Rapid Evolution (also known as RE) is a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

tool for DJs, providing filtering and searching features suitable for musicians. It can analyze audio files and automatically determine properties such as the musical key,

beats per minute Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...

(BPM), beat intensity and

ReplayGain ReplayGain is a proposed technical standard published by David Robinson in 2001 to measure and normalize the perceived loudness of audio in computer audio formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It allows media players to normalize loudness for in ...

. It supports file types MP3, MP4,

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft W ...

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

OGG Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The authors of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high-quality di ...

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Clevela ...

and APE. It helps DJs to organize and profile their music, and assists in the process of mixing music by utilizing song metadata to be able to show harmonically compatible songs and songs of a similar style. It allows DJs to save and remember which songs are good matches (like a personal, digital mixing journal) and to plan entire mix sets. One of its uses is to assist in a DJ technique called

harmonic mixing Harmonic mixing or key mixing (also referred to as mixing in key) is a DJ's continuous mix between two pre-recorded tracks that are most often either in the same key, or their keys are relative or in a subdominant or dominant relationship w ...

. Once the musical key and BPM is known for a set of songs, DJs can use

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...

(such as the

Circle of Fifths In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval of ...

) to identify songs that are harmonically compatible. The act of mixing harmonically can help eliminate dissonant tones while mixing songs together. Since identifying whether songs can be made harmonically compatible can be quite complex (once features such as pitch lock are introduced), the software assists DJs by being able to show them which songs in their collection can be made harmonically compatible with any particular song. It can also assist DJs in the act of

beatmatching Beatmatching or pitch cue is a disc jockey technique of pitch shifting or timestretching an upcoming track to match its tempo to that of the currently playing track, and to adjust them such that the beats (and, usually, the bars) are synchroni ...

by showing which songs are in a compatible BPM range, and the percent of BPM difference. Rapid Evolution is created and released through Mixshare.com. The metadata generated by Rapid Evolution is shared through the central servers at Mixshare.com, which can be browsed online. There are 1 million songs added to the database sharing information such as key, BPM, styles and ratings.

History

Rapid Evolution was developed for the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

environment and released in 2003. Starting in version 2.0 it was switched to run on the Java platform, allowing it to run in virtually any environment. It is still actively developed. Several improvements to the key detection algorithm have been introduced over the years. Rapid Evolution is the only program which can detect advanced key modes, such as aeolian, ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian and mixolydian. To date, there has only been one serious comparison of key detection accuracy (including programs such as Mixed In Key and Mixmeister). It was shown that Rapid Evolution is the most accurate. The program's source code was made available in November 2013.

Community interest

Rapid Evolution was originally a freeware program. Due to its vast feature set, Rapid Evolution tends to be suited more for experienced DJs versus beginners.

External links

Download Rapid Evolution
*
Harmonic-Mixing.comSource code for version 2Source code for version 3

References

{{reflist Music search engines MacOS multimedia software Windows multimedia software Audio mixing software DJ software

History

Community interest

See also

External links

References