Featuring: Savable Matchlists

Yes, it's time again for a beaTunes Early Access release - this one's number 9.

The biggest new item is the ability to save Matchlists. Yep, that's right - you can now create Matchlists and re-run the same rules, seeds etc. to update the already created playlist. This is particularly useful, when you added a bunch of songs to your library since you created the Matchlist. Or you fine-tuned the used ruleset and want to apply these changes. Or... well, I guess you got the idea. To update a Matchlist, just CTRL/Right-click on the list icon and choose Update Matchlist.

Another major improvement for Matchlists is the selection of multiple seed songs. You don't anymore have to select all seed songs before you create the Matchlist. You can start with some easily selectable songs, open the Matchlist dialog, and then add some more songs, by simply dragging them into the dialog.

I also tried to undo the damage done to the user interface by Apple's Java 1.5.0_16 update, which left most button margins/insets in a rather unattractive state.

Alright, here's the obligatory warning: Before downloading and installing this, please make sure you understand what Early Access means:

• Absolutely no warranty for whatever
• Features may or may not work, appear, and disappear
• It may not be possible to migrate data to future versions (even though we make a reasonable effort)
• This version will cease to function 2 weeks after its release
• You cannot buy this version

Just so that there is no doubt about it: EA9 isn't even a beta version.

And here are the download links:

• beaTunes-2-0-0-EA9 (OS X)
• beaTunes-2-0-0-EA9 (Windows)

Note for EA8 users

There will be some updates to the database.

Pluggable Rules

Another two weeks have passed, which means it's time for a new Early Access release. Again we've worked on beaTunes' guts trying to get it ready for prime time. The most interesting change from a technical standpoint, is the newly added ability to install match rules as plugins. This means that in the future, eager third party developers can create their own rules, drop them into the plugin folder and take advantage of them in the matching process. This plugin architecture is supposed to be a theme for beaTunes 2 - making it extendible and more powerful.

Other than that, we fixed some little things, improved this and that and hope this will be an overall stable EA release.

Nevertheless, here's the obligatory warning: Before downloading and installing this, please make sure you understand what Early Access means:

• Absolutely no warranty for whatever
• Features may or may not work, appear, and disappear
• It may not be possible to migrate data to future versions (even though we make a reasonable effort)
• This version will cease to function 2 weeks after its release
• You cannot buy this version

Just so that there is no doubt about it: EA5 isn't even a beta version.

And here are the download links:

• beaTunes-2-0-0-EA5 (OS X)
• beaTunes-2-0-0-EA5 (Windows)

Note for EA4 users

EA5 changes the database schema introduced in EA4. During the update, beaTunes will display a dialog box. Please be patient.

Explaining Rulesets

The other day a customer sent us an email with a couple of questions that are asked again and again. I would like to take a few minutes and try to clarify a number of things.

What determines the color?

beaTunes looks at a part of each track and performs a frequency analysis of that part. The result is then projected into the RGB (color) space. In essence, it is a measure for whether different songs are using the same acoustic frequencies. The idea is that songs that share similar frequencies are more likely to sound alike. So two acoustic guitar singer/songwriter tracks are more likely to have a similar color than an acoustic guitar song and some AC/DC anthem.

But same color definitely doesn't mean that two songs sound the same. They only share some acoustical properties. It is meant as one of multiple factors that can be used to find matching songs. It is by no means the all determining factor.

Which leads us directly to the next question:

How do I configure rulesets?

Let's look at an example. Say you have three rules, a), b) and c):

• a) set to 1
• b) set to 4
• c) set to 2

If one song matches another song for all three rules 100%, then this song will be awarded 1+4+2=7 points. So in this case 7 points equal 100%.

If a song only matches rule a) and b), that would be 1+4+0=5, and that would be 71.4% (5/7).

So in essence you weigh the rules. In our example, rule a) has very little weight (1) - so it's really not that important. Rule b) on the other hand determines most of the outcome. It alone can score more than 50% (i.e. 4/7).

Note that matching rules isn't necessarily binary. That is, a song can match a song partially. So if a song matches rule b) somewhat, it might be awarded 2 out of 4 points. A good example for this is key matching.

How does key matching work?

Let's assume the key rule's weight has been set to 1. If it's a 100% match, i.e. a song has the same key as the one you would like to match, then beaTunes awards 1 point. If a song is in the dominant or subdominant of the song you would like to match, beaTunes awards 0.75 points. If it's in the tonic parallel, beaTunes awards 0.5 points. If it's neither of these three, beaTunes awards 0 points.

Please note that for key matching to make any sense you first have to set the key for a significant number of songs. beaTunes is capable of reading existing key values from id3 tags, but is not yet able to automatically determine the key.

What about negative values for rules?

Again, say you have three rules:

• a) set to 1
• b) set to -4
• c) set to 2

In this case the total number of points a song can score is 1+0+2=3 (the negative weight is ignored for this).

The values for the matching rules are added up. So, if a song matches all three rules the score it reaches is 1-4+2=-1.

In essence, with this setting you want to make sure that a song that matches rule b) is ranked really low.

What kind of similarity does the rule “similar tags” mean?

beaTunes lets you tag tracks with keywords (both in the Get Info dialog and in the table view tags column).

Again the -5 to 5 slider determines how important this rule is relative to the other rules. Assuming it's set to 1, if two songs have the exact same tags, 1 point is awarded. If two songs have two tags and one of the two tags is the same, 0.5 points are awarded. etc.

What is the difference between the “match quality” slider in the preferences and the one in the matchlist dialog?

The slider in the preferences applies only to the the "matching songs" panel (Edit > Show Matching Songs). The one shown when creating matchlists applies just to the matchlist you are creating. Check out our demo video for creating playlists using the matching songs panel.

I hope this post explained one of the core features of beaTunes a little better and helps you build some great playlists.

Disappearing Matches

Recently we received an email from a user who complained about matching songs that simply disappear. What happened?

As you all know, beaTunes matches songs with each other using rules. One of the rules is the Amazon rule: While beaTunes looks for matching songs, it queries the Amazon database for matching albums. Songs that belong to a matching album are ranked higher.

But getting the necessary information from Amazon takes some time. Therefore, beaTunes usually displays an initial result, before it queries Amazon. Then, after the Amazon results are in, the list of matching songs is updated.

The movie shows the effect: A song is selected and a number of matches are displayed. After a little while, most of the songs disappear. This happens, when the Amazon results are applied to the match algorithm.

Now, if you don't like this behavior, you can easily turn it off. Just open the preferences, select the Song Matching pane and uncheck the For faster results, ignore during the initial matching-checkbox. To disable the Amazon rule altogether, move the corresponding slider to 0.

We hope this tip helps you to enjoy beaTunes even more.

Using Rulesets

Those of you who played around with beaTunes some more know, that it is quite easy to manipulate the rules for song matching in the Song Matching Preferences pane. We have been asked a couple of times, why beaTunes offers this feature. The answer is simple: The best match really depends on what kind of playlist you're building. Are you trying to create an 80s mix or is the BPM all that counts? Does tempo matter at all?

To accomodate these different situations, beaTunes always allowed you to change the parameters of the matching algorithm - making it possible to assign greater (or even negative) strength to certain matching rules. With beaTunes 1.1 we went one step further by introducing the concept of rulesets. They basically allow you to save sets of rule settings, so that you can easily switch back and forth between predefined rulesets.

To create a new ruleset, just click on the plus symbol on the right of the drop down list. beaTunes will prompt you for a name and when you click OK, the new ruleset is created. Simply adjust the sliders to your liking and you are done.

We hope you enjoy this new feature!