Boards of Canada · Music Has the Right to Children

Roygbiv

Roygbiv is in D major at 84 beats per minute.

Tempo

84 BPM · Andantemedian of 151 analyses · 83.9–84.1 across the middle eight tenths

Key: D major2 sharps · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 99%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 151people who ran the extractor
One beat: 714.3milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 434.2Hz · -23 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 5.16dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.742Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.406Essentia's danceability, 0–3

Source: AcousticBrainz, dump of 2022-06-23 (CC0) · MusicBrainz core data, 2026-09-17 (CC0) · how each number is measured. Measured up to 23.06.2022 — AcousticBrainz stopped collecting in 2022, so nothing released after that date is here.

What the numbers say

151 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 99% — put it in D major, a key signature of 2 sharps. The tempo printed above is the median of the 151 readings; 99% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 84 BPM one beat lasts 714.3 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 178.6 ms and a dotted eighth 535.7 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 42 BPM, counted twice as fast 168. A score would mark that Andante, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 434.2 Hz, which is 23 cents below concert A at 440 Hz — the sort of drift a tape machine or a slightly different mastering leaves behind. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 5.16 dB: that is how far the level wanders from its own average, so a small number means a loud, flat master and a large one means a recording that still breathes. Its average loudness is 0.742 on Essentia's 0-to-1 scale, which is not decibels and is not comparable to a streaming service's number.

10 other recordings here are in D major; the ones listed below are the closest in tempo.

Beats per bar are not in this dataset. AcousticBrainz's analysis reports a tempo, a key and a loudness, and no time signature at all, so this page does not print one — a 4/4 here would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Keys that fit with D major

Each of these differs from D major by at most one accidental, or shares its tonic. That is the whole of what a mixing wheel encodes; here the relations are named instead of numbered.

Delay times at 84 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	2857.1	0.35
Half note	2	1428.6	0.7
Dotted quarter	1.5	1071.4	0.93
Quarter note (one beat)	1	714.3	1.4
Quarter triplet	0.667	476.2	2.1
Dotted eighth	0.75	535.7	1.87
Eighth note	0.5	357.1	2.8
Eighth triplet	0.333	238.1	4.2
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	267.9	3.73
Sixteenth note	0.25	178.6	5.6
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	119	8.4
Thirty-second note	0.125	89.3	11.2

Half time 42 BPM · double time 168 BPM. Every row is one beat (714.3 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in D major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 84 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in D major All songs at 84 BPM D major at 80–89 BPM

MusicBrainz collapses 7 recording ids into this one. Recording id 2a72cd7b-f566-4c91-8e9b-7b33b95dfff7.