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Author Topic: How is Beats Per Minute determined?  (Read 1181 times)

MusicHawk

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How is Beats Per Minute determined?
« on: February 10, 2010, 10:31:21 am »

I'm curious how MC determines Beats Per Minute (BPM)?

My band strives to play songs at the "right" tempo, so I've been doing some random checking via stopwatch, and comparing to what MC computed.

In MOST cases MC is exactly right -- amazing.

In some cases, MC is totally wrong. I'd expect it to sometimes be off by a factor of 2 or 4, but that's not always the deviation.  For example, The Drifters "Under the Boardwalk" (a party classic), counted by toe-tapping + stopwatch is about 120BPM, but MC says it is 62BPM.

Not complaining, just curious how it computes -- could help recognize songs where it might miscount.

My wish is that MC also computes the musical KEY of a recording (given that musical notes are precisely defined). Some musician software can do this accurately, and even determine the chords being played. Currently I have to play the recording and dink around with my keyboard or guitar to find the key.
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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.

neFAST

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Re: How is Beats Per Minute determined?
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2010, 12:21:20 pm »

Hi MusicHawk, sorry I have no answer for you. But could you share the name of the softwares you mention (maybe by PM)? Thanks a lot
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MusicHawk

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Re: How is Beats Per Minute determined?
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2010, 02:48:39 pm »

Band In A Box can be fed a music recording (MP3 or CD or whatever) and it will generate a music chart of what it believes are the chords (and therefore the key) of the song. It does lots more (LOTS) but this alone is quite impressive.
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Managing my media with JRiver since Media Jukebox 8 (maybe earlier), currently use Media Center for Audio/Music and Photos/Videos.
My career in media spans Radio, TV, Print, Photography, Music, Film, Online, Live, Advertising, as producer, director, writer, performer, editor, engineer, executive, owner. An exhausting but amazing ride.
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