Digital Music Recorder

[darticus]

Is there a good digital recorder at a reasonable price that will record music and allow you to slow the music down keeping the same music notes. Might be a good helper. Thanks Ron

[Jim Burke]

I'm not sure about free-standing recorders. I record on my phone (there are several free or almost free apps for both iPhone and Android) and then use separate software to work with the recording. If you are a PC user, you can transfer the phone recording to your computer and use Amazing Slow Downer. It is excellent and costs around $40 to $50. If you use an iPad (or an iPhone, I think), you can use Anytune Pro+. It is very good and much less expensive. Both Amazing Slow Downer and AnyTune Pro+ will slow the music down and keep the pitch, and do lots of other excellent things too.

[wayman]

You can also use Audacity (Mac, PC, Unix) for this, which is free.

[David Colpitts]

I couldn't get anywhere with SlowDowner (tech issues, for some reason) but have had a blast with Anytune. And, the free one, without all the extra bells. What it lets me do is record my own (from a CD or other device) and not have to mess around with it. Just play, and slow down, plus a few other things. The price; so right!

 

David

[Anglo-Irishman]

Another vote for Audacity from me!

 

Slowing things down while maintaining pitch is only one useful feature. You can also transpose (alter the pitch) without affecting the tempo. It's essentially a recording and editing program, so if you've got a mic on your PC you can record and manipulate at the same time. Audacity also processes MP3 files that have been recorded elsewhere.

 

And yes - all that, and free! I wouldn't want to be without it.

 

Cheers,

John

[Jody Kruskal]

Audacity rocks and I use it all the time, but for slow down ease in learning new tunes I much prefer Transcribe! https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html

[Will Moore]

I've mentioned this before, but for anyone with an iPad check out Forscore (https://forscore.co/) it allows you to add sheet music as well as midi and mp3 tracks all in one place from multiple sources - most importantly for this it has a slider and buttons to slow the playback down to any speed you desire!

[Don Taylor]

I have a Zoom H2N digital recorder.

 

I seem to remember that it does have a slow downer feature plus an A-B looper but, IIRC, the sound quality when slowed down was pretty bad and I never tried to use it for that purpose. I cannot check this recollection for a few days as I am traveling.

 

It is a very good recorder and microphone, but I would rather use slow down software on a PC than try to use the Zoom.

 

Other digital recorders may be better at this type of thing, but maybe not as that is not really the intended purpose of these devices. On the Zoom at least, I get the impression that it is more of a marketing feature.

[Patrick McMahon]

I've used "Cool edit Pro" for years and years. It must be getting on for fifteen years old, but it does all of that stuff, slowing down, reverb, room effects etc, and multi channel recording.

I got a copy from a friend, who got it from a pirate type friend. It's absolutely brilliant. God knows what the current version is like.

I think it was an expensive program back then.

But i have had good reports of audacity. I think it runs along similar lines. I'm just so used to cool edit that I've never needed anything else.

You can change the key of a recording to order, and it really works brilliantly well, as well as slowing down without pitch change.

 

I believe that VLC free video program for PCs will also play video or music files slower without pitch change. Which has an interesting effect on voices.

[wayman]

I've got an H2N and while it makes great recordings, that's all I've found it's good at. Given that that's exactly why I bought it, I'm extremely satisfied with it! But everything else that it might say it does is not worth doing on there. The interface and screen for doing everything besides recording is similar to that on a mobile phone from the late 1990s.

[Reed Rat]

I have a Zoom H4n and use it with Cubase. The H4n makes very good recordings at 24/96, I've never tried the lower settings. I record to mine through a Mackie mixer and have several mics.

 

You might consider investing in some audio software where you can do more than just speed/slow down passages for study. At some point you might want to record so having the tools already and knowing how to use them may help you out. If that's years away them hold off on major software expenses, especially if you have no need for the latest and greatest features.

 

Cubase is kind of pricey, its just what I have and where I started. I think you could probably get a Zoom used on eBay if you are budget strapped. I've heard a lot about Audacity but have never tried it.

[RAc]

 

Cubase is kind of pricey, its just what I have and where I started. I think you could probably get a Zoom used on eBay if you are budget strapped. I've heard a lot about Audacity but have never tried it.

Cubase is being bundled with a number of USB sound cards and other digital music devices (eg, both my Alesis i|o2 and my Tascam 600 came w/ a Cubase Lite license). I believe that the functions needed realistically by amateur musicians are sufficiently covered by either Audacity or Cubase, but Cubase (being a commercial product) is better documented and supported.

 

Slowing down and speeding up at constant pitches or vice versa changing pitches at constant times is part of the ABCs of music processing software, so it's virtually included in every piece of music software available today. Cubase has it in all versions.

[Bruce McCaskey]

As long as phone apps are being mentioned I want to add AudioStretch. You can loop and change pitch as well as speed, but what I really like about it is that you can drop the speed all the way to zero. You can use your finger to slide through the sound file in either direction so you can take as much time as you want with each note when transcribing) and move through sequences repeadly without having to set loop markers.

 

I have Anytune Pro+ too, but find AudioStretch is my favorite by far. It will accept input from several sources including your music library. For live capture I record using any of several phone apps and then send the resulting file to AudioStretch. If needed, I run the file through a sound editor first to get rid of any unwanted clutter (dead time, bad takes and other undesired material).