Hi I’m looking for a recommendation for downloadable software that will enable me to slow down (or speed up!!!) recordings so that I can play along with tracks from CD recordings.
Local Music shop recommended Guitar Shed. It does look good but I don’t need all the guitar apps and was wondering if there was a more woodwind-friendly, reliable option.
I wonder what Finbar Furey would sound like speeded up!!!
The Amazing Slow Downer ($49.95) - http://www.ronimusic.com/slowdown.htm
Transcribe also works ($50) - http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html
Thanks Podge
I’ve been using Audacity for years to edit, transcribe, and slow down music. And, it’s free. It’s a more general purpose music editor than Transcribe and Slow Downer. I have also used Transcribe in the past for audio and video and it works well.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Did I mention that Audacity is free?
-Don
I can only second Audacity.
Btw., it’s change tempo, not change speed (which changes pitch as well).
He’s a bit too slow, eh? 
BestPractise 1.03 - Free 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp
Isn’t it the same thing?
Change speed/sample rate of the recording and then pitch compensate by time stretching or shortening, is at least how I thought it was done.
/MarcusR
Second. Works, very well for me.
Well Pyroh I’ll be extremely careful about my use of terminology in future now that I know that the Music Police are monitoring this Forum!
Huh? 
Pyroh is just telling you the name of the menu option (“Change Tempo”) in Audacity to do what you want to do.
I’m confused as well…I don’t know whether it was sarcastic or not…
Anyway, Marcus, it’s not really the same thing. Change speed does take the sound wave, and stretches it, or concetrates it - so it changes the pitch. But Change tempo does it without changing the pitch (I guess it’s change speed+change pitch, but I haven’t looked into Audacity’s guts).
No worries, but for someone not using Audacity your post could easily be interpreted as as a remark regarding the terminology of “speed” vs “tempo”.
For audio signals in my world, speed and tempo would be the same thing. You can time stretch a recorded signal to change the speed (tempo) while preserving the pitch.
The basics of what is done in Audacity, BestPractice, Matlab … is to change the length of the signal according to the desired speed (tempo) and then do a sample rate conversion to preserve the pitch.
/M