BeaTunes5 just doesn't work very well
I downloaded the trial and ran it on a few songs, which seemed to work well.
So I paid for a license and ran it on my library of saved music. Here's where the sadness begins.
1. It did a poor job of calculating bpm. Many whole albums listed the same, incorrect, bpm for all songs. (For example, Billy Joel's Greatest Hits has them all at 320.) Many songs that I've spot-checked have been pretty far out. Admittedly, some of them are also quite wrong on websites that list bpm (confirmed by tapping the beat manually on https://taptempo.io/ . Doing it that way is an incredibly tedious process.) A few of them have the correct bpm in tiny letters beside the main bpm, but I can't see how to apply that correct one.
2. If I do anything to the listed songs (e.g., change the bpm after I determine the correct one), the software moves to permanent spinning beach ball.
3. (Less serious) None of my songs have artwork. They all do in my Apple Music library. Does AM not embed the artwork properly when I add it there? If I change the BPM in AM (which I have to do to avoid crashing BeaTunes), that does update properly in BeaTunes5.
Before I request a refund, is there some way I can get this software working properly? I'm hoping to update my hardware to a new Mac Mini soon, so if it's a Monterey issue, I might be willing to be patient.
BeaTunes version 5.2.35
MacOS 12.7.6
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), 16GB memory, 4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Library has about 7500 songs in it.
I really need software that does what BeaTunes claims to do, and I like the interface. But if it can't figure out close to accurate bpm for most songs, it's not too helpful for me.
Keyboard shortcuts
Generic
| ? | Show this help |
|---|---|
| ESC | Blurs the current field |
Comment Form
| r | Focus the comment reply box |
|---|---|
| ^ + ↩ | Submit the comment |
You can use Command ⌘ instead of Control ^ on Mac
Support Staff 1 Posted by hendrik on 17 Mar, 2025 07:56 AM
Hey,
thanks for your message.
ad 1) I'm surprised you got values of 320 BPM and would love to reproduce this. Is there any way you can make the music files for Billy Joels Greatest Hits available to me? Do you remember what setting for BPM analysis you've used? If not, selecting a song and then clicking File -> Analyze will show you the Analysis Options dialog again. You should be able to see the last used options.
Regarding main and alternative (in small font) tempo. To swap the values, select the song in the main table, click on the tempo, then click on the arrows. Then click on some other song.
ad 2) Do you see the spinning beach ball (with multiple colors) or the spinning blue ball? In any case, neither should happen. Is this while analysis is running or while the program is idling?
ad 3) AM does not necessarily embed artwork into your audio files, but only it them up somehow and then keeps it separate. beaTunes has a way to get to that, but it is relatively slow.
Thanks,
-hendrik