Just thought I'd give a bit of a review on this program and how it’s helped me. I've been using it for 2-3 years now and it's my go to when trying to learn a new song or if I am trying to get a recording exactly on the right key. Some recordings are a few cents out, some a lot more. It really is a useful and powerful tool. As the name suggests it is to allows you to slow down a track so you can hear exactly what is going on. The big advantage of this program is the quality of the sound it gives out when you slow tracks way way down and with absolutely zero pitch change. Other systems don’t generate the quality and introduce artifacts. You can adjust the speed down to 20% (1/5 speed) slower, or all the way up to 200% (Speed x2) in minute steps so you can get the hang of a given riff. You can loop a particular part of a track to nail that part of a song. You can save just that part if you want to. You can change the pitch/ key of a song in 1 cent increments if needed on in semi tones. You can adjust the pitch plus or minus 12 semi tones. I've just done that to a George Harmonica Smith recording of "Teardrops Are Falling" that's about 20 cents out in pitch but I've also changed the key to suit a C chromatic. You can export the file in its modified, shortened, pitch changed, speed changed version so you can quickly go back to it. It has helped me improve my playing and has allowed me to increase my play list at a much faster rate. Here is a link to the site; https://www.ronimusic.com/ Hope this is of help to some of you who haven’t come across this program Here ‘s a link to a tutorial.
after reading your reply I went onto google play and got this app,or something very similar for free which I'm looking forward to trying out.Also I never use tabs so could you please explain the - *meanings for me,thanks
Nice review John. I'm using this for years, no musician should be without it! It really dumbs down the whole process of learning a song. You can quickly get the tune to your preferred key and then just slow it down until you get the right speed to learn it. Pretty simple to use.
An oldie but a goodie. Agree it’s useful and reliable. Kind of pricey. I have Mac desktop and windows laptop and had to buy it twice, but they gave me a discount on second purchase. I have a thing called AudioStretch on my iPhone which is a fair bit cheaper and works well. I especially like the way I can interact with it via the touchscreen. Reminiscent of cueing up a record but without the potential to damage the equipment and with the advantage of easy loop setting.
I agree, this is one of the few pieces of software I consistently use while practicing music and transcribing. I've used it multiple times a week for a few years easily worth the cost.
Excuse me guys and John M G, have not you ever heard of a program called "Audacity"? It does everything John presented here and much more. Besides that, it's completely free, mara.
I also have Audacity on my pc and yes it may do the same, but not with the ease that Slowdowner does. But I'm going to have another look at Audacity because if it is as good as Slowdowner, I'm going to make the change to Linux for good. I can live without Band in a Box, but I can't live without something that's as good as Amazing Slowdowner. Hope you are right Mara. Cheers JG
For us it gets to be whether being "technically challenged" is a dead end if you want to learn tunes. Do I want to spend my time playing/practicing music or spend the same time trying to learn more computer stuff. So we have audacity, slow downer, harp ninja..just don't use them...don't really know what to do with them. I always head for the harp before I head to the computer. I could beat myself up for not knowing those things or I could just learn a new song and have some fun . I always chose the later it seems.
Well I've just tried to use Audacity to slow stuff down and it pitch changed and compared to amazing slow downer it's a pia. Amazing Slowdowner is so easy. I get it that it's not for everyone. I'm just sharing my personal experience with it and have a set of harps next to my pc and it's where I practice. For just US $50 for a great learning tool, I'd say it's a bargain. And honestly, if you are on line here, it's not a hassle to learn to use if you can read and follow the instructions. Anyway, good luck with whatever works for you. Cheers JG
I've used the Amazing Slow Downer and it's a great App! Slow down Magic Dicks Whammer Jammer and listen to all the stuff you missed. Anything by SBWII is an eye opener for people who might think he plays a bit simply. He does not and never did. There are others tools mentioned above but I'm not familiar w/ them. ---------- Reasonably priced Reed Replacement and tech support on Hand Made Series Hohner Diatonic Harmonicas.
'Making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time. Click MP for more info. Aloha Mark .
Last Edited by MP on Jun 16, 2018 4:32 PM
I love the longevity and simplicity of asd. I had a similar thing called ‘capo’ once which seemed to do the same job but was prone to crash and eventually the updates stopped arriving. I wanted something like asd for my phone, because often I’m away from home when I’m trying to work on something. A fella on the beginner page put me on to AudioStretch. I was fearful of another learning curve but to my joy it’s as simple as could be and works without a glitch so far. The only catch is you must have the song in the memory of the device, it won’t access it via a link, and the trend is to access music from ‘cloud’ libraries which has caught me out a couple times when I thought I had something but didn’t realise I’d been streaming it. I love that app almost better than asd in some ways. The ability to scroll through the song at ‘finger pace’ is something asd won’t give you. It’s like a more direct connection with the brain somehow.
Hi SuperBee I just had a look at AudioStretch but it's only for iPhones! No pc or android version.
I'm a through and through desktop guy and only use my phone to take pics and make phone calls!
I tried looking for an android version and in searching came up with best alternatives to AudioStretch for android was Amazing Slowdowner! It is now available as a phone app now for $14.99 Here's where I found it
Hi JG, sorry but my English is not so very bad ;o) and my Audacity is in Finnish but to slow down a song with Audacity you first paint it (ctrl A) then you go to the effects and from there “change tempo” you can give value for ex. – 33 % so you can slow down the entire song 1/3 of the original so that pitch is not changed. It’s better to but a tag to square “use high quality stretching” then the sound quality doesn’t change. Of course you can only slow down a part of the song by painting only a part of it or what I do when practicing a difficult part I copy it to its own track. To Spderyak I’d like to say that this kind of things can be really used to make our practicing easier and faster. If you don’t have a golden ear I’m sure that I can learn to play a difficult harmonica solo exactly right faster with these than you by ear. For example with Audacity I can find “TABs” for the solo very fast. First I paint the first “harp-tone” of the spectrum picture. Then I go to “effects” and take “change the key” and there I can see what is the note or that harp-tone originally. I don’t change it, I go to second “harp-tone” in spectrum picture and find out same way what note is that and so on. In few minutes I have all notes of the solo and I can start to practice it with my harmonica. Finally I’d like to mention a similar program “Riffstation”. If you try the free test version you’ll buy it (some 30 euros or less). If you load a song in to it, you can see the chords and tempo (BPM) of the song. You can change the key and tempo while listening the song. So if you have a backing track you can make a new backing track in the key and with the tempo you want to. I give you an example “Help Me” I have posted here before but here is what I have done really. We really played this song but the sound was very bad because of technical error. Then I found in YouTube a very good backing track in the key G (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQLwD1T0ebs). In the backing track there is also a piano and we don’t have a pianist BUT I noticed that the piano is recorded only on the left channel and everything else on the right channel. Then I separated the sound track from our original video and I put it into Riffstation so I got the tempo of our playing and the video. Then I put the backing track’s right channel to the Riffstation and I changed the key from G to E and changed the tempo to the same than our original playing. Then I put the result to the Audacity and recorded with Audacity my harmonica playing on one track. I added also my singing from an old recording, when I have been practicing to sing it. There I copied some “Help me” and added those here and there, to the places where my lips are moving but where was no sound at all on the track. This can be done easily with Audacity. One can even change the place of two words in a sentence. The final result could be better, but will do for me, mara.
