I recently got my hands on a fun little app.  I WISH I had a chance to really put it through some good testing, but alas my injury happened right around when I got it and I wanted to share the info with you soon due to a special deal on the app!

PaceDJ is a nifty little app with an easy-to-understand interface that scans your iTunes library and helps you build a playlist of songs that have a BPM right for your desired activity.

Straight from the company:

PaceDJ works by determining the tempo of each song that is saved on a user’s iPhone or iPod Touch, based on its beats per minute (BPM). The app then allows the user to set his or her target exercise pace, either in steps or rotations per minute. Next, the app creates customized pacing playlists drawn from the user’s iPhone or iPod Touch music library. The clincher is that these mixes are comprised of songs with BPMs that closely match the user’s target exercise pace. Ultimately, the user naturally synchronizes his or her steps with the song’s tempo. This can help runners, walkers, and cyclists maintain an optimum pace, while also being a powerful source of motivation.

You can select a sport and the app selects a BPM that fits that sport.  You can also choose to do a +/- of so many beats, to broaden the range of songs that fit into your target.  The app selected 130 BPM for walking, 160 for running and 75 for cycling.  It also has an “Other” category that gives you a BPM of 140.

You can bump the BPM up or down once in your player, but I kind of wish it had a “custom” option to use as a preset.  For ChiRunning you should have a cadence of about 90 if you are counting every step with one foot (example: every left foot strike) or 180 if you are counting both foot falls.  It would also be cool if you could apply an optional metronome tone in the background with your music.  That would be great for practicing your cadence.  Plus it would be nice to have a slow-run preset or a tempo-run preset, things you can customize to an individual!

After choosing your activity type, you can choose your playlist (it builds upon existing playlists in your iTunes library) or your entire library.  It scans things to build you a playlist based on your chosen activity’s BPM.  Depending on the size of your library this could be fast or take a while.  I had about 300 songs on my phone when I tested, so it took several minutes to scan.  Scanning is probably not an activity to start when you are standing on the sidewalk eager to get going on your run!  You also have a place in the settings to adjust the BPM it has assigned to songs if something seems really off to you.

The app is pretty new and will be selling for $4.99 in the Apple Store, but in celebration of it being picked as one of the New & Notable apps, for a limited time (just until July 24) the app is only $.99… a great deal!

Disclaimer: I was given this app free for review & promotional purposes.