Hello! Firstly, should say, I'm your low tech person. Being that the case, which slow downer prog. would be my best purchase?

Tanx, Alan

Hi Alan

Audacity is a program that seems to fit most needs. It'll change tempo without changin pitch.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

It's free. I don't understand "purchase" Is that a new concept?

Thanks
Leo

the amazing slow downer is nothing short of amazing. i have never been satisfied with any of the free slow downers, even ones that mimick amazing slow downers interface. the fidelity of the audio is crystal clear. on other slow downers, i would often struggle to hear individual notes at the slowest speeds, as the slow downers would chop up the music instead of slowing it down.

ASD is amazing.
Worth every penny.
Much easier to use than a concertina.

Best practice is free and seems to work well (I rarely, if ever use that sort of stuff) find it here

I'll third ASD - Amazing Slow Downer. Very good for isolating parts of a tune, slowing down, changing pitch etc. Handles .mp3 files and CD's etc. Good ear learning tool.

And I'll vote forth for ASD, worth every penny.

Audacity is free and excellent - but probably a lot more complicated to use than the ASD

Another free and VERY easy option (though the quality isn't so good) is the Slow Downer Plugin for Winamp (which you'll already have if you run Windows) this is from the same people as do the ASD here Ronimusic

You can also get a trial version of the ASD at the above site.

i really liked best practice, but then something happened with the versions (i dont recall), and then i bought amazing slow downer (asd). i really liked it better. to stave you off until you can save the cash, best practice will work. the clarity of sound was in amazing slow downer.

i do not use it anymore, because i am working on a very small repertoire right now, but when i start learning tunes again, i shall pounce upon it, especially to change the key of the music. for the life of me i cant figure out why fiddlers play in weird keys. we know why concertina players and pipers do it--they have weird instruments!

Being, as said, a low tech person , and having downloaded Audacity, I now must ask - what format is the recording on my CD's and what should I convert them to, to most easily run them on Audacity? I would be grateful for any/all tips.

Thanks, Alan.

it depends on your version of audacity. the old versions could not run mp3's, but the new one can. so i would say either convert it into an mp3 or a wav. if you are using itunes, let me know, because i could walk you through how to change it from mp4 to mp3.

Your audio CDs - as stuck in the CD drive on the computer are WAV format and can be used directly.
If you want to save them slowed down to an MP3 player, or just play them on computer, convert them to MP3.
(or save them as WAVs)

WAVS are playable in most things but the files are a lot bigger than MP3s.

Your audio CDs - as stuck in the CD drive on the computer are WAV format and can be used directly.
If you want to save them slowed down to an MP3 player, or just play them on computer, convert them to MP3.
(or save them as WAVs)

WAVS are playable in most things but the files are a lot bigger than MP3s.

To slow down a track on a CD with Audacity (in Windows)
Put CD in drive, if it starts playing close the program thats playing it! If a menu pops up asking you what to do with the CD, close the popup.
In Audacity, click on File-> Open
a file menu comes up - find your CD drive and click on the track you want to slow down
Audacity will load the track and you should see a trace of the the L&R channels in the window
Highlight (select) the track with the mouse (or goto Edit->Select->All)
Click on Effects->Change Tempo (changes speed without altering pitch)
Slide the slider down by say -33% (or type a new number in the box) Click OK
Listen to what it sounds like - press the green play arrow.
If it's not what you want - Edit->Undo Change Tempo and try again

If you want to save the result File->Export as WAV or Export as MP3

Chris

Chris, I'm having trouble doing this. Audacity tells me - this is a audio CD music file - audacity can't work with this format - please try ripping it to another format. I appreciate your help!

Alan.

Alan - you're right - I should have double checked. (I think this works under linux - but it doesn't under windows).

So....
we have to find out what you have on your computer to "rip" the files.
realplayer will do it, itunes will do it, you may have something else that will work (sometimes you get software with the CD drive).

If you put a CD in the drive, does it come up with a menu of suggestions?
If so do any of these mention ripping audio files?

Chris

I've been writing for a long time about how I use "Transcribe!" by Seventh String Software to slow down tunes, here's a live demo of the program in action:

High Resolution version on Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/1252232
(Click on the zoom button in the lower right of the video window to view full screen.)

Low Resolution version on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY846dfCrv0&fmt=18

I have no financial interest in the company, just been using their software for a very long time.


Cheers,

Michael

what music playing programs do you have installed?

Hello,
A very easy to use, new software on the market is mTrax by www.TerraSofta.com. It is a next generation slow down software, in that rather than dealing with one song at a time, when you load the program it automatically finds all of your music, as it is also a music player. You can make as many sections as you wish to slow down the tempo without changing the pitch. You can then loop through the sections as many times as you wish at steady slow tempo, or at increasing tempo. You can set up your Gig list for the coming gig, or your Practice List. You can set difficulty ratings for your section and filter accordingly, only focusing on the one that remain Difficult until you know them all. There is even a practice timer on deck and many other features. You can download a free trial at www.TerraSofta.com
[EDIT BY PAUL{admin}: this user works for the TerraSofta company. It would have been nice if she had mentioned this... ahem.]

I can wholeheartedly recommend a portable solution away from your PC, The Tascam MPGT1 portable mp3 player - they call it a "guitar trainer". It holds about 240 MP3's and has the usual player functions, albeit in a very sturdily constructed case made for taking hard knocks. But it also has the ability to slow down in the same way the software does without changing key, or it will change key without changing tempo. Plus a load of effects available, a guitar input socket tuner/metronome etc etc. But its simple to use stand alone with either headphones or portable speakers.

It is a piece of cake to put in loop points to repeat phrases. Price around £100 on Ebay

The other Tascam option is their CDGT2 which does for CD's what the MPGT1 does for MP3's it comes in a little cheaper than the mp3 player too at about £85 on ebay.

Just because these are called guitar trainers doesn't mean they aren't ideal for learning tunes on any instrument ie concertina.

I have used the tool that is built into my Sony minidisc player; Audacity; and the Amazing Slow-Downer. It is no contest - ASD is much quicker, simpler, and more versatile than the others, and has excellent quality. I use it pretty infrequently and I still think it was completely worth the money for the easy adjustments and trivially simple pitch-matching, like when I want to play my C/G concertina along with Noel Hill's E-flat tracks. Last time I checked there was a free trial version which would only load short files - to try it out, I used Audacity to trim a file down to the first few minutes, at which point it would load into ASD and all the features would be present.

Whats your time worth spent learning overcomplicated programs? Get the Amazing Slow Downer. I have been using it for years and years.