Another active thread, and others I've seen, talk about using Quicktime to slow down recordings. I've done it, and it has been useful. I've seen Audacity brought up before as well, once with a member saying it was superior to using Quicktime in that regard. I've never used Audacity. Would anyone care to comment on this? Should I be using Audacity instead of Quicktime? If so, what are the advantages?
Audacity will also let you change the pitch of a recording - very useful if you want to change key or adjust a vinyl LP track that has been ripped using a deck that is a little faster or slower than it should be.
Audacity will do a lot more than that, though. For a full list of its capabilities, see here:http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features
Audacity is a pretty deep set of features - your best bet would be to install it, and start playing with it. If you find it convenient, well, keep with it.
I don't do a lot of audio lately, but every time I find myself wondering if I can do something in Audacity, the answer is usually "yes". So sure, grab it, install it, and see for yourself. What can you lose?
use transcribe! or the amazing slow downer. both are free to try, and cheap to buy. they both can change pitch and speed, quickly and with great precision.
if you dont want to spend any money, do it another way....but you will waste loads of time and energy for the sake of avoiding a 50 dollar outlay.
----
to answer your q, audacity is clunky and slow, quicktime is imprecise and sounds crap
I wouldn't use transcribe! or the amazing slow downer. Even if they are cheap to buy, audacity remains free and easy to use. Any and all upgrades to audacity are free, too.
If you're the kind of person who calls your nephew to ask why you can't open the internet, then audacity is not for you. Other than that, save your money, download the program and use it.
both these products are specifically designed to do the pitch/speed thing
audacity is a crap audio editor, which does a clunky job of quite a few things; most of which have nothing to do with what youre after.
its free. i have it installed and never use it.
I think "crap" is awfully strong denunciation for an editor that seems to work quite well in my experience. What's your beef, rump? What did Audacity do to get you so grumpy at it?
for audio editing i like wavelab/cubase.
from what i remember about audacity it is clunky, and the few times i used it i found it painful, and it didnt work well at all, on osx or pc. and was unstable/crashed a plenty
i'm not anti free, im anti crap
i used to use Goldwave alot in the old days, which i think is still shareware, and it is/was splendid. http://www.goldwave.com/
however it is not, and nor is audacity, and nor is QT a slowdown tool.
thats the salient bit.
i'm just trying point people to transcribe, which is just the thing for pitch and speed shift for learning tunes.
if you like audacity, fine, i just cant recommend it, certainly in the context of this thread.
Well, software that crashes isn't software you want. The version that I've been using for the last two years has been quite stable in my experience, so perhaps there has been some improvement made.
I was just curious, since Audacity has always seemed pretty inoffensive - a nice little pro-tools clone, really. Runs like a champ on my mac, that's all I know.
Just try it Jimmy, it's free. It's an excellent slowdowner in my opinion, and its a very easy to use as an editor for field recordings, or patching things together. I actually couldn't imagine managing my sound files without it. rumpole clearly has had a different experience. to each their own I guess.
I'd rate Audacity as a very powerful tool, especially considering the price tag - exactly zero. I imagine those who find it unsatisfactory haven't spent enough time with it.
But there is another approach that is not well known. Tatsuaki Koroda (who developed the Autotuner) has produced a "Tempo and Key changeable MP3, WMA, M4A, WAV player for Windows-XP etc.". Not as couth as the ASD, but totally free.
The independently controllable tempo, tuning and pitch controls are at the bottom of screen. It also permits marking points in the tune and repeating between them.
The latest version of VLC Media Player (free) has an on-screen slider control that alters the speed of audio or video over a range from x0.25 to x4 - without altering the pitch. It sounds pretty clunky at the extremes but is satisfactory over a reasonable change of speed, such as we would use. The slider is on the bottom of the VLC window, near the right hand end; when not in use it says 1.00x.
Audacity Merits
Audacity Merits
Another active thread, and others I've seen, talk about using Quicktime to slow down recordings. I've done it, and it has been useful. I've seen Audacity brought up before as well, once with a member saying it was superior to using Quicktime in that regard. I've never used Audacity. Would anyone care to comment on this? Should I be using Audacity instead of Quicktime? If so, what are the advantages?
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Audacity Merits
One advantage it may have over the latest version of Quicktime Player 10.0 is that Apple has apparently discontinued the slowdown feature.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by fidkid
Re: Audacity Merits
Audacity will also let you change the pitch of a recording - very useful if you want to change key or adjust a vinyl LP track that has been ripped using a deck that is a little faster or slower than it should be.
Audacity will do a lot more than that, though. For a full list of its capabilities, see here:http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by fen slodger
Re: Audacity Merits
Audacity is a pretty deep set of features - your best bet would be to install it, and start playing with it. If you find it convenient, well, keep with it.
I don't do a lot of audio lately, but every time I find myself wondering if I can do something in Audacity, the answer is usually "yes". So sure, grab it, install it, and see for yourself. What can you lose?
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Audacity Merits
i wouldnt use either,
use transcribe! or the amazing slow downer. both are free to try, and cheap to buy. they both can change pitch and speed, quickly and with great precision.
if you dont want to spend any money, do it another way....but you will waste loads of time and energy for the sake of avoiding a 50 dollar outlay.
----
to answer your q, audacity is clunky and slow, quicktime is imprecise and sounds crap
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by rumpole
Re: Audacity Merits
.....im talking only about speed and pitch changing....
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by rumpole
Re: Audacity Merits
I wouldn't use transcribe! or the amazing slow downer. Even if they are cheap to buy, audacity remains free and easy to use. Any and all upgrades to audacity are free, too.
If you're the kind of person who calls your nephew to ask why you can't open the internet, then audacity is not for you. Other than that, save your money, download the program and use it.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by juniper
Re: Audacity Merits
Windows Media Player for mp3s - the slow down feature makes it very easy to listen closely to particular pieces. Audacity is a great program though.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by bigyabby
Re: Audacity Merits
i just checked, transcribe and asd are the same price. in which case, the best tool imvho is transcribe.
transcribe
http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/download.html
amazing slowdowner
http://www.ronimusic.com
both these products are specifically designed to do the pitch/speed thing
audacity is a crap audio editor, which does a clunky job of quite a few things; most of which have nothing to do with what youre after.
its free. i have it installed and never use it.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by rumpole
Re: Audacity Merits
I think "crap" is awfully strong denunciation for an editor that seems to work quite well in my experience. What's your beef, rump? What did Audacity do to get you so grumpy at it?
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Audacity Merits
for audio editing i like wavelab/cubase.
from what i remember about audacity it is clunky, and the few times i used it i found it painful, and it didnt work well at all, on osx or pc. and was unstable/crashed a plenty
i'm not anti free, im anti crap
i used to use Goldwave alot in the old days, which i think is still shareware, and it is/was splendid.
http://www.goldwave.com/
however it is not, and nor is audacity, and nor is QT a slowdown tool.
thats the salient bit.
i'm just trying point people to transcribe, which is just the thing for pitch and speed shift for learning tunes.
if you like audacity, fine, i just cant recommend it, certainly in the context of this thread.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by rumpole
Re: Audacity Merits
Well, software that crashes isn't software you want. The version that I've been using for the last two years has been quite stable in my experience, so perhaps there has been some improvement made.
I was just curious, since Audacity has always seemed pretty inoffensive - a nice little pro-tools clone, really. Runs like a champ on my mac, that's all I know.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Audacity Merits
Just try it Jimmy, it's free. It's an excellent slowdowner in my opinion, and its a very easy to use as an editor for field recordings, or patching things together. I actually couldn't imagine managing my sound files without it. rumpole clearly has had a different experience. to each their own I guess.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by SandyBottoms
Re: Audacity Merits
fwiw, I had (actually, Vista had) stability problems with Audacity 1.2.6. I have had better luck with the Audacity 1.3.0 Beta.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by John Galt
Re: Audacity Merits
Works fine for me on PC. Had to look at the manual a few times to start with though.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by David50
Re: Audacity Merits
I'd rate Audacity as a very powerful tool, especially considering the price tag - exactly zero. I imagine those who find it unsatisfactory haven't spent enough time with it.
But there is another approach that is not well known. Tatsuaki Koroda (who developed the Autotuner) has produced a "Tempo and Key changeable MP3, WMA, M4A, WAV player for Windows-XP etc.". Not as couth as the ASD, but totally free.
It's called s8Tunes and can be downloaded from
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~tuner/tuner_e.html
The independently controllable tempo, tuning and pitch controls are at the bottom of screen. It also permits marking points in the tune and repeating between them.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by Terry McGee
Re: Audacity Merits
The latest version of VLC Media Player (free) has an on-screen slider control that alters the speed of audio or video over a range from x0.25 to x4 - without altering the pitch. It sounds pretty clunky at the extremes but is satisfactory over a reasonable change of speed, such as we would use. The slider is on the bottom of the VLC window, near the right hand end; when not in use it says 1.00x.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by Trevor Jennings