Hello and Best Wishes to the C & F folks. I was wondering if anyone out there is using “Transcribe” or other comparable(?) “slow down without lowering the pitch” type software. I have found Transcribe to be a real leg (ear?)up for learning new tunes. Acquiring it over the internet also helped me overcome my ‘download phobia.’ Installation was a snap, the support is great, and the price is right. The thirty day free trial is also worthwhile.
If there are prior ‘strings’ pertaining to this topic on the C&F mesage board, I apologize–the pace of recent events has prevented me from keeping up with the message board as much as I would like. In any event, I needed an excuse to check in, say hello, and wish the best to everyone out there as the end of a truly unusual–and I hope never to be duplicated–year draws to an end.
This subject comes up about every 6months or so. (Though last time was only about 3months ago.) It bears repeating. Software of this kind is fantastic for figuring out new tunes. Ronimusic.com has a shareware that lets you slow down mp3 and cd’s. It’s well worth it.
Tony
There are a handful of low cost speed/pitch altering products. One such program appeared on the Uilleann Pipe forum that’s FREE… and it works well. It’s a new version of Winamp and the plug-in called ‘Slow Me Down’
Go to the winamp site to download the program. http://www.winamp.com
Then download the plug-in. http://www.winamp.com/plugins/detail.jhtml;$sessionid$24ACBAAABBNKRTN24GARCZQ?componentId=21827
Instructions are in the readme file. You must re-start Winamp for the changes to take place.
Winamp won’t allow you to save your files in the modified speed/pitch like the more expensive programs, but for most of us, having a player is good enough.
Credit goes to Steve Turner for posting this originally.
Transcribe in an incredible tool both for learning tunes and, as I recently discovered, for learning foreign languages. A good friend of mine is using Transcribe for slowing down soundtracks of Japanese DVDs as part of his language study.
I recently demonstrated Transcribe to our local Uilleann piping club. We have a unique problem in that the old recordings of the masters like Ennis and Clancy are often played on B, C, and C-sharp pipe sets, which very few of us own. Transcribe makes it possible to both change the pitch up to a standard D set, as well as slow down the tunes to learn the arrangement and ornamentation. Highly recommended!!!
This is in response to Tony about the ability to save the slowed-down/pitch-changed tune with the Winamp slowdown plug-in. You should be able to do this by choosing to play it with an output plugin that saves it as an mp3 file as you play the tune. I have a different Winamp slowdown plugin and I’ve saved the altered tune as an mp3 file. Saving it as an mp3 file is not a slowdown plugin feature, but depends on your ‘output’ selection in the Winamp ‘Preferences’
Awesome tip Sal… thanks !!
I’m pleased with my initial tests of Winamp and I’ll have more time to experiment this weekend.
Which plug-in are you currently using ??
Sal, I see it’s your first posting…
WELCOME ABOARD !!
[ This Message was edited by: Tony on 2001-12-27 18:42 ]
The output mp3 plug-in I use is written by Chun-Yu Shei. It’s a bit tricky to find. Go to the Winamp Home page, then click on the ‘Plug-ins’ tab, then click on ‘Output Plug-ins’.
At the bottom of that page, click on ‘List 10 or 20’ and then scroll down to find the Mp3 output plug-in by Shei. It works great! When you choose that as your output plugin, your audio will be redirected to your chosen folder as saved files. Here’s a tip: Keep the folder for your saved mp3s open on your desktop and you will see the files being saved. You can rip a whole CD into mp3s in one go.You won’t hear the audio as it is being directed to your folder. Also make sure you have repeat off on Winamp, otherwise when it is done saving it’ll try doing it again and will come up with an overwrite error. When you are done saving, reset the output plugin back to the normal Nullsoft Waveout plugin, otherwise you won’t hear anything and will keep on saving more mp3 files or getting overwrite errors!
Your saved files will be slowed down or pitch changed if you played them that way with your SlowDown plug-in. You can then import the saved and slowed mp3 file into an audio processing program. I use Goldwave (www.goldwave.com -it’s free or rather shareware). Select the phrase you want to learn (left and right click in Goldwave) and have it repeat ad nauseam until you learn it!