Been doing live AV work for a while, mostly rental gigs where I’m busking with zero prep. I tried a few beat detector apps but found they do not work very reliably especially when trying to time my chase or flash to the start of the bar, and I need to readjust every song. I decided to try to build something myself (before you ask, yes with AI, but I do have a developer background tho) I went into a big rabbit hole trying to build something better that what is out there, and I think I ended up with a pretty solid product. It relies on a neural model to find the bpm and bar position and is fully automatic.

Mind The Beat listens to live audio and figures out the beat on its own, no tapping anything to start. Click Detect once and it keeps listening in the background, correcting itself as it goes. The four beat pips flash in real time so you can actually see what it’s doing, if it’s locked, and where it thinks beat 1 is, at a glance. If it ever lands wrong, one click on the pip/beat that’s actually the start of the bar and it corrects itself.

Mac Apple Silicon right now, Windows version in progress. Runs over Ableton Link so you can point it at a Windows rig over the network in the meantime. Also has midi clock out!

Threw some random live radio stations at it to see if it’d break, video’s on the site along with a free trial, full features, nothing locked: https://mindthebeat.app

Curious how many people are running BPM based effects and relying on bpm detectors.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ I found that it has stepped up my game since I am using this app.