We've shown you how to put together a BPM-oriented exercise playlist; reader samc352 shares his favorite methods and tools for generating BPM playlists and a great resource for finding prepackaged playlists.


Photo by Raquel Baranow.

First, you need to decide what BPM you are looking for and what kind of run this is. For example:

5k - very fast run, need high BPM songs for the whole time, and a short playlist (since it usually doesn't take more than 40 minutes to finish).

Marathon - very slow run, you need mostly low BPM songs but not too low (in the 120-130 range and maybe a few higher ones to boost morale), and a very long list.


Once you know your target BPM, you need to find songs with that BPM. There are several ways to do this:

Automate it. You can use BPM analyzing software like Mixmeister (Free) or Cadence (iPhone $4.99, Desktop for Mac OS X/Windows is Donationware) to analyze your entire library. The problem with this is that they usually get around 20-30% of the songs wrong.

80% success rate isn't bad you say? Consider this, if you have a music library of 5000 songs, 20% wrong means you'll have 1000 songs with the wrong BPM. Try running up a hill when a slow jazz song comes up just because the app decided it has a BPM of 170 and it's really 60.

Do it manually. It takes more time, but once you've done 100 songs or so you get really fast at it. This is the most accurate way I know to get the right BPM. I use the manual BPM tapper at All8.

Get list from a specialized website. Sites like Running Playlist already did the work for you and include hundreds of songs and playlists designed for specific events (5k, 10k, etc.) There are also many other sites who do the same thing of course, but I prefer Running Playlist.


Have a tip, web site, or application that helps you create accurate BPM-oriented playlists? Let's hear about it in the comments. For further BPM tricks from the Lifehacker archive make sure to check out BeatScanner for Windows, Tangerine for Mac OS X, and our guide to creating the ultimate exercise playlist.