bpm exchange

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mr. e
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:01 pm

BPM database

#16 Post by mr. e » Mon Mar 02, 2009 5:11 am

Hi all,
http://elrond.cdtm.de/musicdb/
currently has a database I've fed with the data I have available (I didn't get any contributions in form of an iTunes library file so far). You'll see that the data quality varies a lot from the sources I collected the data from; sometimes genre annotation is bogus; genre is usually only on a per-album basis. So there are no DJing relevant annotations such as 'good for lindy hop' in there right now.

The BPM values were computed automatically and suffer from the usual limitations of automatic BPM. For example Lucky Millinders 'Apollo Jump' shows up as '96 bpm' twice (which might be twice the same file though, I didn't check the source) and once at '189 bpm'. I figure the real BPM value is more close to the latter, that is around 190 bpm. It's easy to see that the first calculation is very close to half speed.
For slow songs you can also see the opposite effect, i.e. the algorithm picking up the eighth notes instead of the quarters.

Still it is a very extensive database, I figure you'll find most songs in there, and most should have some BPM value (although my estimates are that it is off by a facor of .5, .66, 1.5 or 2 in about 20% of cases; but except for that effect it usually is quite close to what I'd clock).

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Greg Avakian
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#17 Post by Greg Avakian » Fri Mar 06, 2009 11:59 pm

One of the reasons I don't like automatic/calculating BPM meters is that they are so often wrong. I don't have my music with me, but isn't Apollo jump more like 156 BPM?
Hey, my e-mail's changed, here's the new one:
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Haydn
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#18 Post by Haydn » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:36 am

Greg Avakian wrote:One of the reasons I don't like automatic/calculating BPM meters is that they are so often wrong. I don't have my music with me, but isn't Apollo jump more like 156 BPM?
I have it as 144 bpm

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AlekseyKosygin
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Location: Jersey, Home of the Lion, the Lamb and the Brute...

#19 Post by AlekseyKosygin » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:39 am

I have "Apollo Jump" on two different CD's and one's 150, the other is 151, so I guess I'm meeting in the middle between both of you...

mr. e
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#20 Post by mr. e » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:05 am

I didn't have the song at hand right now either.
96 * 3/2 = 144 would match up with Haydn pretty well ...
189 * 3/4 = 141.
Again the calculator seems to have picked up some other rhythm in the song... that is exactly why I don't trust the automatic calculators.

That's why I'd like to have some database with actual values, whenever possible with a source identification (where mine would read 'bpmdj, unreliable - automatic' or something, unless I've clocked the song myself).
However, so far nobody seems to be interested in sharing.

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