The folks over at Scratch DJ Academy hooked me up with a trial of their beginner level beat matching software, Cimio, that allows you to create playlists from songs with similar beats per minute (BPM) and song structure.
It’s practically a fool-proof program, and they make no apologies for their three-step, elementary approach: “Cimio was designed for music fans who want to mix their music like DJs but don’t have the time or the money to invest in professional DJ software.”
I wouldn’t even compare it to mixing like DJs. You know when you want to pull together a playlist in iTunes, you drag all those songs into the playlist to get started, then you just end up leaving them in the order you dragged them in and the mix sucks? This can solve that — sort of.
I mixed disparate tracks from Radiohead, MGMT, Silversun Pickups, Great Northern, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, The Dead Weather, Daft Punk and Royksopp in less than 5 minutes with fairly good results.
The interface is terribly basic, which is frustrating when transitions need to be tweaked just slightly for that perfect mix. But for the price and easy user-interface, it’s a great program for your average mix tape enthusiast. I will say I was absolutely thrilled that I can take iTunes playlists or iTunes tracks and drag them straight into Cimeo — a fantastic treat since my source files are saved in random places all over my laptop.
Overall, if you like putting together playlists and aren’t satisfied with the basic fade in/out features of your stock mp3 software, I suggest you check out Cimeo.
