A friend has a portable cd player that slows down the cd and/or changes pitch. It’s made by Tascom. It called ‘cd player guitar trainer.’ It was bought at The Guitar Center. I tried it. It works, but…the sound quality is poor at 50% speed and the controls are baffling. Inscrutable submenus and a lousy instruction booklet. Anyone know of any better/competing portable solutions? The Tascom device does more than just slow speed play. It has inlets and outlets for hookups for guitar, what have you. My main complaint with it was the sound quality at slow speed- very grainy, though workable.
Tony
My objective is get away from the computer without having to copy sound files and slow them down with goldwave, etc. Too much work.
Tony, my Zen Creative Jukebox has a slowdown feature that isn’t as sharp as Roni’s software for the PC. It doesn’t get you entirely away from the computer (I still need that to download my CD’s), but after that its as good as a CD player for me.
I brought nearly 200 CD’s onto the jukebox at 75% quality, and can get by slowing that down, but when I use Tyghre’s – he transfers at 100% – it is nice and crisp.
As far as I know it does no pitch shift, and it doesn’t have the sliding slowness either.
Hope this helps,
you could buy an iRiver HD player http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?act=ST&f=21&t=15894
but i believe you’ll end up with lesser quality.
i bought a creative jukebox 3, http://www.nomadworld.com/products/Jukebox3/ and found the live recordings o.k. but not loud enough to play along, even when amplified on my conputer. this player can slow down at 50% or at 75%. i think it’s about the same quality as the iRiver, but i’m not sure.
this machine is amongst the easyest to use of all the 8 trackers, but takes a while getting used to…
http://www.humbuckermusic.com/bobr8dist.html
it’s very good quality from live recordings you’ll get here.
but is costy on batteries, best used with phanthom power.
or http://www.bosspedals.co.uk/acatalog/Boss_BR1600_Digital_16_Track_Recorder.html
best is: try before u buy
Take a look at this software for the computer
http://www.seventhstring.demon.co.uk/
Bill Ochs recomend this program.
David Migoya has something like this, that he raved about in WOODENFLUTE. Darned if i can find it again… you may want to email him. There were 3 models, and the most expensive one was also a CD recorder, the others just players. They had variable pitch and speed in the playback.
…
Found it! I kept a link:
http://superscopetechnologies.com/products/PSD220/index.htm - change tempo only
http://superscopetechnologies.com/products/PSD230/index.htm - change tempo and/or pitch
http://superscopetechnologies.com/products/PSD300/index.htm - change tempo or pitch, and record
g
Thanks for your replies and the work you did finding the links. You should have warned me to make sure my pacemaker was charged up before I started looking at the prices. That Superscope David Migoya recommended sure looks great (for $450) Ouch. The other devices were in that ballpark, so I guess that’s what you expect to pay. I’ll do some more looking and report if I find anything worthwhile for a lower price. Thanks again.
Tony
I don’t know if this will help, but I bought a Sony ICD-ST10 and a Sony ECM-DS70P stereo microphone from JandR.com for around $200 ($140 and $60 respectively) for recording sessions (45 minutes stereo, 5 hours mono). The whole shebang fits in a shirt pocket. The ST10 has a slowdown mode which helps me learn the tunes. It also has a USB transfer to a PC for high-speed uploads.
-jeff
As you’re probably aware, that’s because the JB3 has a “line in” not a “microphone in”. You need to use an amplified microphone, or download the latest firmware from Creative, which will allow you to boost the recording level on your JB3 (at some cost in quality of recording).
– Scott
scott,
i have very sharp ears. and i’m using a sony 907 something mic, and i’ve downloaded the latest from creative. i record with mp3 128 and put the gain at 48. on the computer i amplify this with an other programe. but it just isn’t loud enough for me to record a low D, and after, to play along with.
hi tony, tascam brought out a new slowdowner, the player you tried is for guitarist, but this player is for singers and other instruments http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM04/Content/Tascam/PR/CD-VT1.html
I’ve been using Transcribe for quite a while now and love it. It keeps getting better and better.
The interface is very well done and easy to use.
Eddie
A second vote for the Sony. There is a new model, the ICD ST25, with double the memory at about the same price ($130 to $150). It is an excellent device for recording live music. The tiny size, decent battery life, optional mic-in, and a built-in slow down function (!!!) are all positives. Being so tiny, I can take it everywhere and be unobtrusive. I liken the sound quality in mono, to old AM radio sound quality–good enough to hear the music, but far from CD quality. Sound quality on the slow-down music is good enough to hear the tune, if the main goal is to learn tunes by ear.
Transferring music from CDs into the device, is an area where the Sony voice recorder is weak. It can be done, but it is labor intensive, involving ripping and making WAV files and then converting to Sony format. Of course, a person could play music on the CD player or computer and record that way. Going the other way, getting live music into the computer is relatively fast and easy. First step is to record, then transfer via USB. The voice recorder uses a Sony file format, but allows easy conversion to WAV and then I use another program to make MP3s.
With price and portability as main factors, the Sony is the best option that I found after spending many hours researching the topic.
- Bill
Another thread:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=18964