BPM with iTunes 5.0?

If you use MP3 files, this comes in very handy: http://www.mixmeister.com/download_freestuff.html

It's called "BPM Analyser". You just drag your MP3 files or folders full of them into this program. It'll analyse them and figure out the BPM (on most files). It's not 100% accurate, but it's not too bad.

Anyway, it will figure out the BPM and save that number into the MP3 file's tag. iTunes will then be able to pick this up and fill in the BPM number of the file automatically.

Doesn't work for AAC files, but if you use MP3's then it's a very handy way to populate all this info in iTunes.

I don't have quite as easy of a solution for AAC files yet. Been working on it a while, off and on.

The only problem with this is that "beats per minutes" depends on what beat you're talking about. If you want to group things with similar tempos, you could create comments like "fast" "slow" "walking tempo" "really fast", etc. With a BPM analyzer, you may not get an accurate representation of the tempo, especially if you have music with irregular meter, or very ethereal stuff, or anything that lacks drums or percussive instruments. For example, running a bpm analyzer on the first movement of Shostokovich's 6th symphony would probably not yield accurate results.
In short, if you're willing to go to the trouble of manually entering the BPM's anyway, you might as well just make your own custom tempo distincitions.

Like I said, it ain't perfect. But for those of us that tend to listen to modern rock and alternative and such, it's not bad. It will at least give you a number that is a reasonably accurate measurement of the major bass beat, which can be used, in most cases, to get a good idea of the relative speed of a song.

While it ain't perfect, it's not completely useless.

And the main thing about BPM Analyser is that it's not "manual" at all. It's completely automatic. For such an easy program to use, it gives decent, but not perfect, results.

I'm new to posting ... also computer illiterate ... tried the mixmeister and it isn't working for me. I have a PC (laptop) and use iTunes. I tried moving my music from my library into mixmeister to get a bpm count and can't. Any suggestions on how to use bpm to create a playlist for running (fast tempo) would be GREAT! Thanks in advance for any help!

That program is about the simplest possible software you can use. It has no options, no features. You just drag the music in and let it be until it finishes.

But, it only works with MP3 music, not AAC.

Okay ... thanks for your patience ... just checked my iTunes Preferences and saw that I'm importing music using the AAC encoder.

What do I do to convert my music that's already in my iTunes libray that's in AAC format to MP3? Is this easy? What will I lose by doing this?

Sorry if I'm not making sense.

It's really not worth it to convert the music to MP3 just to be able to calculate the BPM. It's not all that accurate anyway. Manually typing in BPM's is better.