BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface.
Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.
BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface.
Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.
Please get rid of the front/back animation of covers, it is useless, very laggy and brings nothing except beachballing heartache. We live in the age of flat design not creepy make-believe 3D shadow land.
Like
Version 4.5.4
1 answer(s)
Big Johnson
09 January 2016
Why you posting that here instead of contacting the developer?
The more I use this software, the more frustrated I get. When I first downloaded it, I thought it was a really fresh way of looking at my music. What I needed was a way to look at the bpm and time signature of the tracks for Ice Dance. In an email exchange with the company, it turns out that the time signature algorithm does not work for most songs. It was not even working on tracks that were so obviously 3/4.
The other problem I have is how laggy it is. I am running this on a 4GHz Quad Core i7 with 16GB RAM and a 3TB Fusion drive. So it should be smooth. The problem is that when the software is running anything, the music controls grind to a halt. So, for example, I am currently looking for a roughly 100 bpm Christmas track for a skating number. I set the system to analyze a selection of holiday songs, and then tried to start listening to them as they BPM values filled in. You click the play button and then you have to wait for it to start. To go to the next track you have to click pause and wait longer for it to stop. It is so slow. If you want to change the volume you have to try and turn the microdot in the top right corner! Who could possible think that was a good idea!!! SLIDERS are the way to go!
On to matching! I wanted the software to match tracks from my holiday library to Blue Christmas (95bpm). So, I set up the matching and nothing happened. So I switched to the whole library and it was fine. So I added the "Holiday" Genre and all the songs went away. In the end I went to iTunes, selected Smart Playlist (Genre and BPM Range) and I was done in seconds.
Do not make the same mistake I did. Test the software carefully before you hand over your $35! If I had known the time signature algorithm was little more than a "joke" I would not have bothered. I'm going to try again later when I've calmed down a bit and emailed the company for help, but right now I am very frustrated with it. If I figure out the matching I will post an update!
Like
Version 4.5.2
4 answer(s)
Meister-Fritz
04 October 2015
Yeah, with that hardware configuration, which is similar to mine, the application should run smoothly.
Like
hs-1
11 November 2015
Sorry you're having such a bad time with beaTunes.
Just one hopefully helpful comment:
> If you want to change the volume you have to try and turn the microdot in the top right corner! Who could possible think that was a good idea!!! SLIDERS are the way to go!
You can actually click anywhere on that knob and move the mouse left or right, exactly like you would with a slider. Just the visualization is a little different.
If you need any more help/advice, please contact me in the support forum at http://help.beatunes.com/
Like (1)
pcharles
11 November 2015
Since posting the original review, there have been a number of updates (currently 4.5.5.) and it seems like the time signature is starting to fill in during analysis, but it still does not seem to recognize waltzes. I would think that is the easiest to spot. It is
I don't agree that the circle and slider are the "same" concept because I find the circle a lot more difficult to use.
The big problem is still the amount of time it takes to start and stop a track while the software is running an analysis. It almost feels like the software is incapable of handling multitasking, or whatever it is called now.
Despite its technical issues, the software is still pretty useful, although it would be nice if the time signature could recognize 3/4 time.
Like
dbaps2
12 March 2016
If we could just have software that does a file match and keeps the higher bitrate I will be thrilled. Does anything do this now? I can't find it. Sure, software will look inside Itunes to do it, but nothing for just a file structure of music. Oh well...
I have this app and am somewhat disappointed with it.
I still do not understand why this app has to have iTunes start/run in the background. Such a waste of CPU resources.
Also you can not apply AU plug-ins to enhance the tracks and give the audio tracks your own sound.
Still prefer Fidelia because it does not run iTunes in the background and you can apply AU plug-ins.
Also it is a bit pricey for what it really can not do.
Like (1)
Version 4.5.1
1 answer(s)
hs-1
11 November 2015
> I still do not understand why this app has to have iTunes start/run in the background. Such a waste of CPU resources.
One of beaTunes' primary features is to correct and calculate metadata (like name, bpm, etc.) and store this data in either the files, iTunes, or both.
If you are using iTunes at all, and using an iTunes-based library, beaTunes communicates all changes to iTunes, so that the data shown in iTunes is always current. This is done via AppleScript (or COM on Windows). For it to work, iTunes *must* be running (wish it wasn't so).
If you don't care about iTunes at all and can live with it showing outdated data, you can also use a so called folder-based library. In that case, beaTunes does not need iTunes to run.
More info about different kinds of beaTunes libraries can be found at http://blog.beatunes.com/2015/01/different-libraries-for-different-needs.html
> Still prefer Fidelia because it does not run iTunes in the background and you can apply AU plug-ins.
I hardly know the software, but my impression is that it aims at being a great audio player. That, and nothing else.
beaTunes on the other hand tries to be an audio analysis and metadata correction tool, which helps you to build playlists. And yes, it also has an audio player built in—but that's not the primary focus.
Kudos to the developer for turning around this project. Thanks for bringing the app up to speed, so Java that is embedded is up to date. 4.5 stars, lost .5 stars for waiting to be called out on the problem before addressing. :)
I have been using this App for several years and find it indispensable. My iTunes music library, over 40,000 tunes, would have grown totally out of control without the beaTunes and the great inspection function it has. In addition the Analysis function is key to identifying additional characteristics for each tune and in developing outstanding playlists.
Support is very responsive and extremely knowledgable so that you get fast responses and responses that address any issue you might have without a long string of back and forth conversation.
Thanks for this great App.
Cliff
Is there a reason beaTunes can't use OS X native Notification Center dialog boxes...instead of fake ones that look...well...fake?
Like (1)
Version 4.0.1
2 answer(s)
Beatunes
25 July 2014
AFAIK, no program uses OS X Notification Center dialog boxes, when it's in the foreground. That's just the way it is. When beaTunes is in the background, it uses OS X Notification Center dialog boxes like any other software.
Another new version of MacUpdate.com. What’s wrong, near total monopoly not good enough for ‘ya?
Used to be that mousing over any of the 'Similar Software' superimposed over each app’s icon its short description, price and rating — what happened to that? I’m sure as hell not going to click on each app’s icon and visit its MacUpdate page just to learn those admittedly important bits of info, so this is an obvious and rather large DOWNGRADE of this site’s capabilities, no?
Like (3)
Version 4.0.0
1 answer(s)
Big Johnson
22 June 2015
What's that got to do with the featured app?
Do you really think the MU webmasters spend their time perusing all these reviews and comments for "helpful suggestions" like your complaint?
If you don't have time to click a link or two to learn more about a similar app you might be interested in, then maybe you shouldn't be wasting time ranting about the website where no one who cares will see it.
I suggest you direct your anger to the Support page: http://support.macupdate.com/contact/
I have emailed one of the MU employees many times about site issues such as dead or broken links, and they've always responded promptly.
Version 4 still prompts to install Java 6?
Really?
Like
Version 4.0.0
7 answer(s)
Beatunes
21 July 2014
It does? Really?
Because it comes with a bundled Java 8 and does not need Java 6.
Like
Donmontalvo
21 July 2014
Yes, I got prompted to install Java 6. I'm happy to help test if you need me to.
Like
Beatunes
21 July 2014
That would be great!
I can't reproduce the issue. Can you show me what it looks like?
I.e. record a screencast with QuickTime (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5882?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US) when launching beaTunes 4 that shows the message? Please post it to http://help.beatunes.com/
Many thanks in advance!
Like
Beatunes
22 July 2014
Hey Donmontalvo, any chance you were able to take that screen recording? Thanks.
Like
Donmontalvo
22 July 2014
I rebuilt the Mac and downloaded beaTunes 4 and did't get the prompt.
Like (1)
Beatunes
22 July 2014
That's great news! Thanks for checking this again. Would you mind editing your rating? It seems to be purely based on the Java 6 issue.
Like
Donmontalvo
22 July 2014
I would if I could. In hindsight it should have been a comment and not a rating.
If MacUpdate folks are reading this, can this be changed to a comment?
I'm sorry, but in today's world, Java and Flash are dirty words.
BeaTunes, I love you, but, well...bye.
Don
Like (6)
Version 3.5.19
5 answer(s)
Donmontalvo
04 June 2014
To be clear, BeaTunes requires Java 6...which has been end-of-life'd. This means BeaTunes requires something that puts your computer at risk.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html
Like
Donmontalvo
04 June 2014
...and:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/java-archive-downloads-javase6-419409.html
"WARNING: These older versions of the JRE and JDK are provided to help developers debug issues in older systems. They are not updated with the latest security patches and are not recommended for use in production."
Like
Beatunes
25 August 2014
Just to point out that this post does not apply anymore to beaTunes 4.
Yes, beaTunes 4 does still use Java, but it uses the current Java 8 (not Apple's Java 6) and does not require the Java Browser Plugin, which is the cause of most security concerns.
Flash of course, was never used by beaTunes in the first place.
Like (1)
Chelidon
26 March 2015
Agreed if they used obsolete or depreciated versions and methods, which the current version, it seems, does not. But at least they're not using Silverlight or something similarly awful.
Like
Palashdave
30 March 2015
@MUPromo people, it would be really helpful if this (formerly VERY useful) post could somehow be downgraded or retired, given that – as the developer has posted in this thread, and as the OP has brilliantly acknowledged in a new thread – the problem it identifies has now been obviated! The trouble is this particular (now outdated) post comes second in the ranking of Reviews by "Most Helpful". One understands why that is, but it'd be good if MUPromo had a standard procedure (perhaps moderated, perhaps admitting of a process of developer appeal) for moving posts such as these further down the rankings.
This software needs to have its error handling revamped. They need to IMMEDIATELY supply a 64bit version that actually uses my system memory (i have 12 gigs of ram + swap but this shitty software only uses 1280 m or so = 10% of availiable memory) and it constantly chokes on having to little memory availiable. It is highly unstable and when it crashes you don't even get an onscreen message it just sits on the screen looking just as if it is still working)
Like (1)
Version 3.5.16
3 answer(s)
AndreasB9012
14 October 2013
The above is regarding the Windows version
Like
Beatunes
15 October 2013
I'm working on a 64 bit version for Windows, a beta version and more info about this topic is available here: http://blog.beatunes.com/2013/09/64-bit-on-windows-round-2.html
On OS X, beaTunes has been 64 bit for a long time.
I needed something to help me quickly (meaning over the course of a few days) analyze my entire music library before a DJ gig after transferring all of my music to a new hard drive. beaTunes was very efficient and fairly straightforward to use. It wasn't 100% accurate, but out of a library of several thousand songs it was easily in the 95th percentile for accuracy. I could live with that.
beaTunes even detects the key and tempo (BPM) of each song. Those features alone saved me several hours of tedious work. It's easy to sort music by genre, but a DJ needs more information than that. beaTunes did well by me - not perfect, but very, very good.
No ratings yet...as I am currently starting a test run with this software..... Gonna throw 240,000 MP3s at it and see what happens. Currently it is synchronizing with my music library. Throwing a few log entries out there as it works....but progressing nicely. Will add more as we go along.
Like (3)
Version 3.0.12
5 answer(s)
MacZapIt
22 January 2012
Processed my library....now doing the inspection.... Got the Program's window up in the background right now. Not slowing my Mac Mini at all..... Seems to be chewing it's way through 240,000 MP3s without a hitch so far. More later....
Like (1)
MacZapIt
23 January 2012
Finished the inspection.....display window opened upwith all the issues that it found.....MANY.... THEN FROZE...... Had to force quit........ Restarted it....came up with a locked database....chose to unlock the database and continue..... Waiting now.......
Like (2)
MacZapIt
24 January 2012
CRASH......Not responding is what I am getting now.... It has managed to lock up my mac several times....reboot....and try to start again....spinning wheel....and NOT RESPONDING. Kills the bottom dock also. The only way to make it go away is to FORCE QUIT. Will keep checking this....but a NO GO for me! Maybe if they can fix it and get it to handle 240,000 MP3s... You would have thought that they would have already tested it with a ton of MP3s.......
Anybody have any remedy for the lock up?
Any similar experiences? How many MP3s in your library?
Like (2)
MacZapIt
24 January 2012
Saved it!! Read through their FAQs...and gave the program more memory 2GB.....started watching the Activity Monitor and the beaTunes log files..... Things started moving.....Playlists were being built....The window filled in...I could adjust the preferences....and just started deleting my duplicates. Hooray.....
And I just payed for a license.
After a few minor hiccups....and a few manual adjustments....working like a charm. Well worth the money! Buy this.
Don't assume it is hung....look at your logs and your activity monitor....and give this baby enough memory........
Like (6)
Beatunes
06 February 2012
Thanks for the positive review!
The average music library contains a couple of thousand songs and the default settings work well for a collection that size.
Your collection clearly falls in the *very large* category and adjusting the memory settings like you did is absolutely the right thing to do.
For others: Here's the corresponding link, http://www.beatunes.com/beatunes-outofmemoryerror.html
Also, if you experience issues, please simply contact us at http://help.beatunes.com/
Thank you.
I have been a Beatunes user since version 1 and I just purchased an upgrade license from v2 to v3.
I can't live without this soft. It saves hours of management of iTunes Library, fixing misspellings, genres, etc.
BPM function is great and having the (accurate) BPM information in Traktor's iTunes list is great !
A must-have for anybody who wants to manage iTunes Library without pain.
Macbook Pro 2.3 GHz - 10.6.8 - iTunes 10.3.1 with 1TB+ of music
Note: I meant to give 5 stars for features but for some reason it's stuck at 3?
beaTunes is one of the essential tools for anyone who wants to get the most out of their iTunes library and ver. 3 puts into the elite group of analysis tools. As a DJ, I find the key and bpm analysis to be extremely accurate and endlessly useful but anyone who love music and wants better ways to understand how to organize their library will find a lot of value with beaTunes.
I've been using it since 1.0 and one of the best things about beaTunes is the support of the developer, which I rate a 5+++. He really cares about the product and is always willing to help and to listen to user feedback.
Also, I've used beaTunes on Mac and Windows and it works identically, which is a positive result of the Java code base (don't let the Java codebase turn you off, it works very well).
It's very discouraging that Apple's needlessly restrictive policies have kept a well established app like beaTunes out of the Mac App Store. Let's keep supporting other avenues for Mac app distribution like MacUpdate!
beaTunes saved my library. After years of ripping cd's that were eventually stollen from my car. My only copies were in iTunes. After using another app that miss named half my collection I was able to use beaTunes to find and repair the damage that was done. I now have a clean iTunes library with no duplicates. Overall the small amount of money I paid for beaTunes has saved me thousands of dollars.
Another thing I really like is how the creator of beaTunes has passion for what he has created. He seems to always be on the look out for how it can be refined and improved. It brings a lot of comfort knowing this application that i think is a need to have for anyone with iTunes is being actively maintained.
Pretty good app, really slow if you have a huge iTunes library
Like (3)
Version 2.1.18
1 answer(s)
AndreasB9012
14 October 2013
It's really slow for anything but a modest music collection. I specified the maximum possible memory settings and still ran in to trouble doing only one of the many options to detect and update tags (in this case colour) and i still had to split all my music in to 8 separate directories for the app to even manage this single analysis task (moving into separate DIRs meant corrupting all paths to my music, used in several other music apps).
It is long after 2006 and I can't believe there is not a 64bit version of BeaTunes with decent memory support.
beaTunes is indispensable for cleaning up tags where I have multiple ratings for the same songs, or little-used genres, misspellings, etc. It works directly with my iTunes database, so I don't need to drag-n-drop files onto it to analyze them. The only thing missing in my book is album art, but I use TuneUp for that work.
Developer is very responsive and puts out version updates with regularity.
Like the app, bought it yesterday. May I suggest a multiple criteria sort function in the future. Possibly it has it already and I havent noticed.
Like
Version 2.1.7
2 answer(s)
Charnk
29 April 2010
Commenting on my own previous review. This app rarely, if ever, determines the correct BPM and for the library inspection, my library is more chaotic than ever. I should have spent a longer time with the trial period. I fail to see any use for this except determination of key, of which, Ill probably find out is also useless. Beware. Customers conduct a long trial of this product before purchasing. Odds are, getting a free BPM analyzer will work better and youll save time and money.
Like (4)
Version 2.1.7
Beatunes
14 July 2010
Sorry you had such a bad experience.
Regarding the inspection feature - it really does not do anything by itself. It merely suggests solutions you yourself then can actively choose. So in a way, beaTunes' inspection can't really mess anything up without you being the initiator (note, that this is different, when you import data from musicip/amplifind, which is an analysis step one has to be careful with).
Regarding accuracy, unfortunately, there is no third party comparison that I know of for BPM. But there is a recent one for key detection: http://www.djtechtools.com/2009/11/02/key-analysis-software-smackdown/
beaTunes' accuracy is equal to that of much more expensive tools that offer a lot less functionality.
@developer
The "mipcore" process launches multiple threads, and they keep running after all tasks are done, or even after beatunes quit altogether. They take 100% processor load and often keep running for so long for no apparent reason while the program should be idle and have to be force quit.
(OSX 10.6.2 / 2.1 - 2.1.1 - 2.1.2)
Like (1)
Version 2.1.2
1 answer(s)
Beatunes
18 February 2010
The mipcore process is a piece of software from http://www.amplifindmusicservices.com/ (formerly MusicIP) - we are talking to them to get the related problems resolved.
"Replace existing song properties" was the biggest mistake one can make. It split most of my CDs into several pieces, a few songs in each. Now I don't even know where to start fixing this mess, library looks like a war zone.
Like (1)
Version 2.1
3 answer(s)
Steven-Goodheart
06 January 2010
Whoa, total bummer. Hope you've been able to sort all that out. I just looked around the Prefs and couldn't find the "Replace existing song properties" setting, but it does ring a bell. Is that a preference, or is that an option after an analysis? (I haven't used the program in several months, and just don't recall.) Anyway, if this option can munge, I'd like to know where that choice appears, if you have time to reply. Thanks!
Like
Version 2.1.1
Mcusr
06 January 2010
@Steven
It's an analyze option to fetch info from MusicIP.com
PS: the mess is fixed after a few hours. Some things had to be just deleted as I couldn't figure out where they were in the first place. If the song of a compilation ever existed on a separate album, it made an album with one song in it, dropping all info about where it was before. So I guess you have to be careful. I'm not saying the app is bad, but it can mess things up.
Like
Version 2.1.1
Steven-Goodheart
06 January 2010
MCUSER -- Thanks! Ah, I thnk I actually recall that now, but out of sheer conservatism, not insight, didn't think I'd trust MusicIP.com right off the bat, because I'd already done so much work on my library and wasn't sure what MusicIP would preserve or respect...whew, looks like I dodged a bullet! But yes this program *still* rocks, and continues to amaze me with its horsepower and features. Your post actually inspired me to do some more "massaging" of my library with beaTunes. :)
Thanks for taking the time to explain! Best wishes, Steve
This is an astonishingly powerful and useful program. I have other programs to fix problems with my iTunes songs and library (Media Rage and Jaikoz) but nothing that I know of does the kind of intelligent fixing that beaTunes does.
The BPM, color, key matching/manipulating feature are amazing, and again, unique, so far as I know. This program gives you the horsepower to make some truly amazing playlists, discovering relationships between songs you'd never think of yourself, but when you hear, they make total sense.
The program is easy to use, and fun to use. Some of the features, like determining the BPM for songs, can take time the first time this is determined, but the more you use it, the "smarter" your iTune library becomes, so to speak. You really can make some amazing correlations, and learn a lot about the music you have.
Be warned, though, the program's addictive! You can spend hours having fun with your music and learning all about it. I've made some of my most enjoyable and fascinating playlists with this program, plus beaTunes does all the mundane kinds of fixing that the other song maintenance programs I have do. If you consider the "smarts" of this program, and all it's features, I think it's well worth the price if you're a music buff.
beaTunes 2.0
I get the impression they want $31.00 more if you want to use 2.00. That's a lot of money when you use it sparingly and just paid off the last version.
I short; there should be an upgrade price and not 'one size fits all.
I'm unhappy with this.
Charlie
I stand corrected! There is a very minimum upgrade for this newest version.
I should have read that (somewhere) that it was only $11 to renew. I'm right back on board and please forgive me.
Charlie
in general there is a lot of potential, but also many shortcomings:
- I cannot tell the program to keep existing cover art even if the program wants to add another one. I either have no art and get a new one or I have to let it overwrite what is there. Ever heard that there can be multiple covers in a file?
- it is crash king! I had to turn off the "update when closing" function, as I nearly always lost all of my changes at the end, because the program crashed when writing back the data to iTunes.
If this becomes more stable and a bit more intelligent I will certainly buy it!
Like (5)
Version 1.2.12
2 answer(s)
Beatunes
03 September 2008
Andreas,
1) beaTunes does not modify covert art at all.
2) beaTunes does not offer an "update when closing" function.
Maybe you meant to review another software?
If not, please email us at support (at) beaTunes.com - we'd love to figure out what's going wrong.
Like (5)
Version 1.2.13
Astraub
14 September 2008
Hi,
sorry about my previous comments - they were indeed about a different program. So just ignore my previous post.
Greetings
Hi! I'm beaTunes. I love RAM. Munch, munch, munch. I love to eat up RAM and swallow it whole. Mac OS X Advanced memory management? Ha! I'll still take all available RAM with a side of virtual pageouts and eat them with fava beans and a glass of chianti.
This program is FANTASTIC at determining the BPM for your songs but it does suck the life out of Mac OS's memory system and it does crash. Often.
Despite this, it's a wonderful program with incredible potential. Thanks bea people!
Like (2)
Version 1.2.3
6 answer(s)
Beatunes
30 October 2007
beaTunes 2 will feature improved memory management for large collections.
Like (1)
Version 1.2.3
Ssnickerer
28 November 2007
=)
Like
Version 1.2.6
Getsomesauce
05 February 2008
Thanks again beaPeople! You're the best! I love watching this app mature.
Like
Version 1.2.7
TSMelo
07 May 2008
Funny thread...
So, where is beaTunes 2 ??? Will we ever get to see it in action???
Like
Version 1.2.9
Beatunes
07 May 2008
Yes, we'll see beaTunes 2 - hopefully in the summer. I really wish we'd be done already, but good things take some time...
Like
Version 1.2.9
Beatunes
26 June 2008
We started posting Early Access versions for beaTunes 2. See http://www.beatunes.com/news/labels/Early%20Access.html for details
The program is really cool, but it keeps crashing when I try to enter lyrics. I'm using a MacBook 13" Mac OS X Version 10.4.10 with a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processors.
Like
Version 1.2.3
1 answer(s)
Beatunes
19 October 2007
Please contact us at support (at) beatunes.com We'd love to figure out why beaTunes crashes in your enviornment.
It says you can automatically determine the BPM of a song, but last time I downloaded it I first had to choose a range. Is there a way to bypass this and just have beaTunes determine it for me?
Like
Version 1.2
1 answer(s)
Beatunes
08 August 2007
You are correct - one first has to choose a range. Typically 70-140 BPM covers most music. The reason for this is explained in our FAQ.
Peter Gabriel's "The Filter" is cross-platform (also Nokia phones) and free of charge. You can get it here:
http://www.thefilter.com/
Like
Version 1.1.6
1 answer(s)
Doug-S-
08 August 2007
You seem to have forgotten to mention one tiny yet highly important fact:
The Filter is COMPLETELY different than beaTunes.
beaTunes analyses the BMP (beats per minute) and uses this information to create playlists. The Filter uses an online database that keeps data on the likes and dislikes of all it's users and uses that information to recommend songs to you.
The reason why I'd prefer something like beatTunes over The Filter is beaTunes relies only on you having iTunes and whatever tracks. The Filter requires a broadband connection, iTunes and the songs which have to be labelled how they choose.
They also say that even very common songs might not be recognised if the track info is different, which can be even by a character. Also, if you're someone like me who has an extremely large collection of music, you're bound to have quite a bit of stuff they do not have in their database, making it useless.
From now on before you make comments about why to choose one free software over another, make sure you're comparing two software that actually do the same thing. Try Tangerine! if you want to compare beaTunes to something.
I got very friendly and fast support from the developers. Now it works as promised und I love it!
The problem I had, had nothing to do with beatunes, but with a corrupted DivX installation.
By the way: "The Inspector" is an awsome bonus-feature beside the BPM-Detection, since it helps me to correct Id3-Tags very fast and to delete dead entries in my iTunes-Library!
Thumbs up!
I love the Idea of beaTunes. Its a type of tool I am always looking for, because it helps cleaning my huge collection and moreover provides another way to create auomatically built playlists.
BUT: So far it did not work with my iTunes-Library on my external HD. It just does not save/sync the results...
I'd buy it, if I knew it just works on my G4 powerbook. The Shareware method limiting time I do not like. If I just could do a max of 10 files, I could try subsequent versions and test them on my PB.
Like
Version 1.0.7
2 answer(s)
Beatunes
29 September 2006
We have tested beaTunes with external harddrives and it should work fine (granted that the hd is connected during analysis). Please feel free to send us your log files from ~/Library/Logs/beaTunes/ and we will investigate what went wrong.
support (a) beatunes.com
Like
Version 1.0.7
Bango
03 October 2006
I got very friendly, competent and fast support from the developers. Now it works as promised und I love it!
The problem I had, had nothing to do with beatunes itself, but with a corrupted DivX installation.
By the way: "The Inspector" is an awsome bonus-feature beside the BPM-Detection, since it helps me to correct Id3-Tags very fast and to delete dead entries in my iTunes-Library!
Thumbs up!
Given all the mixed reviews that have floated to the top, I just wanted to throw out my two cents... which is that this application is just fabulous! I've been waiting for ages for something that could intelligently help me sort through the chaos of id3 tags and duplicate files that plague my growing-faster-than-I-can-listen-to-or-sort-properly music collection. At times it gives strange results when finding "duplicates", but those are easy enough to ignore, and I'm sure it will improve in future iterations. I'd jump to buy it a bit quicker if it were priced a bit lower (maybe 15?), but I'll probably still end up paying once the trial runs out :-)
The version I downloaded (0.9) is not universal binary. furthermore it lock up on my macbook pro. too bad.
Like
Version 0.9
3 answer(s)
Beatunes
14 July 2006
beaTunes is a Java program. As such it uses the appropriate Java stub to launch. This stub is a 'thin' PPC stub. Thin means, that it is smart enough to recognize the Intel environment and switches over to a native Intel launcher right away. According to Apple the overhead is minimal. beaTunes is not run under Rosetta and the native parts of beaTunes are compiled as Universal Binaries.
For more information please refer to http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2005/qa1295.html and http://lists.apple.com/archives/java-dev/2006/Jan/thrd2.html#00353 especially http://lists.apple.com/archives/java-dev/2006/Jan/msg00353.html and http://lists.apple.com/archives/java-dev/2006/Jan/msg00389.html
What beaTunes definitely shouldn't do is to lock up your machine and we'd be more than glad to take a look at that. If you are interested in support, please send us your log files from ~/Library/Logs/beaTunes/.
Like
Version 0.9
Erik-K-Veland
18 July 2006
Try moving the app to the Application folder. It won't launch otherwise apparently. No documentation regarding this sadly :(
Like
Version 0.9
Beatunes
18 July 2006
Well, to quote from the website (http://www.beatunes.com/beatunes-download.html):
"Installation
Download the file below und unzip it. Review the file README.txt. Then drag the file called beaTunes.app into your Applications folder. To launch beaTunes, double-click it."
So it's there and has beeen there. But you are right, the remark should probably also be added to the Readme file.
However, beaTunes has no dependency to the Applications folder and should launch from any other folder. It is just good practice to move it to the Applications folder.
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but whenever I use "Tap Beat" it asks me if I want to save the new BPM value I have determined, but when I say "OK," it doesn't save the new value but just reverts to the one I'm trying to change.
The only way I can change a BPM to its proper value is to use Tap Beat to figure out what it is, and then try to re-analyze the track in that range and hope it comes out right. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Manually trying to change the BPM field doesn't work either. Changes don't take.
Using 10.4.6 with Intel-powered Mac Mini.
Like
Version 0.8
1 answer(s)
Flopka
07 July 2006
Actually, none of the BPM values seem to get saved when I quit the program. Trying to finding matching songs never comes up with anything either no matter how much I tweak the search parameters.
This is a really promising program. It found lots of songs I had with typos in the artist's name, and if even found a bunch of iTunes entries for podcasts which were long gone from my music library, so I could go delete the orphaned entries.
The only downside right now is that it doesn't appear to sync its changes up with iTunes; changes I make in beaTunes aren't reflected in iTunes. Maybe this is a feature I haven't figured out how to use yet, but it's easy enough to let beaTunes find the problems and then to fix them myself in iTunes. Also, the beaTunes interface needs quite a bit more polish before it looks properly Mac-ish.
But, great start, and already very useful!
Like
Version 0.8
1 answer(s)
anonymous-dingo-844
13 July 2006
It will, unfortunately, never look quite like a Mac application, being a Java app, but it could definitely look better than it does!
First impressions: Very nice!
This could be the missing tool for those of us with giant iTunes Libraries. The BPM and Music color features seem interesting, and may or may not end up being useful, but when it spontaneously told me that I had several spellings for the same artist, and let me fix it with a click, I was sold.
Here's to hoping it keeps improving! (being able to hear songs inside the program would be a nice small feature.) If it's not too costly, you'll have a sale here.
Most helpful
Read 45 beaTunes User Reviews
Rate this app:
The other problem I have is how laggy it is. I am running this on a 4GHz Quad Core i7 with 16GB RAM and a 3TB Fusion drive. So it should be smooth. The problem is that when the software is running anything, the music controls grind to a halt. So, for example, I am currently looking for a roughly 100 bpm Christmas track for a skating number. I set the system to analyze a selection of holiday songs, and then tried to start listening to them as they BPM values filled in. You click the play button and then you have to wait for it to start. To go to the next track you have to click pause and wait longer for it to stop. It is so slow. If you want to change the volume you have to try and turn the microdot in the top right corner! Who could possible think that was a good idea!!! SLIDERS are the way to go!
On to matching! I wanted the software to match tracks from my holiday library to Blue Christmas (95bpm). So, I set up the matching and nothing happened. So I switched to the whole library and it was fine. So I added the "Holiday" Genre and all the songs went away. In the end I went to iTunes, selected Smart Playlist (Genre and BPM Range) and I was done in seconds.
Do not make the same mistake I did. Test the software carefully before you hand over your $35! If I had known the time signature algorithm was little more than a "joke" I would not have bothered. I'm going to try again later when I've calmed down a bit and emailed the company for help, but right now I am very frustrated with it. If I figure out the matching I will post an update!
Just one hopefully helpful comment:
> If you want to change the volume you have to try and turn the microdot in the top right corner! Who could possible think that was a good idea!!! SLIDERS are the way to go!
You can actually click anywhere on that knob and move the mouse left or right, exactly like you would with a slider. Just the visualization is a little different.
If you need any more help/advice, please contact me in the support forum at http://help.beatunes.com/
I don't agree that the circle and slider are the "same" concept because I find the circle a lot more difficult to use.
The big problem is still the amount of time it takes to start and stop a track while the software is running an analysis. It almost feels like the software is incapable of handling multitasking, or whatever it is called now.
Despite its technical issues, the software is still pretty useful, although it would be nice if the time signature could recognize 3/4 time.
I still do not understand why this app has to have iTunes start/run in the background. Such a waste of CPU resources.
Also you can not apply AU plug-ins to enhance the tracks and give the audio tracks your own sound.
Still prefer Fidelia because it does not run iTunes in the background and you can apply AU plug-ins.
Also it is a bit pricey for what it really can not do.
One of beaTunes' primary features is to correct and calculate metadata (like name, bpm, etc.) and store this data in either the files, iTunes, or both.
If you are using iTunes at all, and using an iTunes-based library, beaTunes communicates all changes to iTunes, so that the data shown in iTunes is always current. This is done via AppleScript (or COM on Windows). For it to work, iTunes *must* be running (wish it wasn't so).
If you don't care about iTunes at all and can live with it showing outdated data, you can also use a so called folder-based library. In that case, beaTunes does not need iTunes to run.
More info about different kinds of beaTunes libraries can be found at http://blog.beatunes.com/2015/01/different-libraries-for-different-needs.html
> Still prefer Fidelia because it does not run iTunes in the background and you can apply AU plug-ins.
I hardly know the software, but my impression is that it aims at being a great audio player. That, and nothing else.
beaTunes on the other hand tries to be an audio analysis and metadata correction tool, which helps you to build playlists. And yes, it also has an audio player built in—but that's not the primary focus.
When beaTunes is in the background, it uses OS X Notification Center dialog boxes like any other software.
Do you really think the MU webmasters spend their time perusing all these reviews and comments for "helpful suggestions" like your complaint?
If you don't have time to click a link or two to learn more about a similar app you might be interested in, then maybe you shouldn't be wasting time ranting about the website where no one who cares will see it.
I suggest you direct your anger to the Support page: http://support.macupdate.com/contact/
I have emailed one of the MU employees many times about site issues such as dead or broken links, and they've always responded promptly.
Thanks.
Thanks for checking this again.
Would you mind editing your rating? It seems to be purely based on the Java 6 issue.
If MacUpdate folks are reading this, can this be changed to a comment?
Yes, beaTunes 4 does still use Java, but it uses the current Java 8 (not Apple's Java 6) and does not require the Java Browser Plugin, which is the cause of most security concerns.
Flash of course, was never used by beaTunes in the first place.