Exsqueeze Me! But does anyone out there know of a formula for figuring out exactly what the tempo should be for a given song.  I'm JUST not a math guy, and it gives me vertigo to consider such a task.  However, it does seem logical that if I did something like count the total beats over the course of the total time to play the song; or even just the 1st verse, and maybe 1st chorus, then dividing that by 4 (or whatever time signature) that might give me the right answer.  I'm so sick of depending on utilities that claim they can pinpoint it, and come nowhere near the correct answer.
KC
 

Depends how accurate you want it. You would need to know the length of the piece down to the millisecond in order to calculate the average BPM accurately. Or just the bar even. There must be something out there that would do that for you. Audio snap kinda works ok?
I'm sure someone will appear with a more intelligent answer very shortly.

Bibs

I take it your talking about an *existing* song?  mp3 etc?
 
Problem is that all songs (well most of them unless they're using a really obvious drum track) vary by a few bpm.  The way I analyze it is use the "Fit Improvisation" tool.  
 
This is what I do if I'm learning a song from an mp3 or whatever.  (No, I'm not good enough to do it all by ear and memory )
 
1) load the song onto an audio track.
2) trim off silence at the beginning
3) create a midi track, then record a track hitting C3 at 4/4 (or whatever the signature) with the music.  make sure you have the first beat at the exact start of the midi track.  you can edit the midi to make sure it lines up etc any way you want.
4) select the midi track and then Process \ "Fit Improvisation"
5) a temp map is created that aligns the audio tack to the beat that you gave it (and of course you can see the tempo in bpm and how it varries etc)  Now the chord changes etc all line up with measures etc instead of all over the place.
 
Takes me about 1 minute + whatever the length of the song playing.
 
I usually then drop markers at the verse, chorus etc.  Then if I'm learning the song I add the chords etc and  wherever melody and riffs etc.  Either in piano roll or staff.
 
 

To get a rough idea I just count the number of beats in a 10 second segment and multiply by 6. Simples.
 
For anything more accurate there's always audiosnap.

I play the song and use tempo tap from the "insert tempo change" dialog. If it's a modern charts type thing it'll almost invariably be a nice round number. I try that and fit the first 1 in the music to Sonar's 1. Scroll down the song to see if it fits. If not, adjust.

That's assuming you need to work with the song in Sonar. For other stuff (learning songs etc) I usually use "Transcribe!" and place a couple of beat markers (usually half a verse or a chorus or something) and let it calculate the bpm from that.

Hey try this "MixMeister BPM Counter"  it is free and it counts BPM --- I use the drum track (obviously) but if not I try to find a drum-break and paste multiple copies to get some 'measures' or length to the beat track and then MixMeister does its thing!
(it has an advertising 'bit' when you close the program)
 
http://www.mixmeister.com/download-bpmanalyzer.php
 
Good Luck!

cityrat
I take it your talking about an *existing* song?  mp3 etc?
 
Problem is that all songs (well most of them unless they're using a really obvious drum track) vary by a few bpm.  The way I analyze it is use the "Fit Improvisation" tool.  
 
This is what I do if I'm learning a song from an mp3 or whatever.  (No, I'm not good enough to do it all by ear and memory )
 
1) load the song onto an audio track.
2) trim off silence at the beginning
3) create a midi track, then record a track hitting C3 at 4/4 (or whatever the signature) with the music.  make sure you have the first beat at the exact start of the midi track.  you can edit the midi to make sure it lines up etc any way you want.
4) select the midi track and then Process \ "Fit Improvisation"
5) a temp map is created that aligns the audio tack to the beat that you gave it (and of course you can see the tempo in bpm and how it varries etc)  Now the chord changes etc all line up with measures etc instead of all over the place.
 
Takes me about 1 minute + whatever the length of the song playing.
 
I usually then drop markers at the verse, chorus etc.  Then if I'm learning the song I add the chords etc and  wherever melody and riffs etc.  Either in piano roll or staff.
 
 

Thanx Cityrat, this is a great tip!