux: [bpmdj.yellowcouch.org]

Mac alternatives: [www.mixmeister.com] , [www.beatunes.com] (shareware), [dekstasy.sourceforge.net] (FOSS itunes plugin)

Linux: [bpmdj.yellowcouch.org]

Completely choked on my music collection - about 500 CDs worth. Locked up within 1 minute of the start of scanning.

@jkdufair: Same here, and even using just one smaller folder its giving half of my songs 0 bpm

Rabdsquirlz

I noticed this completely choked on a path with unicode in it, for one thing. Or perhaps it was just a completely random hang, like what jkdufair apparently experienced.

I've previously used MixMeister BPM Analyzer (free for windows and apparently mac too, some email signup required but that's what disposable email is for); those having trouble with this one might want to give that a shot.

CnEY

I noticed this completely choked on a path with unicode in it, for one thing. Or perhaps it was just a completely random hang, like what jkdufair apparently experienced.

I've previously used MixMeister BPM Analyzer (free for windows and apparently mac too, some email signup required but that's what disposable email is for); those having trouble with this one might want to give that a shot.

CnEY

@goodywitch: My paste button is acting funny, but it's in the cnet download section, which I used to use for downloads prior to LH.

There's also a program entitled MixMeister that embeds beats per minute into the ID3 tags. Then you can use your favorite program to sort by bpm, genre, mood, or whatever else you use to choose your workout music.

Another program, Best Practice, allows you to change the playback speed (minimizing pitch alterations) on the fly. I use this to count the bpm on squared music prior to permanently changing it with Audacity.

Until I find a nice portable mp3 player that allows me to change playback speed on the fly, I have to use playlists of altered music and change playlists as I change beats. Annoying, but it gets the job done.

@Bo Shonka: Werd. Nothing beats Hardcore for this, some Hard Trance/Trance/Dance is also pretty awesome for this. Anyone thinking about it should definitely try it.

@danger the pirate ★ has a fake star and that's good enough ...: Although you were attempting to be snarky, I wouldn't have known to search that. Thanks anyway.

I will take nothing less than 324BPM for my workout music. Maybe that's why I get worn out so quickly.

Sweet! I have been looking for something like this for a while.

Mixmeister is really the ticket for BPM calculation. Mixmeister's free BPM analyzer has been the de facto standard for professional DJs for several years.

Mixmeister and the free BPM analyzer have PC and Mac versions.
[mixmeister.com]

Jon Bruce

...could this be used for calculating BPM to use in games like Stepmania?

@CnEY: Thanks, tried MixMeister, but it analyzed my music all backward. I threw a folder of Britney Spears music at it just to punish it and it made the faster songs a lower bpm and slower songs a higher bpm...hmm...

@jkdufair: I threw a collection of songs at it and it gave them all 0 BPM lol.

Butt-ugly interface, though.

Roger L. Main

@bestpersonintheunivers: google is your friend! it knows all.

This is only for mp3 and wma songs. It doesn't work with aac files, which is my entire library.
When are people going to get on the aac bandwagon? It is much better than mp3. Smaller files, better quality, and made from the same guys who came up with mp3.

Programs like this, in my experience, are notoriously unreliable. The only exception I ever found was Mixmeister, and even that one has been spotty for me. The programs also tend to have huge problems processing tempo variances within songs.

I don't know, I'm extremely sensitive to tempo changes on my own so it's very easy for me to tell when a program is just flat-out wrong. Maybe I'm too stringent?

J. River Media Center +1 ftw....

Bryan Roessler

woo perfect love making music

woo perfect love making music

@danger the pirate ★♥ has a fake star and a fake heart. (tha...: now now play nice! Sure you could just do a google search, but where's the fun in that!? Sometimes it's nice to ask your peers for things they would recommend, it's called communication, try it sometime! :)

@JuryDuty:
Same here, like from 10 songs 3 get 0 BPM. It's a BUMMER since I have to press R according to my own perception of the tempo if I want to do it manually.

BUT OH WELL, it's free.

Soliduma

crashed in 3 seconds while trying to scan my library (about 1022 files) :(

Roi Dimor

@Haggie: Deleting women is illegal in most states, sadly.

Andrew Mussey

EPIC FAILURE. This app crashed harder than a teenager at Dennys the morning after the prom.

sapguy

I also have used MixMeister with good results and prefer the number to be written into the tag.

I suggest, however that if you are looking for 130 bpm you also search for 65 since the beat analyzer sometimes finds the cut time tempo and you might miss some songs that you want in your mix.

mdzink

Does it write the BPM info to the ID3 tag?

scarymike23

If you're looking for already compiled workout mixes with fixed and varied BPM, try DJ Steve Boyett's site:
[www.djsteveboy.com]
He's got some great mixes without all the work creating your own!

magicjoey

If you people want speed, why not listen to Death Metal or Extreme Metal in general?

RosaMonkey

Froze up intensely when i tried to scan a folder of 2000+ songs... So I made a new folder with about 10 songs. For some reason it thinks Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Procelain" (154.27 BPM) is faster than Bloodhound Gang's "Uhn Tiss" (135 BPM) Look them up on youtube even, Porcelain sounds like it's about 60 to 70 beats each minute

ShridulaTithonus

@goodywitch: thanks

@ShridulaTithonus: Could it be possible that Porcelain is at 77.135 BPM?
Software that calculates BPM will always have a margin of error. A time signature (something weird like 13/8 time) or an extremely slow or extremely fast song could easily throw it off.
The fast/slow songs would just throw it off by a factor of 2, so assuming you've heard the song, I'm pretty sure you could figure out which way it's off in.
Strange time signatures however, are very difficult to calculate for.

BeatScanner doesn't seem able to analyze large music libraries. I used MixMeister to populate my BPM tags, now I need something to create a playlist of 120-140 BMS music. Since BeatScanner can't handle my library, is there anything else we can use? MixMeister doesn't make playlists.

daweinst

@Haggie: I have JRMC, but I can not figure out how to do this?

Any help??!

Bad, bad, bad. Too slow. (2 days for 1,000 CDs. Apparently copies songs rather than make a playlist and finally it doesn't build a database! So, when you start it again it has to scann all your music again. Avoid it.

torrid

@CnEY: Beatscanner choked instantly for me as well, so thanks for the MixMeister recommendation - appears to be working great.

dnice8

@jkdufair: Try out Songbird and use it's smart playlist feature or J.River Media Centre as mention above.

@bestpersonintheunivers: Songbird allows one to create smart playlists and selecting tracks by BPM is one the conditions you may use. As far as I know there should be an OSX version. Be sure to pick up the add-on 'export extensions'.