I am writing a music player and have got several ways of playing the files (either MP3 or wav etc.) through API calls (thanks to a recent post) or through the windows media ActiveX control.
What I also want is to be able to analyse the music that is playing.
There are two objectives.

1. To be able to show graphical effects, like in winamp
2. To be able to analyse the file and determine BPS

I know that to determine BPS will be a bit tricks (fourier transforms etc..) but would like to know if anyone has seen any example code that might handle this.
It would not have to do the analysis on the fly as the app would hold information about tracks in a database and use the information to cue up next tracks and mixing.

If I also wanted to preview the BPS to the user, I want to be able to overlay a drum beat onto the music so the user can tell if the BPS calculation has been accurate and correct it if needed, what would be the best way to play a sound with high accuracy. If I used the VB Times control then it could get affected by other code running and fire at the wrong time. Would I have to use some callbacks from the API?

At the moment it seems fairly ambitious, but also great fun, so I'm trying to thrash out some ideas.


Many thanks for any information.


John.