Music Analysis and Visualization

Question

I\'m interested in programming a music visualizer in Python.

The first problem is how to get the information from the music? Like volume, frequency, rpm, etc. And from w

Answer 1

No longer a good answer since Echo Nest API is no longer available. Leaving for historical reasons only

Consider the Echo Nest API which works perfectly with Python and will return information about beats per minute (probably what you want instead of RPM), average amplitude, even "dancibility" for any audio file. You need an API key, but besides that it's free and works well.

It also has code for manipulating music as well, via their Echo Nest Remix package. Here's their example code:

"""Reverse a song by playing its beats 
   forward starting from the end of the song"""
import echonest.audio as audio   

# Easy around wrapper mp3 decoding and Echo Nest analysis
audio_file = audio.LocalAudioFile("NeverGonnaTellIt.mp3")

# You can manipulate the beats in a song as a native python list
beats = audio_file.analysis.beats
beats.reverse()


# And render the list as a new audio file!
audio.getpieces(audio_file, beats).encode("NeverGonnaTellItBackwardsByBeat.mp3")