Music Database

[nobby]

I was looking for tempos of songs and ran across this.

Have you ever recorded a song at a particular tempo, listened to it later and panicked because you perceived it as too slow, then listened to it another day and it's the perfect tempo?

See what other people are getting away with

https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~davet/music/bpm/120.html

[Rev. Juda$ Sleaze]

I change my default bpm so that I don't fall into the 120 bpm DAW trap.

[nobby]

So you fall into the new default bpm trap?

I see tempo as right or wrong for the song. Never occurred to me that it could be viewed as a trap.

The tempo seems to be governed by sometimes seemingly opposing "interest groups".

Too slow, people don't want to dance to it. Too fast, people can't dance to it.

Too slow and it sounds plodding. Too fast and you can't execute the chord changes and/or riffs and/or vocals properly. Sometimes there seems to be a maximum tempo range of less than 2 bpm.

[upstairs]

When I'm doing something gridlocked I usually imagine the song for a minute and then do tap tempo with a hotkey for eight bars or so, without looking at the BPM readout.

But yes that happens to me often. Sometimes it's my mood, sometimes it really is too slow, sometimes the song is just boring in general at any tempo.

[nobby]

When I'm doing something gridlocked I usually imagine the song for a minute and then do tap tempo with a hotkey for eight bars or so, without looking at the BPM readout.

I do something similar which is to play it first on guitar or keyboard and let the tempo reveal itself. To be 120 BPM. It often comes simultaneously with the song chunk my muse tossed at my feet. Generally if I get an idea I quickly record it on the Zoom recorder while it's still fresh in my head. It fires up a lot faster than my DAW, and speed is of the essence.

[nobby]

Joe Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way always sounds sluggish to me at 86 BPM.

It's stoner Rock, I get it. Still...

[upstairs]

These are my go-to for getting ideas down as fast as possible. No USB transfer but they're cheap enough that I buy a new one once the old is full of stuff I want to keep. Plus it's all mids, which I think is good as they don't try to pump a bunch of highs and lows through a tiny speaker, which sounds like ass. I love these things.

[Rev. Juda$ Sleaze]

So you fall into the new default bpm trap?

Depends how I'm writing. Not if I'm initially composing on guitar or keyboard, but if I start by programming a drum part or chords then it can happen.