An Interactive Beat Tracking and Visualisation System
Simon Dixon · University of Michigan Library Repository · 2001
This paper describes BeatRoot, a system which performs automatic beat tracking on audio or MIDI data and creates a graphical and audio representation of the data and results, as part of an interactive interface for correcting errors or selecting alternative metrical levels for beat tracking.The graphical interface displays the input data and the computed beat times, and allows the user to add, delete and adjust the beat times and then automatically re-track the remaining data based on the user input.The system also provides audio feedback consisting of the original input data accompanied by a percussion instrument sounding at the computed beat times.At the heart of the system is a beat tracking algorithm which estimates tempo based on the frequency of occurrence of the various time durations between pairs of note onset times, and then uses a multiple hypothesis search to find the sequence of note onsets that best matches one of the possible tempos.The primary application of this system is in the analysis of tempo and timing in musical performance, although the beat tracking algorithm itself has been shown to perform at least as well as other state-of-the-art systems.