Slowing down a song - digital file

[killdozzer]

Please don't mind me asking this in the general thread, other threads didn't look any more suitable.

I need to slow down a song for choreography reasons. I have CyberLink WaveEditor at my disposal. But the file is FLAC and WaveEditor doesn't accept FLAC. I have some sort of converter, but it always sound bad. Let me try and describe bad, as this might help - a bit like tape deck chewing on a tape. Tone goes from the original smooth to a prolonged one with sort of "hick-ups". I'm guessing this is the part of the tone that the software invented and added since it is a digital format??

It goes without saying that no change in pitch is very important.

My FLAC file has 50Mb and it should be enough info for slowing down the song (if my understanding of how this works is even near to correct).

I expect a WAV file would be the best option. My converter can make a WAV file out of FLAC, but to no avail. Perhaps this decoding already ruins it too much.

What am I looking for? What should I get to be able to slow down a digital file? Could WaveEditor do it with an original WAV? Is the problem in my converter software?

Any info greatly aapreciated!

 

[lovinthehd]

I thought if you slow it down you'd be changing pitch; when you alter a tt's speed, you alter pitch....so I get this when searching....and this

 

[killdozzer]

I thought if you slow it down you'd be changing pitch; when you alter a tt's speed, you alter pitch....so I get this when searching....and this

And you're right. It should change pitch. But this is not what you want so many softwares are trying to offer a way to slow it down as if it was played in a different tempo but same pitch. This is what I need. I'll go through your links. Thank you!

 

[Bucknekked]

And you're right. It should change pitch. But this is not what you want so many softwares are trying to offer a way to slow it down as if it was played in a different tempo but same pitch. This is what I need. I'll go through your links. Thank you!

I would be interested in what you come up with. My understanding is that if you slow the song down, the pitch will change. That's an "analog" slowdown: slow down a turntable, a tape, or any mechanical device and the pitch will change. But, you may have a way to use an app or software program that will give the appearance of slowing down and not altering the pitch. I have not seen that, but I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

Your file format should be an easy conversion. FLAC has plenty of data in it. Taking it to another format should be pretty easy. XLD can do it. I would imagine Exact Audio Copy could do it.

 

[slipperybidness]

I would be interested in what you come up with. My understanding is that if you slow the song down, the pitch will change. That's an "analog" slowdown: slow down a turntable, a tape, or any mechanical device and the pitch will change. But, you may have a way to use an app or software program that will give the appearance of slowing down and not altering the pitch. I have not seen that, but I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

Your file format should be an easy conversion. FLAC has plenty of data in it. Taking it to another format should be pretty easy. XLD can do it. I would imagine Exact Audio Copy could do it.

I believe EAC may use an external program or a plugin for conversions.

It's been a while since I set up EAC, but I'm pretty sure my setup actually rips as WAV file, then uses an external program to compress it to FLAC, then removes the WAV. Of course if you are happy with WAV (and have excessive storage capacity) then there is no reason to convert and compress to FLAC.

 

[killdozzer]

I would be interested in what you come up with. My understanding is that if you slow the song down, the pitch will change. That's an "analog" slowdown: slow down a turntable, a tape, or any mechanical device and the pitch will change. But, you may have a way to use an app or software program that will give the appearance of slowing down and not altering the pitch. I have not seen that, but I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

@lovinthehd @slipperybidness @Bucknekked

And again, you're right. This is how sound "works" if that's the right word for it. But I knew that slowing down a song without changing the pitch is possible. I was recording a commercial for a radio station and we had very limited time as time is expensive in broadcasting. I could never read all those sentences that fast, so the producer said; you just say it normal and we will speed it up. I asked about the pitch right away and he said not to worry. It's just that I lost contact with him.

So, without further ado, the results: Audacity can EASILY slow down your song without affecting the pitch. Those easy few steps from the lovinthehd's link work. No significant deviations in sound at least that would bother me so much for this particular project.

You might say it is like someone is playing a song and then his teacher comes and simply lifts the little weight on his metronome for a few millimeters and say now play it in this tempo.

I can not confirm that CyberLink's WaveEditor can be as effective, since it won't accept FLAC. I don't have a WAV and this means that changes in quality I experienced might have, as easily, come from the converter.

If anyone is interested it was Sting's Saint Agnes and the Burning Train. And it is for figure skating. A simple one, two, three, one, two, three rhythm of this song which plays lovely, as some sort of classical piece, calm and simple is perfect for skating a program that is also moderate and old-school.

 

[Littlefoott]

look here, http://www.audioholics.com/how-to-shop/best-free-audio-software

Item #6, Audacity - it will also change the speed or pitch of a recording,

 

[killdozzer]

look here, http://www.audioholics.com/how-to-shop/best-free-audio-software

Item #6, Audacity - it will also change the speed or pitch of a recording,

This is really not helpful. I tried to provide some clear and straight info, but you're adding unnecessary confusion. I read your link and it doesn't say there that changing speed will automatically affect pitch. It doesn't even mention pitch in that paragraph.

So once again to conclude this; it is possible to slow down a song (digital file) in Audacity with out changing the pitch and with the end result that is, well let's call it highly usable. If you for some reason need pitch to change accordingly, it can do that as well.

 

[Littlefoott]

here after following the link in the article
https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/
Features

• Record live audio
• Record computer playback on any Windows Vista or later machine
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs
• Edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis sound files
• AC3, M4A/M4R (AAC), WMA and other formats supported using optional libraries
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together
• Numerous effects including change the speed or pitch of a recording
• And more! See the complete list of features: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features

 

[killdozzer]

here after following the link in the article
https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/
Features

• Record live audio
• Record computer playback on any Windows Vista or later machine
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs
• Edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis sound files
• AC3, M4A/M4R (AAC), WMA and other formats supported using optional libraries
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together
• Numerous effects including change the speed or pitch of a recording
• And more! See the complete list of features: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features

Nice thank you, Comforting to see your grasp of the obvious is not at all weak.

Look, Littlefoott, for someone with your nickname you sure as hell have a big, heavy foot threading all over the forum like a one man cavalry.

Slow down, slow down. Take it easy. There's noting here that needs to be conquered by storm. I would even advise people to tip-toe as they might scare the knowledge away. We have time (if anything).

And trust me, I'm not just putting on an act. You can easily check when I first came here and asked a question and when it was that I started posting (and still I don't make it right every time).

Take a breath. Hold your composure. And check again, after I said this:

So, without further ado, the results: Audacity can EASILY slow down your song without affecting the pitch.

You said this:

Item #6, Audacity - it will also change the speed or pitch of a recording,

This is unnecessary any way you look at it. It could be misleading as well and thus it is also unwelcome.

A good info is always cleared from all the surplus. So, for the third time;

Speed and pitch, although dependent on one another, are not the same thing. Audacity can change speed without affecting the pitch.

If after this you write how it can change speed or pitch it is really surplus that can only confuse.

This is not directed at you. I'm thinking of a member, for example with poor knowledge of English, coming here and searching these forums for a software that can change speed alone. He finds this and sees that after I wrote Audacity can do what he needs, someone else wrote something about changing the pitch as well and he thinks - well then Audacity is not for me.

That's why I said; your posts are not actually helpful.

 

[rojo]

@Littlefoott you are not deserving of this treatment. I hope you keep contributing. Looks to me like you know some things, and we need more members like you.

 

[MrBoat]

Nice thank you, Comforting to see your grasp of the obvious is not at all weak.

Look, Littlefoott, for someone with your nickname you sure as hell have a big, heavy foot threading all over the forum like a one man cavalry.

Slow down, slow down. Take it easy. There's noting here that needs to be conquered by storm. I would even advise people to tip-toe as they might scare the knowledge away. We have time (if anything).

And trust me, I'm not just putting on an act. You can easily check when I first came here and asked a question and when it was that I started posting (and still I don't make it right every time).

Take a breath. Hold your composure. And check again, after I said this:


You said this:


This is unnecessary any way you look at it. It could be misleading as well and thus it is also unwelcome.

A good info is always cleared from all the surplus. So, for the third time;

Speed and pitch, although dependent on one another, are not the same thing. Audacity can change speed without affecting the pitch.

If after this you write how it can change speed or pitch it is really surplus that can only confuse.

This is not directed at you. I'm thinking of a member, for example with poor knowledge of English, coming here and searching these forums for a software that can change speed alone. He finds this and sees that after I wrote Audacity can do what he needs, someone else wrote something about changing the pitch as well and he thinks - well then Audacity is not for me.

That's why I said; your posts are not actually helpful.

These topics are not life or death. Once your question has been answered, and you have extracted all that you can from it, added information, redundant or otherwise, could contain even the slightest bit of information for someone who arrives here via a google search looking for something else that is not covered elsewhere. I cannot count how many times I have found what I needed because someone added something else, or perhaps even worded it differently.

I can also not count the times where I had read a thread and wished the conversation would have went further, for it almost adding all of the information I needed.

Just the other day, when asking a question about my antiquated AVR about bass management, I linked to an old thread here that troubleshot and answered the poster's issue, but then went on to suggest alternative methods. It ended up being helpful to me. The post that answered the user's specific question did not. That topic ended up answering a lot of questions about my AVR.

 

[Littlefoott]

@killdozer
I shared the in house audioholics link for 2 reasons
1:support for the forum site I just signed up on aka "audioholics"
2:there are other good tools in there

and just so you are aware, I don't always read the previous posts I just read the request, skim the previous posts for links and keywords (if the threads not too long) and try too help if I didn't see my suggestion.

I saw that audioholics article days ago, took well over 15 minutes of hunting to find it again and then I shared it to help you

and considering the time difference between our posts, I probably had this window open and not updating while as I was hunting for the article as mentioned you were posting about it.
we were like two ships passing in the night

 

[Blue Dude]

I need to slow down a song for choreography reasons. I have CyberLink WaveEditor at my disposal. But the file is FLAC and WaveEditor doesn't accept FLAC. I have some sort of converter, but it always sound bad. Let me try and describe bad, as this might help - a bit like tape deck chewing on a tape.

...

My FLAC file has 50Mb and it should be enough info for slowing down the song (if my understanding of how this works is even near to correct).

I expect a WAV file would be the best option. My converter can make a WAV file out of FLAC, but to no avail. Perhaps this decoding already ruins it too much.

There are many, many programs that convert from FLAC to WAV. Since FLAC stores the exact representation of the original audio with no loss in quality, any degradation can't be the result of the conversion. You shouldn't notice any difference in quality between your FLAC and the output WAV, because they are the same. If you have distorted audio after the conversion, the fault is with the original file, not the conversion.

Once you have a WAV file, try WaveEditor again, or use the Audacity Change Speed effect, which should give you what you need without significant artifacts or pitch changes. Audacity has the advantage of not needing a prior conversion step as it can use FLAC directly.

 

[Bucknekked]

@lovinthehd @slipperybidness @Bucknekked
So, without further ado, the results: Audacity can EASILY slow down your song without affecting the pitch. Those easy few steps from the lovinthehd's link work. No significant deviations in sound at least that would bother me so much for this particular project.

You might say it is like someone is playing a song and then his teacher comes and simply lifts the little weight on his metronome for a few millimeters and say now play it in this tempo.

thanks. always good to learn something. You figured out a way to do something I didn't know how to do.
Now I know its possible and I can file that away for future reference.