Monday, November 27, 2006

Geek moment #0x3c52ab9

For no particular reason: the beat frequency between the LEDs on the CAN-enabled PICs blinking on my desk and the Ben Folds song "All U Can Eat" is ~0.06Hz.

I wonder how you make a program that can automatically detect the bpm of a song (for syncing with slideshows, for instance)? Low-pass it and look for regular spikes at bass drum frequencies? There's always the option of having someone tap on the spacebar in rhythm to the first 30 seconds of a song, then averaging the time between taps.

Okay, now I'm just procrastinating.

2 comments:

Mel said...

On second thought, I'm an idiot: just have them tap for 30 seconds and double the number of taps.

Of course, this doesn't work for songs that change tempo midway - you'd have to - AAH MEL GET BACK TO WORK.

Grant Hutchins said...

Just to confirm for you (since I use BPM detection from time to time), both methods are widely used.