How to organize songs by Tempo/Beat/Rhythm?

[Stamimail]

Tempo/Beat/Rhythm - I do not know exactly what the right term is, but I mean the speed of the song.
Let's say I have a folder/directory with hundreds of songs (mp3 files). Mixture of songs. All without tags at all.
I want to sort the songs into folders, according to their tempo.
Normally, Songs with faster tempo, are with a lot of noise. The songs with the slower tempo are quieter.
I'm not sure that the genre is what I'm looking for. I think the genre is not important. The point is to keep the same rhythm of songs, while listening to that Folder/Playlist.
I'm looking for a program that can scan the "Sound Waves" of the audio files, and can determine what type of this audio file is: Fast and Noisy, or Slow and Quiet.
What program can help me?
Thanks.

[frankz]

The basic assumption of your question is incorrect.  Fast isn't always loud.  Slow isn't always soft.  Not in any way or pattern that you can reliably sort your files by.

If you're looking for speed / tempo information, there are BPM (beats per minute) analyzers and databases on the web. They're not perfectly accurate.  

If you're looking for volume information, scanning your files with Volume Analysis will give you an idea of the relative volume of your tracks and albums.  If the volume analysis comes back as adjusting something -12db from the reference volume, that track would be louder overall than a track that is reduced by -7db from the reference volume.  You could then sort by these values.

[Stamimail]

Thank you very much for your answer.
You mentioned, BPM analysis, and volume analysis.
Are there more types of sorting that can be done, by sound wave analysis?

[frankz]

If it's a value you can write to a tag, it's a value you can sort by.  If it's not a default tag, you can create a custom tag for it.  It's just a matter of finding a tool that will do the analysis and write the tag to the file.

[Stamimail]

It's just a matter of finding a tool that will do the analysis and write the tag to the file.

I didn't think about to write the results to the files tags, but maybe it's a good idea.
Can you name some examples of such programs, which generate tags according to the analysis of sound waves (for songs you can't find them in any database)?

[frankz]

Sorry, no.  I don't know of anything. I meant it's a matter of you (i.e. each user) finding programs that analyze files a the way you'd like them analyzed and then writing the results to a tag.  I don't know that anything exists.

If it's a value you can write to a tag, it's a value you can sort by.

[phred]

Both MixMeister BPM Analyzer and BPM Counter will write to the BPM tag. Both are free. Both are not spot-on - sometimes not coming up with the same BPM on the same track. I've had some slow tempo songs show a higher BPM than a fast tempo. You get what you pay for.

[alec.tron]

Also, Digital DJ programs such as Serato & Traktor have a OK ish bpm & key analysis algorithms ( http://djtechtools.com/2015/11/16/key-detection-software-comparison-2015-edition/ ) do write this data to file.
Rekordbox does too, but keeps most its' data in internal databases to lock people into their ecosystem... which I do think is a bad approach and not support worthy.
c.

[EAS10]

How can I check the BPM of a song ?

[psychoadept]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

How can I check the BPM of a song ?

There are some decent free bpm analysis programs, I bet you can find them pretty easily with Google.


[Lol, engine to the forum... Thanks auto correct]

[EAS10]

While Google may help you find these tools, word of mouth is much more powerful. On that note (no pun intended) I highly suggest you check out GetSongbpm (https://getsongbpm.com) it's got a range of tools that help you find tempo for any lesson or session.
Do you think that the result will be accurate ?

[brndnr]

Not going to comment on some of the musicality elements of this thread but thought I'd pipe in with a workaround I found with Rekordbox. As others have stated, it's a little frustrating that Rekordbox doesn't write the BPM info to the tag like it does the key. You can access these BPM values from a Rekordbox library (File --> Export Collection in XML). Note this is not a flat file but you can parse this information in a database tool or similar. Probably the easiest way is to use Power Query in Excel to and transforming this information till you get to the level that has track info, full path and BPM. Once you get this, you can easily manipulate to just extract a full filepath and BPM (and any other attributes you want). Save this as a CSV or TXT file

A number of Tag tools will allow you to import tags from a Text File (Tagscanner, MP3tag), even Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools in Musicbee has functionality for this. But most lack a reliable preview tool. If you're applying this to a large library, I would be very careful, so a preview is important. Given that, I found MP3tag to be the most effective. Navigate to folder with all the music files in it and then I would export a CSV from this tool to get familiar with how the data looks. From there, match filepaths from the export to your edited rekordbox libary CSV and use this page to help with syntax. Go to Convert --> Text File - Tag and then change to the appropriate format string and delimiters of your CSV (perhaps using this page as a guide). Now click preview and see if everything looks like it should, perhaps even testing with a smaller list first. Once you're happy press ok and you're done.

Hope this helps others as it took me a while to find a solution that aligned with Rekordbox (understand there are other third party tools as mentioned in the thread).

[MusikHornet]

I know the replies in this forum post are quite old, but the topic is still very relevant.
Starting long ago with Winamp I am now very happy with MusicBee and MP3tag.
But when going to DJing with Rekordbox, VirtualDJ, Mixxx and other tools like Mixo and Mixed-In-Key the situation is really complex.
This because all this expensive (often subscription based) DJ tools do not import and export all metadata completely and without errors and risk.
It seems that MP3tag is the only tool to manage this well between MusicBee and DJ tools.

I checked already the various tag capabilities of above DJ tools and apparently the only reliable
and flexible interface/converter between these tools and MusicBee can bei MP3tag.
The Rekordbox XML export file is quite complete and can be used for transfer to and from Rekordbox.
Most challenging is the transfer of special tags like colors and ratings between Musicbee and MP3tag and DJtools.

Tools like Mixo, Rekordcloud (now Lexicon) or DJCU from ATGR can do this too, but are partly expensive and still unreliable.
Any update of DJ controller software does also require careful check and mostly also updates of these tools.
The key question is, if you want to spend regular money and risk with these tools or spend regular your own time and risk for the data transfer.

My conclusion is to stay with MusicBee as my main library and export/import.
I will only use a selected music portfolio to be imported (in my case) through rekordbox XML file.
One special tag in MusicBee will show me, which files have been already imported/exported (or modified).

[Rob_Lawn]

MusikHornet, I just posted about it, and you might be interested, but I've been building a free tool to do this with Spotify Playlists.

https://www.sortbytune.com/

I know that there are all of the regular issues with transferring music between platforms, I build a little app myself to turn any playlist into a (mostly) accurate Spotify playlist, but never got it release worthy.

But the app (Sort by Tune) lets you experiment with song orders, I've found that a mix of Energy, BPM, and Key (using the Camelot Wheel), whilst not perfect all of the time, does a pretty good job of predicting where tracks fit into a playlist.

Maybe suitable for your workflows, maybe not, but I thought I'd mention it.

Peace
Rob.

[Tony_D]

I have been using Mixedinkey for a while now and I feel it's more accurate in the bpm department than the analyzers from Mixmeister Fusion or the (used to be free) Mixmeister bpm counter.
Both offerings from Mixmeister only handle mp3, I have used them as long as I can remember but have now retired them.

Mixedinkey 10 is a one-time payment (look for festive sales) and does require a constant internet connection, to verify with I guess their own database of meta data (speculation on my side)

The KEY detection is more precise than Pioneer Record box or Mixxx (which I tested for months both before going paid)
Reason for buying Mixedinkey 10 is that it's very stable, it was running for 1+ week 24/7 and didn't cash or became unstable, no bad things to report.

I like to multi task a vast list of audio tools and my Xeon kept from breaking a sweat or limping on one leg, Also Mixedinkey is gentle with system ram, it never used my 32gb, not even after a week of running on 300k+ mp3 & flac files, drag & drop works flawless.

I'm pretty new to ENERGY level detection but I guess it could be help as guide to know which song could be played next to follow the intensity of a song.
All meta data in general are only to be seen as helping out, it's not always spot on and you stil need to make your own choices


The good part is that mixedinkey writes data directly in MP3 or FLAC files, and that MusicBee can read that meta data and allows you to sort als the various columns you can make in your custom views, create auto playlist from that data etc etc.

Besides BPM, KEY, ENERGY, it also auto detects and can (if you select it) write CUE data directly into the MP3 or FLAC file.
Various DJ software can import those CUE (hot start points in time) and through a few steps, Recordbox, Serato and others will be able to make use of that.

I keep on mentioning that it uses MP3 and FLAC but that is because I only use those 2 formats and have tested both with a couple of hundred thousand files, it works well.

Tony_D.