Rating: 4.5/5

General Info: Is this Mac app as delicious as it’s namesake? Or does it have annoying seeds inside?
Well, let’s slow down. First, what is Tangerine!, besides enthusiastic about exclamation points. This Mac app helps you make playlists in iTunes. How does it work though? When you first start Tangerine!, it analyzes your entire iTunes library’s BPM, Beats Per Minute, and “beat intensity”. The analysis is incredibly fast, even on my slow G4 mini; it took about 53 minutes for 1,719 songs to be analyzed. Important to note is that Tangerine! cannot analyze or play tracks purchased off of iTunes with DRM, but that shouldn’t be a problem in the future. When Tangerine! finished I got lost. To start making a playlist you click the “+” button. The problem is that “+” is a dark grey colour I associated with meaning it was “greyed out” or unavailable. Thankfully, the documentation is well written and clear.
The magic starts when you click “+”. It pulls up a wizard dialog that provides the parameters for the playlist you just started making. This dialog offers options like: duration/length, rules (same as in “smart playlists”), BPM range, beat intensity range (beat intensity is one of Potion Factory’s inventions), pattern, and more.
After clicking “Generate Playlist”, you see the bar at the bottom populated with the songs and various other information on the songs. Any song on the list can be rearranged, removed, or added to the list. When finished, you name it and save it to iTunes.
All it was really missing was editable patterns (patterns are the general trend of BPM, say faster and faster or faster then slower), lighter coloured buttons, and options for actual song length. Should you buy Tangerine!? Tangerine! is a bit on the expensive side for some, but others will definitely appreciate it. Namely runners, writers, and readers. Oh yeah, and people who hate the way iTunes handles shuffling, like me!
In conclusion, try the demo and see if it’s worth it, otherwise have fun dragging and dropping.

Retail Price: $24.95

Site: http://www.potionfactory.com/tangerine/?Ǭ†

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Music, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.