beaTunes News

We're slowly getting closer to the final version 5. Today's EA3 release (links are below) is completely localized and except for Windows media key support, I'm not aware of any major issues. That said: Please let me know, if you find any! The ones I'm not aware of are the hardest to fix.

I mentioned in earlier posts, that beaTunes 5 has a new color concept. One feature that makes heavy use of this is the new "Play similar songs" control. You can find it in the Controls menu and in the context menu. To use it, you only need to select a seed song. No playlist building, no nothing.

The main idea is pretty simple: Just play some music.

This feature works a lot better once beaTunes has color values for most of your songs. It also takes advantage of the new "Update popularity data" and "Instrumentation" analysis tasks. If you try this out, please let me know, what you like/dislike about it.

Thank you!

Upgrading from beaTunes 4

• Make sure the analysis queue is empty before you install EA3.
• Once installed, it will upgrade your existing beaTunes 4 database. Before doing so, it should create a backup in the database directory so that you can go back to version 4. However, it's always a good idea to have your own backup!
• The database upgrade may take a while. Do not interrupt it. Instead, get a coffee, play with your dog, check your kid's homework. There's nothing more boring than staring at an indeterminate progress bar.

General Notes

• EA3 is fully localized. If you see something in English, when it should be French, Spanish or German, please let me know! Please also contact me, should a translation be less than stellar (this includes layout issues).
• This EA release will stop working a week from now. There will be either a new EA version before the week is over or the final version will be released.
• The final version will not be a free update, unless you very recently purchased a license from the beaTunes.com website (magazine keys don't qualify!). As always, an upgrade license can be purchased for a significantly discounted price once the final version 5 is out.
• Media key support for Windows will hopefully happen in EA4. For macOS, you might need to disable the rcd and allow beaTunes to use the accessibility API. But at the very least, you need to enable media key support in beaTunes' playback preferences.
• Version 5 introduces an improved color concept that takes tempo/rhythm features into account. To see these "new" colors you need to re-run the color analysis. Please note that the "old" color is still there, but it has been renamed to "timbre". To see the "new" color column, you may need to enable it, e.g. via View -> View Options.
• There is a new Beatport integration for charts and song matching (Beatport can be chosen as source). To enable it, you need to grant beaTunes access to your Beatport account. You can do so via the corresponding checkbox in the general preferences.
• For a complete list of changes, please read the NOTES.txt file in the distribution.

Downloads

• beaTunes 5 EA3 for macOS
• beaTunes 5 EA3 for 64 Bit Windows
• beaTunes 5 EA3 for 32 Bit Windows

Labels: Early Access, Release