Step to the Beat with SynchStep
Posted by Eric March on May 15, 2008 at 1:04 am
I’m going to reveal a bit of my inner geek here: When I’m out walking with my iPod Touch delivering the chunes, I have a tendency to match my steps to the beat of whatever I’m listening to — assuming the current song falls within range of a comfortable gait. If the beat’s too fast or too slow then I’ll just walk at my normal pace, but as soon as a tune comes on that matches my stride, I’m in lockstep. It’s deliberate, but almost automatic — and it helps set a kind of regimen to keep you stepping if you’re out for an exercise walk.
So I had to smile when I checked Installer this evening to find a new app called SynchStep. It has precisely that same purpose in mind — except its goal is to find music that matches your stride, so you don’t have to adjust your stride to match the music. It works like this: SynchStep uses the iPod Touch and iPhone’s accelerometer as a pedometer to determine your normal stride. It will then find tunes in your device’s library with a BPM that matches your steps, and play them. For those of you who walk for exercise — or who like to walk in sync to their music, like me — this is utterly the perfect app for that.
Now, it’s not entirely maintenance-free. If you aren’t the sort of person who keeps well-groomed ID3 tags on your MP3s, then you’re going to have to do some legwork here, because it relies on the BPM field of your ID3 tags to pick step-synced songs. I keep well-groomed tags, but not that well-groomed, because not a single tune in my library has BPM data — Largely because I don’t know what each song’s BPM is. There aren’t many CDs that list it — and those that do are usually intended for DJs so they can queue up tracks more easily. Fortunately, this needn’t be a chore. Simply download beaTunes for Windows or Mac, and it will automatically comb through your iTunes library, analyze, and tag your tunes. This probably isn’t foolproof — it won’t find BPMs for songs with weak or no beats, but for most songs it should be fine. If you already keep your BPM tags filled in, you’ll still need BeaTunes to prep your library, because it must copy the BPM field to the comment field so that it can be properly accessed with the SDK’s framework (which, inexplicably, does not allow access to the BPM field.)
Once you’ve let BeaTunes auto-groom and prep your MP3s, run SynchStep, stick your device in a pocket (currently a front pants pocket is strongly preferred due to the step tempo detection algorhythm and the way it reads the accelerometer), and get to struttin’! You can grab it from the ModMyiFone repo (http://modmyifone.com/installer.xml) or download it directly and install manually from the SynchStep website. You’ll also find more details about the app and how to use it there.
(Source: Installer)
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May 15th, 2008 at 8:58 am
hey, thanks for the write-up. =)
just wanted to let you know that beaTunes works for mac and windows, so no need to use another client. it’s just that my site auto-detects your OS and offers you the right downloads. i’ve got one for mac up there as well.
also, would you mind linking to http://synchstep.com/iphone.html instead of the beaTunes zip directly? the instructions page has some other info that is helpful for new users.
thanks, and i hope you like synchstep. let me know if you have any feedback.
i’ll be rolling out a juicy update in a few days or so.
greg
May 15th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Thanks for the feedback, Greg! And you’re welcome. I always love to see new and innovative apps turn up, and this certainly qualifies as the most unique and innovative way to make use of the iPhone/Touch’s features that I’ve seen in a good while. I’ve updated the link as requested, and while there just reworded it a bit to make it a bit clearer. Looking forward to the update!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Sure, there is a Mac alternative, it’s awesome and shareware: Tangerine.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
unfortunately, tangerine does not derive bpm values that are as accurate as beaTunes. it’s unable to handle the range of rhythms that beaTunes can. i tried tangerine on a range of cases and was pretty disappointed with the accuracy.
beaTunes is available for mac and win. honestly, as the developer of synchstep, i’d STRONGLY recommend using beaTunes, or something as equally as accurate.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
i have a question.
i downloaded synchStep and i have beaTunes and it analyzed all my music how do i make it give my songs a BRM count,
and when thats done do i just plug in my ipod after they have a bpm or do i have to do something more?
sorry if this sounds domb but i thought this would be the best place to go and ask.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:20 am
I haven’t used it yet (haven’t had the time unfortunately) but I believe it goes through your iTunes library to add BPM tagging info. Once that’s done you have to copy all the newly tagged songs to your iPod Touch or iPhone (which means you have to delete them from your device first). It’s a bit of a pain, yeah, but it’s necessary.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
@samzabar and @eric march
once beaTunes has done it’s magic, just sync your playlist to your iphone/ipod touch.
it will automatically update the tags of every song. you don’t need to delete anything from you phone. the sync’ing takes care of it all.
so, samzabar, if you’ve already run beaTunes and “used the prep for synchstep” option, just sync your ipod and you’ll be ready to go!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Question about syncing: Will it copy any songs to my iPod that aren’t there? My PC library has tons of stuff I don’t want on my Touch (mostly my wife’s stuff), so will it only update just the tags for the songs that are present on my Touch?
May 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@eric
if you’re asking about how itunes syncs songs, it will only update the songs that are already on your touch.
if you calculate the bpm for all songs in your library, next time you sync it will only update the meta data on the subset of songs that are already on your touch. nothing youre doing with synchstep changes the way itunes syncs.
does that answer the question?
June 17th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I downloaded SynchStep for the iPhone from “installer” and beaTunes got it to analyze all my music (nearly 2 days worth of it running) but I can’t anywhere see an option to “prepare music for SynchStep in the analysis preferences. the songs have gone onto my iPhone with BPM tags but SynchStep doesn’t recognise them and asks me to set it up everytime and sends me to the iPhone SynchStep website to download the things I already have.
Is it that I need to pay for it to get that “prepare for SynchStep” option or have I just got something wrong along the way….?
Ingenious App Can’t Wait to use it.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
hi liam,
did you download the special version of beatunes from my site? if so, the “prepare for synchstep” option should be present. you don’t have to pay for that option.
i would recommend you just download “synchstep prep” (also linked on the setup page) if your songs already have a bpm value. “synchstep prep” will do the same thing as the “prepare for synchstep” option in beatunes.
let me know if you need any further help. just email me at synchstep then the [at] sign then gmail.com.
greg
June 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
hello
i downloaded syncstep from my iPhone using wi-fi. I have been on the wensites but the pictures of how to do prep your playlist is nothing like my iTunes.
If you could help me please e-mail me.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
hi Qais,
The instructions tell you to download beatunes and use that application to setup your songs. The screenshots are from the application beaTunes, not iTunes.
Hope that helps,
greg
June 25th, 2008 at 8:19 am
hi i downloaded beatunes to my pc but i cannot add music to the library.therefore, i cannot analyze musics.What should i do?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:18 am
hi sinan,
sorry you’re having trouble with beaTunes. unfortunately, i didn’t write beatunes, so it’s hard for me to troubleshoot that program.
however, you shouldn’t be adding tracks to beaTunes. beaTunes simply reads all of your iTunes songs and shows them to you. there’s nothing to add to beaTunes.
do you use iTunes? if so, all of your iTunes music should show up in beaTunes. if it doesn’t, i suggest contacting the creator of beaTunes. he’s a nice guy. http://beatunes.com/contact.html
i’m working on a replacement for beaTunes right now that is specifically geared for setting up synchstep. it should be out fairly soon.
greg