Unable to find BPM for a specific song
I'm trying to find the BPM for the song Erotomania - Dream Theater, but I can't. This is what I did:
Opened the song in a DAW and then count exactly how much milliseconds are between measures 5 to 8. I ended up finding the value 154,6126095 bpm, which works fine for the measures 5 to 8. The problem is that for measure 9 the BPM value 158 works much better than what I had found early. It's a huge difference in my opinion.
So, what I'm doing wrong? Can a song like this has multiple distinct tempos? I know that from Measure 67 and on it changes the tempo, but we can clearly see that difference. Or pehaps, would Dream Theater record a song without a metronome?
This is how I found the value 154,6126095 step by step, just in case...
3x 5/4 measure at 120 bpm = 7500 ms (the reference)
3x 5/4 measure at XXX bpm = 5821 ms (Erotomania song)
Each beat at 120 bpm has 7500 ms / (3 measures x 5 beats) = 500.00 ms per beat (1/5) (the reference)
Each beat at XXX bpm has 5821 ms / (3 measures x 5 beats) = 388.06 ms per beat (1/5) (Erotomania song)
A whole measure at 120 bpm would need 500.00 ms x 5 beats = 2500.00 ms (the reference)
A whole measure at XXX bpm would need 388.06 ms x 5 beats = 1940.33 ms (Erotomania song)
The proportion then will be:
2500.00 ms / XXX bpm
1940.33 ms / 120 bpm
2500.00 ms x 120 bpm = 300,000 =>
300,000 / 1940.33 = 154,6126 bpm <- the final result
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Yeah, I could start to feel that it is dragging too. There really is no way one BPM will work across two measures, but if you really are committed to finding the best match for the BPM, you can find the BPM of the whole song by the formula you mentioned. That should give you the average BPM. You could also possibly program something to change tempos right at the moment it changes BPM.
"Or perhaps, would Dream Theater record a song without a metronome?"
It wasn't THAT long ago that EVERYONE recorded without a click!
They just played. The tempo varied. That happens a lot in music, particularly music that is played rather than constructed on a computer. You're doing nothing wrong, except that you're looking for a constant tempo when there isn't one.
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