Tangerine! Review and Giveaway
If you’ve bought into the Apple way of things you are probably using iTunes to sort and organize your music library. With thousands of songs in our libraries, it is easy for songs to get forgotten and ignored. With all these songs to choose from, it is difficult and tedious to make playlists to suit your mood. Tangerine! creates intelligent playlists out of your music and helps you discover new music.
Tangerine works by integrating with iTunes. When you first launch Tangerine! you can see all of the songs in the iTunes Library as well as all your playlists along the side. Clicking the little orange button in the lower right will begin analysis of your songs. The analyzing is done fairly quickly (it took about 5 minutes for 1000 songs on a Core 2 Duo MBP) and calculates the BPM (beats per minutes) and beat intensity of each song in your library. The real fun begins, however, when all your songs are analyzed and you are ready to make a new playlist.
When you are ready to create a new intelligent playlist, just click the plus button and the playlist generation window will come up. You have the ability here to set the length of your playlist and a range of beats per minute and beat intensity of songs selected as well as a generation pattern. The generation pattern determines how the songs are ordered in the playlist. As you can see in my playlist, I have 293 songs that match my requirements.
Once you generate your playlist Tangerine! shows you all of the songs and you can easily customize the playlist by deleting or adding songs. Once you find the perfect playlist a click of the save button will save the playlist in iTunes ready to be synced with your iPod or iPhone. You can also create playlist generation presets and you can even save all of Tangerine!’s BPM analysis to iTunes.
Tangerine! is a great way to create intelligent playlists. It is amazing how a computer can make a playlist with the perfect mix just by analyzing the songs’ BPM and beat intensity. For anyone with a large music library, Tangerine! is a must have. It even works with iTunes DRMed music!. Tangerine! is shareware, and can be purchased from Potion Factory for $24.95.
Potion Factory, the developers of Tangerine!, have generously offered 2 licenses of Tangerine! to giveaway to our readers. In order to enter this giveaway, you must comment on this post with an idea of a playlist that you can make in Tangerine!. Alternately you can add some suggestions on what features you would like to see with the next version of Tangerine!. Be sure to stay tuned for more giveaways as well as announcements of the winners.
The giveaway will end at midnight EST on January 1st, with the winners being announced shortly after that. Good luck!
A Garageband playlist of songs you’d like to cover / remix so you know their BPM!
Does it work with non-electronical stuff? I think BPM are hard to figure out on e.g. Metal.
rediscovering your well organized music is a must. I just can’ t wait this kind of tool. Creating Playlist for relaxing, for motorbiking, for reading, etc. Metzger
I can see using Tangerine to create playlists to use when teaching my yoga classes. Upbeat music for the more physically challenging exercises/postures and more mellow, soothing music for the less active portions of the class.
i have a TON of music. but i’m horrible at thinking about great songs that would go well together in a playlist. i’d love to use Tangerine! to create playlists from different time periods. like songs from 1992-1996 when i was in college. that would be cool.
With a 54GB music library, its hard to find good music that I want to listen to occasionally. I think this will help me find music that i want to, with the easy options and ways to find the music that will fit my mood. I like listening to chill out music. But its hard to find chill out music because i don’t have pacific genre for it, i think this will help me.
playlist for when im liftin weights or exercising. or just whenever.
I’d like to use it to make a playlist for weightlifting and a series of playlists of varying bpm for running.
Maybe it already has this feature, but I’d like the ability to control which iTunes playlists are used as sources for the Tangerine playlist. So, for example, I could make a relaxing playlist selected from the songs in a “Female Artists” playlist, or a workout playlist selected from the songs in a “British 60′s Rock” playlist.
I’d like this to be built as a plugin for iTunes rather than a separate app; but that’d be unlikely and probably limit it’s capabilities.
In Tangerine I would make a “High-Intensity Loud Screaming Shouting Adrenaline Pumping Playlist” for those difficult fitness tests in the Gym.
I teach swing dancing and DJ at our dances. I’ve been looking for something that would make my job of find the BPM much easier and more consistent than tapping out the beat, like some applications will have you do.
The fact that it’ll integrate the BPM data into my already created playlists greatly excites me. That will allow me to better craft future playlists, update existing ones, and eventually discover new flows to put my lists through.
Woo-hoo!
A generation pattern that starts high and ends low (opposite to the second on in the screenshot).
Would love to see a way to have it automatically redo a playlist at a specified time…like every week. That way I can do a small hour playlist and have new songs every week with my specified settings.
tried it before and was interesting but required far too much manual tweaking for me. I’ve got quite a lot of mixed genre’s and with the slower acoustic stuff and some of the more syncopated electronic ones it would detect either half or double the bpm. (sorry can’t remember which way round) but this applied to about 20-30% of my collection
Would be good if they could tweak the algorithm up a bit for the next version so that it takes into account the genre to help it spot the correct bpm. Either that or keep a central database of where user adjusted bpm’s are uploaded automatically based on the id3 data to help the app out, might also help index bigger libraries a bit faster.
I would have probably bought otherwise cause the concept is realy good.
I’d like to be able to use Tangerine do up a playlist with all the most inspirational songs for bad days
I think it would be great for making playlists to exercise to, not to mention allow me to find new songs to run to.
It would be nice if there were an X-Y graph where patterns could be drawn, with some presets similar to the ones currently included.
Also a graph that shows the amount to total songs that match a particular beat strength and bpm in terms of total possible playlist length would be sweet too.
I’d use Tangerine to create a playlist for “I am really not looking forward to this blind date next weekend”. (not to be too specific)
Further customization options. Instead of just sorting by BPM or beat intensity, why not sort by those attributes as a subset of Genre, or Artist, or Date Added or Song Length (etc.)?
Hierarchical customization.
I really need a ‘driving to school’ playlist.
As it is, Tangerine is an intriguing proof of concept. To make it really useful for those of us with large and diverse music collections, it could benefit from the ability to:
1. Generate a playlist by genre
2. Generate a playlist by time range
3. Generate multiple non-overlapping playlists
4. Generate a playlist based on songs in a given playlist
I’d like to create a playlist for when I run. I am preparing for law enforcement academy and trying to run 3 miles a day. A new playlist created for that purpose would be great!
I’d enjoy using Tangerine! to easily make soft play lists for easy listening around the house and then some hard play lists for the gym. It would be really neat if Tangerine! could predict the genre, like rap/hip hop by analyzing and finding lots of bass etc.
I like to make playlists for just hanging around with friends. They typically have to have a pretty itense beat, but usually not that fast of a song. With Tangerine! it would be pretty easy for me to accomplish that.
One feature that I think is missing when I tried Tangerine is that inability to make a playlist based on a few reference songs. This is one feature that makes beaTunes slightly more versitile. However, beaTunes is buggy and almost always crashes. Being able to make a quick playlist based on a few selected songs would make it simple to make great playlists in seconds.
I’d love to see Pandora or Last.fm recommendations from music in your library using either a social based matching or pattern matching beyond beats per minute.
I tried Tangerine last year and loved it, even if it wasn’t dead-on accurate. I just couldn’t bring myself to pony up the dough. I love using it to make playlists for things like “I driving home from the worst day ever at work and I need some downtempo stuff to soothe the soul” or “I’m driving to the mountains and want a bunch of rock/indie stuff that won’t make me fall asleep”.
With 65 gigs of music, like 100 smart playslists going already, and constant use of Quicksilver to rate my music, I think I’m in Tangerine’s target demo
Would be great to make a playlist to code to. need fast paced music.
Or for finding music my parents would listen to
. slow + quiet style.
poolside playlist, very “drinking in LA” kind of sounds
I think this would be great for working out playlists or for those quiet days when you only want to listen slow music
Not sure if they already have this, but here it goes anyways. A playlist which syncs with itunes showing how many times a song has been either recently played or skipped, and depending on that, makes a new playlist every week or so. It could be like top ten songs from high tempo to low, or a 100 songs that have never been skipped. Basiclly a playlist that is completely automated. A better version of the imix in itunes.
Maybe in addition to just analyzing the songs, it could incorporate a user feedback system for songs that sound alike.
Pump-up music playlists would be great along with ones that are softer for more relaxing moods.
I would like to make a playlist to gently wake me up every morning. Maybe starting off with classical songs or East Indian Sitar music and then getting a bit more contemporary.
As for future features: I would love to have it correct ID3 tags like the now discontinued iEatBrainz did. Or they could add cover art finding sort of like CoverScout does.
Aslam
I would make a playlist that slowly increased beats per minute, and was all songs I liked, so that when I go running I would start out slow and then slowly get faster, as my speed would build with the BPM of the tracks.
I’d use it to set up workout playlists. It’s hard to keep up an even pace when you’re running, since you tend to run in time to the beat; when a slower song comes on, you naturally slow down.
Its a seriously weird one, but I love high-tempo music for coding, but standard things for everything else. Also, it would be nice having a ‘settling down’ with slow BPM’s… The possibilities are endless!
I’ve been using Tangerine for the last few days to help me find music for a documentary I’ve been working on for 3 years
I love it! I’ve found so many songs I forgot I had, and it’s helped me narrow down the right mood, which allows me to go looking for similar artist in most cases.
I even used it to make myself a ‘time to wake up’ mix that Alarm Clock 2 uses to gradually get me going in the morning.
A while ago I bought Peel, and I’ve found that Tangerine helps me listen to the music I’m in the mood for as opposed to just whatever comes up next on shuffle
Tangerine would be great for creating specific playlists for listening during lunch each day I work.
I would like to make a bedtime play list. It’s hard to find a selection of music that is suitable to fall asleep to. Even songs that obviously have a slow beat, are not necessarily good for falling asleep to.
I’d love a Tangerine playlist that would integrate with the iPod game Phase. You can change the BPM and intensity to create a dream Marathon. You could make it become less intense as the Marathon gets harder, or make it get more intense to get an extreme challenge. So that would make a great playlist, and true integration would be an amazing feature.
maybe if tangerine can create playlist for different time, e.g. lunch, dinner, or special occasion, like parties, birthday etc.
This sounds great! It takes me forever to make new playlists. I’d probably make a set of mood playlists: happy, sleepy, action…
I just installed the demo and created a playlist.
Tangerine! Came up with a mix I would never have imagined and it was quite good.
A whole new way to organize my listening habits.
I use music to help people achieve a more focused state. This would be a great help matching more songs to each persons needs.
I would use Tangerine to create a playlist that gently wakes me up each morning.
This is just the tool I have been looking for. I have been searching for an easy way to create new and unique playlists for my kids to fall asleep to. I had been thinking that basing a smart playlist on BPM was the way to go, but was not looking forward to spending the next few weeks hanging out with my mac and my metronome instead of the family. I have also been looking for ways to make playlists that would help me wear out the kids and then relax them to get ready for bed. As a full-time student and single father of two kids, I need to find ways to get the kids to sleep early enough to get my homework done before sunrise.
Comment: A pretty cool app. However, it’s price point ($25) seems a bit pricey, particularly when its shortcomings are taken into consideration.
Suggestions: In general, it doesn’t work with several iTunes add-ons I find indespensible, e.g.:
- Quicksilver integration for i) controlling playback, volume, etc; and ii) changing song ratings
- Ability to change song rating
- Doesn’t interface with the widget I use to get album art
- QuickTunes
Used this briefly when it first released and it’s a promising app!
A love making playlist is what I’d create! HA!
As far as any recommendations, I suppose Tangerine working more closely with iTunes would be nice, and perhaps a syncing new playlist option with iPod would be sweet.
I’d love to see if I can make a playlist of one-hit wonders.
a cool feature could be that if tangarine! doesnt find many songs for the desired playlist,it could give u some artist or music suggesitions, opening the itunes store or any other music website
I think it would be cool if it could find lyrics for your songs and then create playlists for songs that are about “break-up” or “first dates.” So you can have playlists that act as soundtracks to your life.
This sounds like a great program, and one I’ve had my eye on for a while.
It would be great to be able to create playlists in Tangerine based on the standard BPM and Beat intensity, but also be able to sort by any category of metadata that iTunes supports. Genre, year, artist, album artist, etc. That would expand flexibility, which would be great.
well, a workout mix that builds and then comes back down would be ideal, but a driving mix to help with long road trips would be awesome too!
In a future version, I’d love to have the ability to generate playlists that revolve around a particular subject, like love, cars, sadness, mornings, running, or what have you.
a mood tagging system would be a great idea – perhaps intergration with Moody?
I’d definitely use it to create playlists for different times of the day.
One for higher bpm and higher intensity when I need to wake up and get energized;
One for slower bpm and lower intensity when I need to zone out and relax and fade into sleep…..
and varied multi level mixes for when I have guests over!
I forgot to post my suggestion. I’d like the ability to use the iTunes genres and find other songs in my library that have similar beats. This would give the ability to create some very interesting playlists.
Playlists that correspond to what you’re doing (driving, shopping, playing video games etc), the songs wouldn’t necessarily relate to the task at hand in content, but in mood and speed.
Oh, this would be nice!
I’d make some playlist depending on my moods! Sometimes I’d like to hear slow songs; other times I just want to headbang my way into oblivion with some death/black metal blast beats!
I think it would be a cool feature to have a transitional playlist for moods. For instance, as a personal trainer, I know it would be useful to have one playlist that segues from low intensity to moderate or high intensity and back to a low intensity, or tempo. This would be perfect to arrange a one-hour workout with clients. Heck, put that to use with videos on itunes and you could have a customized “workout video” playlist.
Classical music of a similar “speed” to fall asleep more cozily
I’d use tangerine to create playlists of more intense music for working out.
A good idea would be to add a “Share” button after your playlist is created. this would then send the list of songs to the Tangerine site, and other users could view playlists you’ve created.
Say you’re looking for some new workout songs, you could do a search and see playlists generated by other users. It’d be a great way to discover new music!
P.S. Great app
I’d love to see tangarine combo with some type of music mood tagging to develop even better playlists. I’d also like to see some sort of description tagging for driving music, etc.
I’d want to use it to compile playlists for all the eclectic, eastern-influenced music scattered throughout my library that I like to listen to every so often (yeah, I’m weird that way).
I would definitely use Tangerine to create a playlist of energizing songs, that I could listen to, for pumping me up before my hockey games
What if Tangerine could use song lyrics in the list generation? All your songs that talk about drinking beer and driving trucks in the rain . . . Oh wait, just pull up the Country genre.
I do some movie editing and I’d use Tangerine to help me make playlists for different types of scenes: dramatic, light-hearted etc.
Tangerine would be brilliant for any kind of dance: rock ‘n roll (where it’s best to have a certain speed to get it really acrobatic) leaps to mind, but all other dances have a certain feel to them, and if you want to be able to dance on them, you need the right rhythm.
A cool way to use these features would be for dance lessons: beginners start with a much slower pace, and it goes up.
Another possible use I can see would be for gaming: some games don’t have the right music, and you want to either have a simple “ambiance” background sound, or you want a very fast thing to create an adrenaline rush.
As far as future features go, the best I believe would be for Tangerine! to become truly integrated with iTunes, in order for all changes to appear right away (BPM without need for future syncing, ¦).
[...] the Christmas season, we ran a giveaway for Tangerine! – an application that allows you to create intelligent iTunes playlists. Once again [...]
Getting a “mood” playlist on tangerine would be nice. This is also good for picking out songs that you never listen to, especially in albums.
A filter to boost the strength of the beat would be awesome to help keep an even rhythm while exercising or practicing an accompaniment as a musician.
This truly looks like a cool app, perhaps a virtual (moving) speaker in the menubar, ala winamp, to allow quick playlist changes?
tangeru=ine best play list i think
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I’m making myself a running program and find the music good for keeping me from slowing down before I should. What I want is to have my songs organized so I can make custom playlist for running. For example 2 mins at a slow run, 3 mins at a fast one, and a warm up and cool down time, too. It will keep me on track according to experts on how you should learn, and I can increase the lengths of the sections as I get better. Pop it into iTunes & Viola!