My software for drummers: BPMinus

ethangar

Junior Member
BPMinus.png


Introducing BPMinus

Hello, drummers! I've written an application that I think some of you may find useful! A little history - I myself am a drummer, and I would often find myself trying to learn or transcribe songs that were too fast to play along with or even transcribe. One day, a music teacher recommended I try a program to slow down music. It was pretty, well, amazing - it would slow down music without changing the pitch. I had no idea such tools existed. Unfortunately, I found the user interface to be pretty lacking. It looked like it was designed in the early days of Windows and hasn't been given a facelift since.

Being a software engineer (my day job), I thought I could do better. I learned the secret to slowing down music was a set of algorithms known as a Phase Vocoder. It became my mission to take various phase vocoder technologies, put them in a spiffy interface, and release it to the world.

So, here we are. I have a product, it's called BPMinus, and I would love to get some feedback from the talented musicians - especially music teachers here at Drummerworld. It's Windows-only for now. I'm looking into creating a Mac and iOS version!

Here is a quick rundown of features:

IconMetronome.png
Control Tempo
Change the tempo of your track without altering its pitch. BPMinus offers multiple methods of controlling the tempo, allowing you to find a solution that sounds the absolute best for the track you're working with.

IconTuningFork.png
Change Pitch
Alter the pitch of your tracks with built-in pitch adjustment. Pitch adjustments work independently of tempo adjustments so you can hear your tracks at a different octave without altering the timing!

IconMonitor.png
Scaled Viewing
BPMinus features a vector interface that allows you to enlarge your view of the application without blurring or losing quality. This is perfect for the practice studio environment where you may be far away from the display.

IconDisk.png
File Formats
While BPMinus supports many of the most popular audio formats out of the box, it also features an extensible add-on mechanism that allows users to support just about every audio file format. See the Add-Ons page for more information!

IconLoop.png
Looping Audio
Focus on the portion of audio you really want to work with. BPMinus allows you to simply specify a loop region with a simple mouse drag. Alternatively, use the keyboard to specify exact audio loop points down to a hundredth of a second.

IconNote.png
Analyze BPM
BPMinus's beat analysis attempts to analyze the original tempo of your audio track. As you adjust the tempo, both the active and original tempo are displayed. This useful tool helps musicians to get a true feel for playing at specific tempos.

Check out the BPMinus Website
 
I though this was an advertisement at first, but it appears that it is a free download. So it might be a useful tool.

Well, I assure you I'm not some spambot ;-). I am just trying to get some good feedback about my program.
 
Hey I downloaded the program, the interface is clean and looks nice, the program is super easy to use and I loved the bpm analyzer. I'm planning on transcribing a couple of solos during the spring break, there I'll get a chance to test out all the features of the program and hopefully give some more in depth feedback.
 
Let's see:
- I need to be able to place markers in the timeline- sections, measures, and beats. I need to be able to save the files with those preserved.
- I need to be able to zoom in on the timeline- this is a deal breaker- the software is useless to me without it.
- The mark feature is for creating loops is interesting, but there is too much lag between hitting the mark "button" and the actual setting of the beginning/end of the loop. I need finer control than that.
- An easy way of growing/shrinking a selection in very fine increments, using the control, shift, and arrow keys (ala Audacity) would be very helpful/necessary.
- The playlist thing would take some getting used to - I would rather open files directly w/o the playlist.
- I want to be able to reset the speed/pitch changes to zero (or bypass them) without fiddling with the graphical slider.
- An extremely nice feature would be a loop history for each track- along with the other fixes, that would help incline me towards using your software over Transcribe.
 
Really awesome!

Going to use this instead of Transcibe! :)

Going to use this for a while and think of things that needs to be added/changed.
 
Last edited:
The audio quality seems to be good, but as Todd mentioned, the timeline is extremely small. I use Transcribe for teaching and often loop for my students. It is difficult to loop "on the fly" when the timeline is so small.

Also, the timeline is not stereo. When I use Transcribe, I can see both channels.

I am wondering why you chose to make the timeline so small and the rest of the features unnecessarily large.

Another thing that is a bit annoying is the program opens up with the last file loaded. I like to open up a program to a clean palate.

I guess what we need to know to give accurate feedback is if you intend on selling this program. As it stands now, it is a good free or low priced offering. It would be a good "transcribe -lite" option for students and those who may not use the program as much as professionals. Remember when pricing that Transcribe also slows down video, so I would price yours less or add video.



Hope this helps.

Jeff
 
Last edited:
Let me address a few of the common issues:
- Zooming: This has been requested by quite a few people. I'm working on it.
- Price-point: I don't detail it out in the FAQ, though perhaps I should. If/when I charge for this, it will be less than $10. I'm not trying to use that as justification for less features, I've just always felt that is what these sorts of programs should cost.
- Multiple loops and markers: I've wanted to do this, but I'm struggling for a way to incorporate this that doesn't complicate the user experience.

- An easy way of growing/shrinking a selection in very fine increments, using the control, shift, and arrow keys (ala Audacity) would be very helpful/necessary.

Great idea, I'll see what I can do here. As a workaround, for the time being, you can use the TimeEditors for 1/100th of a second precision.

- I want to be able to reset the speed/pitch changes to zero (or bypass them) without fiddling with the graphical slider.

Right-clicking on any slider should reset. Also, the "Escape" key will reset all settings.

Also, the timeline is not stereo. When I use Transcribe, I can see both channels.

The WaveForm is actually showing both Left/Right maxes. In general, music is pretty balanced, with not a lot of a DC influence to the waveform, so I didn't see a need to show the bottom values. The intensity of the Left channel is on the top half of the waveform, and the right channel is the bottom half.

I am wondering why you chose to make the timeline so small and the rest of the features unnecessarily large.

The timeline was meant to be a standard scrubber with a slight extra bit of visual aid for identifying parts. I didn't realize people would be using it the way they are (thus: no zoom), so I'm having to rethink its role in the App.

Another thing that is a bit annoying is the program opens up with the last file loaded. I like to open up a program to a clean palate.

I'll see about making this a user preference.

I guess what we need to know to give accurate feedback is if you intend on selling this program. As it stands now, it is a good free or low priced offering. It would be a good "transcribe -lite" option for students and those who may not use the program as much as professionals. Remember when pricing that Transcribe also slows down video, so I would price yours less or add video. Hope this helps.

Thanks, it certainly does! Thank you all for your feedback!
 
Been using the software a little now and think it's great.
It would be nice to have every tool you need to practice drums in one program.

Would be very nice to have:
* Metronome with customizable click
* Some kind of timer

And make the metronome and the timer interact with eachother when the timer runs out, the click stops.
 
The WaveForm is actually showing both Left/Right maxes. In general, music is pretty balanced, with not a lot of a DC influence to the waveform, so I didn't see a need to show the bottom values. The intensity of the Left channel is on the top half of the waveform, and the right channel is the bottom half.

I would include students and teachers in your customer base. Many book/CDs have duets with each part recorded on a separate channel. Other book/CDs are drums on one channel with the rest of the band (minus drums) on the other channel. While the slider helps, the visual channels would be so much easier.

I think you have a good thing going. Many of us teachers suggest programs such as Transcribe to 30+ students each week. With the price being low and after a few changes, it would definitely be something that is lucrative for you. It would also be nice if you offered a free download of the final program to Todd, myself, and those who are helping you in the beginning.

Jeff
 
It would also be nice if you offered a free download of the final program to Todd, myself, and those who are helping you in the beginning.

Of course! I'm very much keeping track of who is giving me feedback and bug reports during beta so that they may be rewarded with free keys at the end :) You, as a teacher, would also be getting a free key regardless.
 
i have tried several of these types of programs and i keep going back to ableton live to slow down and transcribe. any freatures in this that would be different that using a music sequencer like ableton to transcribe?
 
Well, sounds like a great tool, but i cannot use it.
First i had Windows XP SP2, wich was not compatible with your software. I downloaded and upgraded the SP3 pack. Reboot. I opened the setup, it said i need .NET framework stuff. I downloaded and installed it. Reboot. Then i opened the setup again and it said i need at least 512 MB of RAM wich i have! I don`t really know what the problem is... Maybe try making it compatible with lower-memory machines, too? I don`t think a software like this needs that many resources so it cannot operate on slower/older computers.
 
Been using the software a little now and think it's great.
It would be nice to have every tool you need to practice drums in one program.

Would be very nice to have:
* Metronome with customizable click
* Some kind of timer

And make the metronome and the timer interact with eachother when the timer runs out, the click stops.

You guys aren't the first to suggest including a metronome. Others wanted a tap metronome (with the option to enter BPM manually, of course). It seems like some really useful low-hanging fruit for me to implement. Aside from the standard array of time signatures and some visual cues - what sort of features do you guys seek in a metronome?
 
You guys aren't the first to suggest including a metronome. Others wanted a tap metronome (with the option to enter BPM manually, of course). It seems like some really useful low-hanging fruit for me to implement. Aside from the standard array of time signatures and some visual cues - what sort of features do you guys seek in a metronome?

Just the normal metronome. Would also be nice to put accents in manually.
A timer, both upward counting and down.
When counting down it should be able to interact with the metronome so that when the countdown timer runs out, it gives an audio cue and stops the metronome. Really usefull for endurance excercises.

That way this software could handle ALL my (and others) practice tools. And there are no other software that can do that.

This is just my thoughts. :)
 
I like it, the sound quality is pretty good and the interface is clear and uncluttered. Something I'd like is to be able to type in the tempo increase/decrease as well as using the slider.


You guys aren't the first to suggest including a metronome. Others wanted a tap metronome (with the option to enter BPM manually, of course). It seems like some really useful low-hanging fruit for me to implement. Aside from the standard array of time signatures and some visual cues - what sort of features do you guys seek in a metronome?

Lots of different sounds to choose from. If you could get something close to the click sound in Cubase that would be awesome, I've never found one better for use while drumming.
 
Back
Top