Ircambeat software estimates the global and time-variable tempo and meter of a music file. It also estimates the positions of the beats and downbeats over time.
Tempo and meter of a music file are among the major perceptual characteristics of a music file. Their automatic estimation allows to get these values for large collections of music files. They can therefore be used to perform automatic music classification of large music collections, search by similarity over large music collections and automatic music play-list generation. The technology can therefore benefit to music providers, online music portals or offline media-player developers.
Beats and downbeats define the time-grid of a music file. They are used as front-end – for the estimation of many other music parameters and – for other processings (time-stretching, segmentation, DJ-ing). The technology for their automatic estimation can therefore benefit to music software developers (music production, music DJ-ing software).
Ircambeat performs the automatic estimation of the global and time-variable tempo and meter of a music file, as well as the estimation of the position of the beats and downbeats in a music file.
For this, each digital music file is analyzed in terms of its time and frequency content in order to detect salient musical events. Periodicities of the musical events are then analyzed over time at various scales to get the tempo and meter. Beats and downbeats positions are estimated using music templates based on machine learning and musical theory, to get a precise time positioning.
Ircambeat is available as software or as dynamic library for Windows, Mac OS-X and Linux platform.
Ircam Licence
Frédérick Rousseau
Frédérick.Rousseau@ircam.fr
IRCAM
Sound Analysis/Synthesis
1 Place Igor-Stravinsky
75004 Paris
France