Slow down music on your computer or other device

Being able to slow down music without changing the pitch can be very useful during practice. You may want to hear a certain riff in a song, the timing of a certain section of a piece or just play along with a track, but slower. If you are using Minus One CDs for example, you may find the track on the CD is faster than your performance speed. The good news is there are probably various tools which allow you to slow down audio already on your computer!

There are some great iphone/ipad apps to slow down music and help you learn pieces, play along with pieces/backing tracks or transcribe music. The first is called Anytune Pro. This is a full function app that can help with practicing music or transcribing music. It is easy to use and has gained many 5* reviews on the iTunes App store (including one from me!). Click the icon to see full details.

Another useful app is called Soundpitch. The interface is very simple and you can either use music from your iTunes library or add specific pieces to the SoundPitch library when you sync. Click on the screen shot of the app, which is very quick and simple to use with the sliders, to see further information.

Slow down audio on a Mac

Quicktime is all you need to slow down music on the Mac.

Show A/V controls

Click here to download a PDF file with step by step visual instructions if you get stuck!

To use Quicktime in this way the music needs to be imported into your computer. This can be done via iTunes and found in the /Music/iTunes/iTunes Music file.

A Quicktime bonus is that you can also alter the pitch of the music in the A/V Controller without altering the speed!

Slow down audio on a PC

Windows Media Player is all you need to slow down music on your PC.

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Play Speed Settings

Click here to download a PDF file with step by step visual instructions if you get stuck!

To use Windows Media Player in this way the music needs to be imported into your computer. This can be done in Windows Media Player itself or another program such as iTunes. You should find imported music in /My Documents/My Music

Unfortunately Windows Media Player doesn't allow you to save the settings so you have to reset the tempo each time you open the file. If you want to do this for convenience Click here to download the Windows version of Quicktime from the Apple website.

Moving the slowed down track or writing it to CD

Unfortunately neither Quicktime nor Windows Media Player allows you to save or export the slowed versions of your music for burning to CD or moving to another device. If you want to do so you will need a program such as The Amazing Slow downer (Mac and PC) from Roni Music or Nero for the PC.

There are also some great suggestions in the comments below to try. If you use a particular piece of software for slowing down music on Mac, PC, iOS or Android please add to the growing list. The more choice we all have the better!

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