# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Bpm Finder

## xcrissxcrossx

i need a program that can accuarately find the beats per minute of a mp3. perferable free but a not free one is fine too.

----------


## Ynot

http://www.tucows.com/preview/371806.html

this proggy while detecting the bpm of single mp3&#39;s and displaying it on the screen
can also scan folders of mp3&#39;s and write the bpm into the ID3 tag of each file

this is a god-send when you have thousands of mp3s
just set it running overnight, and it&#39;s all don in the morning

----------


## Ynot

btw, you don&#39;t mention why you need the bpm&#39;s

now while mp3&#39;s are great for personal use, or if you&#39;re throwing a house party - they seriously fall down when used in clubs or anywhere where the volume&#39;s loud

think of it like a pictures on a computer
at small sizes, any picture will look good
but if you blow up a small picture onto a big bit of paper, it&#39;ll look fuzzy / blocky - all in all, pretty crap

music&#39;s the same - turning up the volume on music is the same as enlarging a picture
all the imperfections that aren&#39;t noticable at "personal use" volumes will become a lot more noticable
mp3&#39;s rely on taking out the detail of PCM recordings to reduce the size
these details are needed at volume

also, if you need the bpm&#39;s, you&#39;re probably wanting to beat-match tunes
digital music is not good at this, at all

if you need to slow down or speed up any vinyl record
you just change the speed of the turntable
digitally, however, changing the bpm is a major operation, involving a lot of computation - and you will lose shed-loads of quality from the file

a 128Kbps mp3 @ 100% speed is only
a 96Kbps mp3 @ 75% speed

if you have to use digital music in large scale environments
use full blown PCM Wav&#39;s, or mp3&#39;s at least 320 Kbps

----------


## xcrissxcrossx

> btw, you don&#39;t mention why you need the bpm&#39;s
> 
> now while mp3&#39;s are great for personal use, or if you&#39;re throwing a house party - they seriously fall down when used in clubs or anywhere where the volume&#39;s loud
> 
> think of it like a pictures on a computer
> at small sizes, any picture will look good
> but if you blow up a small picture onto a big bit of paper, it&#39;ll look fuzzy / blocky - all in all, pretty crap
> 
> music&#39;s the same - turning up the volume on music is the same as enlarging a picture
> ...



i wanted to mix two songs with another program and it sounds crappy unless they are set to the same BPM. thanks but i already found one.

----------


## Rage of Poseidon

Yeah, you can&#39;t really mix a song and have it sound great unless you can match the BPMs.

What program do you use CrissCross?

----------


## MSG

Yeah our school plays music at rallies really loud and it sounds terrible... They&#39;ve got every slider on the sound board set to max ( even equalizers ) and they just adjust the master volume/iPod volume ( yes, they use an iPod >_< ).

----------


## Ynot

> Yeah our school plays music at rallies really loud and it sounds terrible... They&#39;ve got every slider on the sound board set to max ( even equalizers ) and they just adjust the master volume/iPod volume ( yes, they use an iPod >_< ).
> [/b]



that&#39;s going to be a clipping issue

again, digital music is very un-forgiving with clipping (as opposed to anologue equivalents)

it&#39;s awkward explaining this without images,
but if you have a sin wave
and increase the volume past the 0db threshold
analogue devices will flatten the wave, so the tips and troughs rest at 0db
while not ideal, it&#39;s far better than what digital devices do

digital devices will simply chop off the top and bottom of the wave
and the wave will look like a square sin wave
making really harsh sounds

Turn every knob down to half-way
and use the master volume on the amp to set the baseline volume
then use the gains on your mixer to compensate for different level tracks during the session

in a nutshell - Keep digital music in the green, if you stray into the yellow (or god forbid the red) you&#39;re doing it wrong

----------


## Kaniaz

Or you can do what I would do, which is kick the equaliser until it bows down to your infernal will and plays jammin&#39; tunes all night long.

----------


## Ynot

> Or you can do what I would do, which is kick the equaliser until it bows down to your infernal will and plays jammin&#39; tunes all night long.
> [/b]



this is known as the BFI method in the business

----------

