Tempo Tunes Puts Listeners - Not the Algorithm - in Control of the Playlist

The free music-tech platform sequences songs by tempo, controls how the energy builds and saves playlists to listeners’ preferred streaming services.

ASHLAND, OR, UNITED STATES, August 25, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Built independently by veteran Amazon, Samsung and Bose product designer Dion Isselhardt, the free music-tech platform sequences songs by tempo - then sends finished playlists to Apple Music, TIDAL, YouTube Music or Spotify.

Streaming gave listeners access to nearly every song ever recorded, but limited control over why one track follows another. Tempo Tunes changes that: the newly launched independent music platform lets listeners direct how a playlist moves.

A listener chooses a starting and ending tempo, selects the shape of the experience, adds genres, artists, an era or reference songs, and decides whether the mix should favor familiar names or deeper cuts. Its Tempo Shapes feature can hold one pace, climb from warm-up to finish, peak at the midpoint and return, or begin at full energy and wind down. The result is a playlist arranged to follow a deliberate arc.

That sequencing of the song selections also creates another path into music discovery. A catalog track, older recording or artist outside a listener's usual history can surface because the song belongs at a precise point in the sequence of the playlist - not only because it resembles the last thing streamed.

A product designer's answer to a music problem.

Tempo Tunes was created and built independently by Dion Isselhardt, whose 25-year product design career includes Amazon's Kindle, Samsung's ID8 innovation lab, Bose Professional, Intuit, EA Sports, Romeo Power and Battle Motors.

The idea began while he was mountain biking and snowboarding. He could find endless workout and mood-based playlists, but could not tell a platform when the music should settle, push or come back down.

"I did not need another playlist called 'Workout,'" said Isselhardt. "I wanted to tell the music what the experience was going to be: start here, build with me, peak here and bring me home. Most recommendations begin with what you listened to yesterday. Tempo Tunes begins with what you want the music to do next."

The app's visual language draws from Isselhardt's childhood Sony Sports Walkman and worn-out cassettes. Playlists appear as labeled tapes with handwritten titles, making each mix feel tangible. The product itself is modern: Tempo Tunes is free, contains no advertising and says it does not sell user data or use tracking.

The hard part is not finding music. It is trusting the tempo data.

Because public BPM sources are often incomplete or inconsistent, Tempo Tunes built and maintains its own music database. Its playlist engine draws from almost 2 million tempo-verified songs, while its BPM search reaches 7.5 million measured tracks. Users can search for a song, identify music playing nearby, tap out a beat or upload a track to establish a starting tempo.

Listeners can combine more than 90 genres, choose an era, favor particular artists, seed a mix with up to five songs and move a control from obscure recordings to popular names. Completed playlists can be saved to Apple Music, TIDAL or YouTube Music, with Spotify available through a limited beta.
"The streaming platforms already hold the music," Isselhardt added. "We are giving listeners control over the arc of the playlist - and giving songs another way to be discovered. The music business spent years solving access. Tempo Tunes is focused on what comes next: control."

Tempo Tunes is available now for iPhone on the Apple App Store and Android on Google Play.

Jennifer Gross
Evolutionary Media Group
+1 323-646-8412
jennifer@emgpr.com
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