BPM - How to know the exact bpm in a track

W

Wilde

Member
Hi guys - hope it is ok to post this here. Ok, I am a musician and I know the bpm of my drum tracks cuz I create them myself or I use EZ drummer which also tells me the bpm - but my doubt is - if I have song 4/4 at 100 bpm and then a couple of short breaks keeping the tempo but playing with the interplay of bass drum and snare - and the tempo of my recording session in my DAW is 100 bpm, should the BPM not read 100? The other day I was uploading stuff to a site and out of sheer curiosity I used Abyss Media BPM counter and the reading was different - it told me 133,34 - can be this right?

Or if a song is 120 bpm and then it has a couple of slower drum parts - would the overall bpm of the tune not be affected?

Thanks
 
I wouldn't trust a auto- beat detector app to determine bpm. Especially when you set it your self in your DAW.

I think your curious adventure discovered that the Abyss Media app doesn't work very well.
 
I have used a beat detector in the past for some EDM experiments I was doing. They do a pretty good job for the most part, but they are approximate. If you listen to old analog recordings, there is drift, either from the musicians or my understanding is, tape stretch drifting.

They are just give you the average based on the beats it detects.
 
Pro Tools has a nifty "Identify Beat" feature that'll tell you the exact tempo of a song based on a selection.

It's a bloody GODSEND when all those rappers with stereo .mp3 files of beats they downloaded come in and they're like, "I dunno, what's tempo?"
 
If there's any variation in your tempo then an automatic tempo detector won't know what to do.
Basically it'll make an educated guess that will, inevitably, be wrong.

Something like beat detective, I think, maps out hit points or down beats, so it should be able to track variable tempos and map them out for you.
Either that or it identifies downbeats and stretches your music to conform to a tempo. Maybe it can do both?
I don't know. I still do it all manually.

From your description it sounds like your BMP is constant, even if there are gaps in the drum part.
In theory any tempo detector should pick it up, but it's kinda like face recognition. It doesn't always work.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Something like beat detective, I think, maps out hit points or down beats, so it should be able to track variable tempos and map them out for you.
Either that or it identifies downbeats and stretches your music to conform to a tempo. Maybe it can do both?
I don't know. I still do it all manually.
Click to expand...

It technically can do both. But it doesn't stretch (eg, Elastic Audio) the audio, it slices it at the transient, moves the transient to the grid, and then it "smooths" the gaps by extending and crossfading the audio across the new gaps.

But yeah, I'm in the same boat. Even using a percentage for the strength that the beat/drums are conformed to, it just sounds better to me when I do it manually.
 
Wilde said:
How to know the exact bpm in a track
Click to expand...

Call me old-school...but I still just tap my foot, count and watch the clock.
Somehow, it always tells me the exact BMP. :)

Even if you have sections where the tempo chnages for a couple measures or you do breaks, just keep tapping and counting through to the end of the song at the same tempo.
Then look at your total song time/length, and then devide into the total beats you counted, and you'll get the average BPM for the whole song.
 
miroslav said:
Call me old-school...but I still just tap my foot, count and watch the clock.
Somehow, it always tells me the exact BMP. :)

Even if you have sections where the tempo changes for a couple measures or you do breaks, just keep tapping and counting through to the end of the song at the same tempo.
Then look at your total song time/length, and then devide into the total beats you counted, and you'll get the average BPM for the whole song.
Click to expand...

That is not likely a possibility for the OP. He is looking to find exact tempo numbers it seems. Average numbers don't work ever in the world of actual tempo in digital recording. You know that man. - 'tapping foot for the beat of this thread'.

Oh, and you are hence called 'old school' by me. I would consider myself the same man. :) But that does not make the precise tempo issue 'not' an issue.

More information from Wilde seems most important. Please give specifics as to what software you are using and why it is imperative that you have the bpm for whatever you are working with.

Could this be a sample rate issue? I don't know. I record drums with a click and/or program them to a click. Never had an issue with any tempo shiz because I am in control of that from the start.
 
Don't forget it's BEATS per minute, so if the counter miscounts a fill as 23 beats, when it was really 4, the maths produces a faster BPM. If you look at most music as a waveform, you can see the little peaks a counter will be using, maybe with some HF reduction to make it easier to process. Fills can easily be taken for a sudden speeding up, the reducing again. They lack the essential feature - your brain.
 
Tell you what Wilde, post or PM whatever tracks you are having issue with, and I fill find out the issue and fix/or find the reason why.

It should not be this tough nor need for a discussion really. Let's just find the answer and fix it for you. :)
 
rob aylestone said:
Don't forget it's BEATS per minute, so if the counter miscounts a fill as 23 beats, when it was really 4, the maths produces a faster BPM. If you look at most music as a waveform, you can see the little peaks a counter will be using, maybe with some HF reduction to make it easier to process. Fills can easily be taken for a sudden speeding up, the reducing again. They lack the essential feature - your brain.
Click to expand...

Yes, and there is the possibility that he has the tempo starting from the wrong point. Not sure that any averaging of particular beats per minute is of relevance here.

Bottom line: bpm is shown different than what OP expected. Finding the cause and remedy is the goal for me.

Or I just blow this off and forget about it... Naw. :)
 
Thanks guys - it's always good to read your views - Jimmy, thanks so much for the offer. My main objective is to be able to KNOW how to determine the exact bpm of any tune - as pointed out before I create the patterns myself so I know the bpm of the drum track - but what I don't know is if the breaks or slower parts will that affect the overall tempo - bpm of a tune. It all came about when the other day I was uploading a new tune to MusicXray and in order for them to pitch the song with a greater degree of success they ask us to provide info like "the mood" of the tune, etc etc etc AND the BPM.

This is the track I was talking about
Love Me
Carlos Wilde Songs | ReverbNation

and I would also like to know, if you don't mind, the bpm for this one
Am I Evil
Carlos Wilde Songs | ReverbNation

Thanks ever so much
 
Wilde said:
breaks or slower parts will that affect the overall tempo
Click to expand...

Breaks shouldn't. Slower parts will.

If you can start a metronome and have it run in sync with your song from start to finish, then your song has a consistent tempo and a calculable fixed BPM.

If there's any fluctuation in tempo at all, your computer won't be smart enough to work that out and it will either give you an average BPM which is useless, or it'll just get it wrong.

Lets say you're working with classic rock tracks. Forget about it. There won't be a fixed tempo.
Working with house? Different story. You could almost guarantee the song was made on a grid. There will likely be a static tempo.

Make sense?
 
I take it 'love me' is the track you're talking about in your OP?

The reason I ask is I've clocked it as being somewhere between 133 and 134.
"133.34?" Sounds about right to me.

Pop it in your DAW, line up a kick/snare with a bar line, put in a click at 133.34 and hit play. See if they go out of sync.
They shouldn't.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Breaks shouldn't. Slower parts will.



If there's any fluctuation in tempo at all, your computer won't be smart enough to work that out and it will either give you an average BPM which is useless, or it'll just get it wrong.

Make sense?
Click to expand...

Absolutely - Thanks
 
Steenamaroo said:
I take it 'love me' is the track you're talking about in your OP?

The reason I ask is I've clocked it as being somewhere between 133 and 134.
"133.34?" Sounds about right to me.
Click to expand...

How did you clock it? if I may ask - in other words what system did you use to get there? - because then Abyss BMP Counter is right
Thanks
 
jimmys69 said:
That is not likely a possibility for the OP. He is looking to find exact tempo numbers it seems. Average numbers don't work ever in the world of actual tempo in digital recording.
Click to expand...

Well that's the thing....BPM is an "old school" thing, not a DAW thing. ;)
I know you know this stuff, so I'm really responding back to the OP....

If BPM varies throughout a song and you do some DAW math calculations for every change, you then end up with some weird "133,34" number. Now....it may be that there's other things going on with the track/tempo/DAW settings...which makes these things more confusing, though not what I was responding to. My answer is about how to get your BPM for a song, not so much about unraveling any DAW/track issues that may be going on.

BPM was/is never about what's happening in measure 34 VS measure 42...etc......it's the Beats Per Minute of a song....it was always an average number, long before DAWs allowed for these changing micro BPM spot calculations.
It's the overall tempo of the song...aka the average.
If you use an "old school" metronome, it lets you set one BPM....yet you can speed up and slow down throughout the whole song, and it's still going to have a single average BPM.

I guess there are now "different" ways to look at it (not sure why), but for my use, the only value of BPM is still the average number for the whole song. IOW, if I slow down in the first minute, and speed up a bit in the second....I'm not going to show two BPM values or some weird "133,34" number for the song....it's still going to be the average, and my DAW sets/shows BPM in one place, one value regardless of how many breaks there are in the track, it doesn't change the BPM. Not saying you can't force BPM chnages for every section of track...just not seeing the value of doing that to get some *exact* BPM with fractions/ticks...?

YMMV.... :)

Wilde said:
Or if a song is 120 bpm and then it has a couple of slower drum parts - would the overall bpm of the tune not be affected?
Click to expand...

This was my point....BMP is not a *sum* of beats during a single minute, it is the "overall" BPM of a song....as in the average.
Again, not saying you can't do a song with changing tempo....just saying that calculations for overall BPM in fractions is a DAW thing, and pre-DAW you would simply count the beats for the whole song, divide by time elapsed...and get your "overall" BPM for the song....which is why pre-DAW no one ever concerned themselves about BPM fractions, and why simple wind-up metronomes still work just fine to give you the overall BPM number....or using your foot and the clock.
 
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miroslav said:
BPM was/is never about what's happening in measure 34 VS measure 42...etc......it's the Beats Per Minute of a song....it was always an average number,

It's the overall tempo of the song...aka the average.

This was my point....BMP is not a *sum* of beats during a single minute, it is the "overall" BPM of a song....as in the average.
Click to expand...

Where do you get this notion from??

BPM is a unit of measure for the rate of tempo. That's all. Nothing to do with average over a song. Well, unless you express it that way, ie, "Oh, the average tempo of that song is 120BPM." Or you can say, the tempo in bar 34 drops to 72 BPM then goes back to 120 BPM in bar 35.

BPM can change throughout a song because the tempo can change.

I know, I know, don't get into an argument with Miro. He's going to make a really long post and automatically win because of TL/DR. :rolleyes: :D j/k
 
Chili said:
Where do you get this notion from??

BPM is a unit of measure for the rate of tempo. That's all. Nothing to do with average over a song. Well, unless you express it that way, ie, "Oh, the average tempo of that song is 120BPM." Or you can say, the tempo in bar 34 drops to 72 BPM then goes back to 120 BPM in bar 35.

BPM can change throughout a song because the tempo can change.

I know, I know, don't get into an argument with Miro. He's going to make a really long post and automatically win because of TL/DR. :rolleyes: :D j/k
Click to expand...

You said it, not me. lol! :)
 
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