tempo & mood database? Options

[jkwarras]

Hi everyone,

I tried to post this on the general audio HA section without luck sometime ago. I'll try here... I would like to tag my foobar music collection with mood and tempo tag...

Hi everyone,

Let's see if someone can point me in the right direction 

I would like to tag my music collection with %mood% and %tempo% tags. I have something around 3000 files so obviously doing it one by one could be a little headache... I know about moodlogic, I installed it but I think it also overwrite other tags already present in the file. I have my music library perfectly tagged so i don't want anything but just adding tempo and mood. I didn't find any similar tool for getting these specific tags from a database (freedb or muscbrainz doesn't have these tags). Does anyone knows if there's an alternative for what I'm looking for?

Thanks a lot in advance 

[Go2Null]

me too, me too :-)

I've been doing it manually, 1 file at a time, but would love such a tool.

FYI, I use the following:

Mood
Based on Thayer, R.E. (1989). The Biopsychology of Mood and Arousal. New York: Oxford University Press. Thayer (1989) has advocated a two-dimensional model of mood, where one dimension is stress and a second dimension is arousal. The four quadrants represent
(1) Low stress, Low arousal - calm-tiredness, e.g. contentment, serenity;
(2) Low stress, High arousal - calm-energy, e.g. exuberance, euphoria, ecstatic;
(3) High stress, High arousal - tense-energy, e.g. fight/flight or freeze response, frantic; and
(4) High stress, Low arousal - tense-tiredness, e.g. depression, crankiness, dysphoria, ominous.
List: LL, LH, HH, HL.

Tempo
The speed of the rhythm of a composition. Tempo is measured according to beats per minute. A very fast tempo, prestissimo, has between 200 and 208, presto has 168 to 200, allegro has between 120 and 168, moderato has 108 to 120, andante has 76 to 108, adagio has 66 to 76, larghetto has 60 to 66, and largo, the slowest tempo, has 40 to 60.
List: S - Slow; SM - Slow with Medium; SF - Slow with Fast; M - Medium; MF - Medium with Fast; F - Fast;

[jkwarras]

I've been doing it manually, 1 file at a time, but would love such a tool.

I've read somewhere (I don't remember where) that musicbrainz plains to add support to that tags in the future, but maybe it was a dream

Mood
Based on Thayer, R.E. (1989). The Biopsychology of Mood and Arousal. New York: Oxford University Press. Thayer (1989) has advocated a two-dimensional model of mood, where one dimension is stress and a second dimension is arousal. The four quadrants represent
(1) Low stress, Low arousal - calm-tiredness, e.g. contentment, serenity;
(2) Low stress, High arousal - calm-energy, e.g. exuberance, euphoria, ecstatic;
(3) High stress, High arousal - tense-energy, e.g. fight/flight or freeze response, frantic; and
(4) High stress, Low arousal - tense-tiredness, e.g. depression, crankiness, dysphoria, ominous.
List: LL, LH, HH, HL.

Thanks for the info I think one day I'll have to tag my collection with mood. I will like that so I can do something like the moodlogic feature "feels like 'current song'". This could be +- done with Shuffle custom tag (-artist|-album|+mood|+tempo)... or if a coder wish to write a plugin like this.

Tempo
The speed of the rhythm of a composition. Tempo is measured according to beats per minute. A very fast tempo, prestissimo, has between 200 and 208, presto has 168 to 200, allegro has between 120 and 168, moderato has 108 to 120, andante has 76 to 108, adagio has 66 to 76, larghetto has 60 to 66, and largo, the slowest tempo, has 40 to 60.
List: S - Slow; SM - Slow with Medium; SF - Slow with Fast; M - Medium; MF - Medium with Fast; F - Fast;

Thanks again. I wonder if there's a quick way to know the BPM of a song. Then I could use foobar masstagger to tag it

This post has been edited by jkwarras: Aug 3 2004, 17:19

[Lyx]

good luck finding the exact BPM of a beatless track ;-) It will take you quite some time.

edit: "perceived speed" cannot be measured in BPM

edit2: a while ago i was discussing some kind of mood-database/playlist-generator plugin for fb2k.

Imho, the most intuitive way to do it would be using opposing poles on a 1-5 scale:

depressive <----------------> uplifting
cold/synthetic <------------> warm/organic
relaxed(slow speed, ambient) <---------------> energetic(high speed, gabber)

etc. etc.

With 5-6 of such scales + taking the genre-tag(less important) account, i think some fitting playlists could be created.

- Lyx

This post has been edited by Lyx: Aug 3 2004, 18:18

[Go2Null]

good luck finding the exact BPM of a beatless track ;-) It will take you quite some time.

edit: "perceived speed" cannot be measured in BPM

My conundrum exactly, which is why I took the easy way out and used Slow, Medium, Fast, and their combinations.

[jkwarras]

good luck finding the exact BPM of a beatless track ;-) It will take you quite some time.

I guess just some orientation could be fine, even if isn't the perceived speed.

I've just found this tool, it seems to automatically find BPM and tag into a id3v2 tag.

djDecks: http://www.djdecks.be/

edit2: a while ago i was discussing some kind of mood-database/playlist-generator plugin for fb2k.

This could be cool if users could share their mood and tempo tags. If only an interface was available. But i guess the hard thing could be to 'standardize' such a subjective approach about mood and tempo.

With 5-6 of such scales + taking the genre-tag(less important) account, i think some fitting playlists could be created.

That's the whole point, create 'intelligent' playlists that fit your mood

[jkwarras]

Tempo
The speed of the rhythm of a composition. Tempo is measured according to beats per minute. A very fast tempo, prestissimo, has between 200 and 208, presto has 168 to 200, allegro has between 120 and 168, moderato has 108 to 120, andante has 76 to 108, adagio has 66 to 76, larghetto has 60 to 66, and largo, the slowest tempo, has 40 to 60.
List: S - Slow; SM - Slow with Medium; SF - Slow with Fast; M - Medium; MF - Medium with Fast; F - Fast;

I'm searching a little, trying to find a table BMP-tempo. Isn't a easy task I've found two different sets, and I guess there's a lot more (I guess isn't the same perceived 'fast' tempo for Hip-Hop and for Metal....)

http://www.songpeddler.com

S - Slow; >60
SM - Slow with Medium; 61-80
M - Medium; 81-110
MF - Medium with Fast; 111-140
F - Fast; >141

http://dancing.org/music.guidelines.html

Pretty Slow; 75-105
Slow:105-135
Medium: 135-165
Fast: 165-195
Pretty Fast: 195-225

The last one follows the MMJB approach. It's for Jazz music so I don't know if it can be followed for all kind of music.

This post has been edited by jkwarras: Aug 4 2004, 16:52

[Lyx]

if you listen to ambient and other beatless music, then it will even be difficult to tap to the rhythm - because many tracks are so fluid, that there are no roadsigns and orientation-points. Yet still some tracks can feel very fast.

Even inside of a single genre, a similiar BPM-count can feel very differently - with a wide span of genres, it becomes even more difficult.

The solution, imho, is to only base the speed on the feeling and spanning the speed-rating over multiple genres (like 1=slow ambient, 5=gabber). The problem with this approach is that for it to work, the listener needs to have some experience in various genres and styles(this doesn't mean that someone needs to like all those genres and styles - just know them a bit and take them into account when rating speed).

Since many people restrict themselves to a very limited amount of genres or are scene-types, this approach would not work for the masses - ignorance and fanatism just is too widespread.

- Lyx

This post has been edited by Lyx: Aug 4 2004, 17:02

[jkwarras]

I completely agree with Lyx, so the best option would be to tag tempo for each song according to perceived speed.

But, as I'm a little lazy, I've found a cheap solution to at least have an orientation of the speed/tempo of a song. This method is merely personal and of course would not fit everyone needs, because it's 'mechanical'.

First, finally I decided to adopt this chart BPM-tempo as a pattern:

Pretty slow: <60
Slow: 61-107
Medium: 108-120
Fast: 121-200
Pretty fast: >201

This if of course totally a global solution, as tempo can't be defined accurately from BPM, it can change from a type of music to another.

1) I use PCDJ Red as auto BPM counter. It seems to work quite well. You can of course use a manual BPM counter or another tool. It writes the BPM to a id3v2 tag in the form of i.e. 102.35 bpm as %bpm%=10235.

2) As I don't like that format i transform it to a more human readable format. you can use masstagger or this tool written by Otto42. It will convert 10235 to 102.

3) Then I open foobar and I create a new entry in Quick tag plugin as this:

Display name: (whatever you want)/Find tempo from BPM

Field name: TEMPO

Value:
$if($greater(%bpm%,0),$puts(tempo,Pretty Slow))
$if($greater(%bpm%,61),$puts(tempo,Slow))
$if($greater(%bpm%,108),$puts(tempo,Medium))
$if($greater(%bpm%,121),$puts(tempo,Fast))
$if($greater(%bpm%,201),$puts(tempo,Pretty Fast))
[$get(tempo)]

4) Highlight the songs you want to find the tempo and use the Quick tag entry just created. It will write a %tempo% tag based on the chart listed above.

Any suggestion/feedback about this method would be appreciated.

PS: Maybe a more 'accurate' method would be to have a BPM-tempo chart for every genre.

This post has been edited by jkwarras: Aug 5 2004, 17:31

[jkwarras]

As posted by dlittlewick in here, I'll suggest to use Mixmeister BPM Analyzer. It's freeware and support mp3, wma and wav. Like in almost every other tool, you'll have to convert everything else (flac, vorbis, mpc, etc...) to wav and throught it to BMPAnalyzer and tag the original file yourself with the value.

So, you can do 1) and 2) for mp3, wma and wav in one step. The stored format in %bpm% is in 102.35 instead of 10235

[hit_ny]

Interesting points so far, would like to pick up on a few.

- How accurate are the BPM analysers ? Try it over many genres of music, i find with the one i use with MC, it tends to get it wrong twice as fast frequently. so i usually analyse before i listen and can make changes if reqd. Note that IMO its 80% accurate, not bad.

- Tempo has been suggested as a global catch-all for percieved speed since (ppl argue) that BPM isn't sufficient.

I would say BPM + Genre is better than Tempo. Some genres are compatible with others while some are not. I think it makes more sense to base tempo on similar genres than to use tempo on its own across all genres.

[jkwarras]

- How accurate are the BPM analysers ?

Don't really know. I've tested several (commercial and free) automatic BPM counters over the last week, and found PCDJ and BPM analyzer the best. I have 10 songs (different genres and speed) as 'testers'. What I do is see if the BPPM are +- the same between these tolls and see if the result is close to my perceived speed of the song.

Try it over many genres of music, i find with the one i use with MC, it tends to get it wrong twice as fast frequently. so i usually analyse before i listen and can make changes if reqd. Note that IMO its 80% accurate, not bad.

That's exactly what I've also found. For ex. the song 'Hurt' live version from the NIN, is what I would call a slow song. The album version if I remember correctly it's around 80 bpm. The live version is almost twice as fast, but the perceives speed is for me the same as the album version. Reading the PCDJ red forums people says that sometimes (depending on the beat the BPM analyzer take as reference) it can happens to have a twice as fast BPM counting, so you have to divide it by two to get the normal.

- Tempo has been suggested as a global catch-all for percieved speed since (ppl argue) that BPM isn't sufficient.

Yes. That's what i've read over the past weeks, when I was looking ofr a fast way of tagging the tempo. BPM is just a reference. But my guess, it's that as you says auto BPM counter gives you a 80% accurate results. I've also learned that sometimes, a song that you would have rate as fast, has a slow tempo (bpm), and the other way round.

I would say BPM + Genre is better than Tempo. Some genres are compatible with others while some are not. I think it makes more sense to base tempo on similar genres than to use tempo on its own across all genres.

You're completely right. As I sais my point was to have a quick and cheap solution, but it's obviously a 'really very far from perfect' solution. A better solution (would be to have a BPM-tempo chart for similar genres. But the question is: where to get this?

[hit_ny]

A better solution (would be to have a BPM-tempo chart for similar genres. But the question is: where to get this?

This would depend on your collection of music. So you would have to do it yourself.

Once you get through BPM tagging all your stuff. You would need to review, to make sure the BPM analyser did not get it wrong.

Then pick a genre, notice the high BPMs and lower ones which would define your tempo limits for that genre.

Repeat for all genres.

As your knowledge in different genres increases (as well as your music library), make appropriate adjustments.

I'm still in the process of reviewing my collection and making BPM corrections.

The harder thing for me to grasp is mood. What descriptions to use there

Here's what i found reading across different web boards.

mood
None (this should leave a blank/whitespace)
Wild
Upbeat
Morose
Tranquil
Comatose


Situation
None (this should leave a blank/whitespace)
Dance
Party
Romantic
Dinner
Background
Seasonal
Rave
Drunken Brawl

Another categorisation from www.allmusic.com

Energizing, Exciting

Soothing, Relaxing

Dense, Thick

Light, Free, Transparent

Harsh, Aggressive

Gentle, Peaceful

Cold, Firm

Warm, Soft

Bright, Dynamic, Ornate

Low Key, Calm, Melancholic

Popular, Plain, Simple

Elaborate, Sophisticated

Dark, Pessimistic, Bitter

Light, Cheerful, Sweet

Emotional, Sensual, Playful

Sober, Arranged, Proper

There's quite a few descriptions there, but have not decided on one as yet.

[jkwarras]

This would depend on your collection of music. So you would have to do it yourself.

I'm sure a sort of 'standard' tempo chart must exist for ex. for rock, metal, techno, trance, etc... So if anyone knows something about that please share it with us

Then pick a genre, notice the high BPMs and lower ones which would define your tempo limits for that genre.

Repeat for all genres.

As your knowledge in different genres increases (as well as your music library), make appropriate adjustments.

But at least this is a good solution.

The harder thing for me to grasp is mood. What descriptions to use there

Yes this is a dificult one. Nothing is standard, different programs use different definitions.

mood
  None (this should leave a blank/whitespace)
  Wild
  Upbeat
  Morose
  Tranquil
  Comatose

This is the one from MMJB. Seems simple to me, but useful.

Situation

Is a sort of alternative mood tag, and it's really subjective. It's really useful and the descriptions used seems quite good to me.

Another categorisation from www.allmusic.com

The categorisation used by allmusic it's really interesting and I like the aproach. but it uses too much moods and it's for an entire album/artist (not per song). But it's a quick solution (that I would certainly use)

Another one I've found out there it's related to the energy (your energy):
- Low-Energy
- Medium-Energy
- High-Energy

The simplest I've found and I think that sometimes simple is better It covers every energy level you could have.

[deliibrahim]

me too, me too :-)

I've been doing it manually, 1 file at a time, but would love such a tool.

FYI, I use the following:

Mood
Based on Thayer, R.E. (1989). The Biopsychology of Mood and Arousal. New York: Oxford University Press. Thayer (1989) has advocated a two-dimensional model of mood, where one dimension is stress and a second dimension is arousal. The four quadrants represent
(1) Low stress, Low arousal - calm-tiredness, e.g. contentment, serenity;
(2) Low stress, High arousal - calm-energy, e.g. exuberance, euphoria, ecstatic;
(3) High stress, High arousal - tense-energy, e.g. fight/flight or freeze response, frantic; and
(4) High stress, Low arousal - tense-tiredness, e.g. depression, crankiness, dysphoria, ominous.
List: LL, LH, HH, HL.

Great info there, thanks!!

bye the way, the bpm program sucks.... don't try it....

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