brilliant! sure its not been done? because music therapy is getting bigger n bigger! :)

Fossiloflife,

Not to my knowledge. I have searched long and far but failed to find any such technology. There are still lots of technical details to resolve. Thanks for your support.

I really like this idea. It would be really cool if you could link it up with a heart monitor so that you can start on something slower and as your heart beat rises, your music will get more intense! And if you are going to do that then you may wish to put in other sensors as well such as calories burned, minutes worked out, target heart rate, etc. This sounds like a great product! Keep up the good work.

This is a great idea. I have been doing this for a while the manual way...it would be great to click "generate playlist" or something by BPM just like I can by genre etc...

lol, great idea. 5*

Professional dance dj's would use this feature as well. Good job!

definitely like the idea.. now if I only used iTunes..

Nice idea - how would you avoid being copied by existing media players like Winamp or Microso$t for what is essentially a "feature"?

I was thinking that perhaps linking this to a hearbeat monitor for when you're exercising would be cool so that it keeps the tunes at a level similar to where your heartrate is heading but then I thought that it could keep spiralling upwards as the music increasingly motivates your effort levels and it may just well be your last exercise lession before ending up in hospital! :)

Novel idea though.

like it

bcforrester then go for it! am waitin! :)

..i thought something like this was around a month ago?

Siddey,

Not sure how to avoid copycats. The idea would be to get a beta out there quickly, sell enough to make some decent coin (sell to .5M @ $20 = $10M), then work on improving the program.
Lots of possibilities for sharing favorite workout playlists, linking into existing sites like the nike/ipod mileage site etc.

one step closer to cyborgs...

I like it. Maybe the business model is to sell the BPM detection technology to Gracenote, then every player out there would have access to the BPM info and existing mechanisms for sorting by track properties could be used for the playlist organization?

MCF,

Thanks for your support and comments.

Yes this is indeed a possible avenue to explore. I have used the CDDB (now Gracenote) to get my CD info. However, this is a free service - how would I get some profit? I suppose if I get enough on the initial sell, however it would be nice to get a cent per song...

I do use my iPod while training for a marathon, and use the on-the-go feature for songs I want to listen while running, but typically since my runs are more tempo vs speed runs my heartrate maintains the same pace and a song's beat would not affect me either way.

I like the idea, but separate from running not sure that I would need a warm up tune while warming up, when a higher energy level song would serve me well at the warm up phase. Can't one already program songs in advance either iPod or Mp3, CD to correlate with the level of the activity during the exercise?

Aside from my perceived pessimism (it's just my analytical side coming out), I think the idea has some legs, you may consider what was suggested earlier, add features such as measure heart rate, calories and maybe tie into a computer program that keeps track of the data.

The ability to program songs by speed and energy level (some of us are more leisurely than others) is huge. I too have had to whip out my ipod during a walk to find something more speed appropriate. Anything to do with i-anything has a perceived value and should obtain a certain level of respect and credibility. Might want to make sure that Steve Jobs doesn't have the letter "i" in front of a word trademarked though.
I like it very much.......

Beincollusion,

Thanks for you support.

I am sure that Steve won't mind using "i" ;-) I do know of a iBeat
name being used for headphones. Not sure of the legalities... anyone?

Hi there,

Very nice idea. There is a similar concept at http://www.mixalbum.com

This was a business pitched successfully on the TV show "Dragons' Den" in the UK.

It's similar in the sense that at the core there is an algorithm that determines BPM for music tracks, although in this case it was aimed at seemlessly mixing dance tracks (as you mention above), rather than producing playlists for working out.

The pertinent questions for me are:

1) Can it be protected (through a patent)?
2) What's the most sensible distribution channel?

As for 1, I don't know. It's an innovative use of technology that already exists (there are obviously bits of software that determines the BPM of music and displays nice level meters), so maybe.

As for 2, I agree with the above posters, a launch as a plug-in with an existing media player, then a licensing agreement with iTunes (or whoever) to generate a recurring royalty on a per download basis.

Chris Poad

done and being improved? =(

Hi Bcforeester,

How does this idewa differ form donh's (coCHers): ImAGE BEAT?
http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/XxBbPqS/
i know there's a big difference but seems cousin's.

also GHostar's :BPM Music Organizer seems an elder brother...
http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/tNaKC5e/

... hope you could share notes! =)

-saigon

I have no idea how this idea relates to donh's Image Beat...in any case, I'd use something like this when working out, for sure. I'd also like to be able to select my favorites and have them play a little bit faster/slower to match the BPM that I'm running at!

The idea is definitely not new. Its ben around since the 1970s and currently being developed Check this out:

http://links.jstor.o...in=JSTOR-enlargePage

Sorry i cant give you a good vote.

-RFP

Well I'll most def give you 5 stars for this. I'd use if for parties because exercising is for healthy people pssssshh.

But seriously. I went on a rampage last summer and tried to fill in every info slot for all of my 17,431 songs on itunes (no repeats except for live albums btw). When it came time to finding the bpm, i was pretty pissed that itunes didnt do it itself. But i did find a way around that. I used Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) together with a Nyquist Plug-In that finds the average bpm of a song (some songs have multiple bpms, not gonna mess with that). I then found, after weeks of searching, a small script that allowed you to do batch processing and export it to itunes. I've been looking for it for you but I can't seem to find it.

The point of all that was that it CAN be done and pretty easy. I'm not a big programmer but i'm fluent in opensource nyquist.

Hope that helps :)

Oohh ok so i have an idea to add to yours if you like it.

So say somebodies working out, and they want their workout to start off slow and then gradually gain speed. You could to this with the music. Just select a starting BPM and an Ending bpm and your desired play time and press go. It'll bring up a playlist that plays from slowest to fastest within your BPM range and for however long you set the time.

YOu like?

Thanks all for your comments to date. I am currently at an ADL (advance distributed training) conference in Orlando and have just found a hot spot. I will start checking out the sites you have provided - much appreciated.

Patrick, I will definitely check out the sites you provided. I believe that if it can be done easily and integrated into iTunes and other MP3 programs, then people will buy it rather then hack as you so intelligently did. I have been reading about how this might be accomplished and also thinking about the problem of variable BMP songs.

I still think that idea is viable and, if for no one else, will try to program this from myself.

Cheers
Bruce

Great idea, how would you be able to implement the technology?

good idea any idea where you would start?