Analysis

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Analyse tracks#Link to “Analyse tracks”

• Prepare → Analysis & Cues: choose a track and “Analyse track”, or “Analyse pending” for all tracks without an analysis or with an outdated one.
• In Incoming: “Analyse all”.
• Right-click tracks → “Analyse” or Tools → “Analyse …”.
• Automatically: “Analyse new tracks automatically” under Settings → General (off by default).

Streaming references without a local file are skipped. The analysis does not change any audio files; embedded tags are kept.

The “Analyse tracks” dialogue#Link to “The “Analyse tracks” dialogue”

Analysis sections

“BPM & beatgrid”, “Key”, “Energy” and “Waveform”; all on by default. Areas you deselect stay as they are.

Grid method

“Auto · detect tempo changes” (default), “Fixed · constant tempo” or “Variable · detect tempo anchors”.

BPM from / to

Analysis range, 70 to 180 BPM by default; 40 to 300 is possible.

Preserve existing values

On by default. Locked grids are always protected.

“Start analysis” adds the tracks to the analysis queue.

Reading the results#Link to “Reading the results”

Under “Analysis & Cues”, Sonodex shows “BPM”, “KEY” and “ENERGY” as well as the status of the “FINGERPRINT” (“Present”, “Pending” or “Outdated”). BPM are shown as whole numbers in the list; the exact value stays stored and appears in the grid editor with two decimal places. Markers such as “Phrase grid”, “Energy rise” and “Vocal hint” play from that point when clicked.

The fingerprint is used to find duplicates and lost files. It is created as part of the analysis and is not a separate analysis section.

Analysis queue#Link to “Analysis queue”

The “Analysis queue” sub-tab shows all background jobs with “Waiting”, “Analysing”, “Completed”, “Failed” or “Cancelled”. “Pause new jobs” halts the queue, “Resume queue” starts it again. Jobs stay saved; interrupted analyses are rescheduled at the next start.

How accurate is the analysis?#Link to “How accurate is the analysis?”

The values come from our own measurements on purchased Beatport tracks and a human-annotated EDM test set (as of 4.9.3). They are listed in full in the feature status.

• Key: on 93% of the purchased tracks, Sonodex determines the same key as the majority of three established key tools. Sonodex always gives exactly one key; keys you set by hand are not overwritten by the analysis.
• Tempo and beatgrid: On purchased club tracks where Lexicon and Mixed In Key set the same grid, Sonodex 4.7 hits the BPM 99.6% of the time to within ±0.05 BPM; the first beat is at most 10 ms off 97.4% of the time. Since 4.8, Sonodex recognises drum & bass that it read at half tempo and shows 170 to 180 BPM. Grids that the kick contradicts are marked by Sonodex as doubtful and listed under “Check grids”.
• Loudness: Since 4.6, Sonodex measures integrated loudness according to EBU R128 (ITU-R BS.1770), the true peak and a ReplayGain value. You find them in the “Loudness” column and in the track details.
• Energy: the analysis version 6 rating listens per 32 beats to noisiness, brightness, beat activity, loudness and compression and rates the track by its strongest sections.
• Speed: “Automatic” analyses up to six tracks at once; on a PC with 16 threads, throughput rose from 16.1 to 31.2 tracks per minute.

More sub-tabs#Link to “More sub-tabs”

“Analysis & Cues” also contains “Metadata review” (see Metadata services), “Beatshift fixer” (see Edit beatgrid) and “Streaming & local files” (see Downloads).