Great Learning Tool in CoolEdit 2000

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

In the process of burning all my favorite and collectible vinyl and cassette tapes to CD, I record, doctor and edit the files using CoolEdit 2000. Computer idiot that I am, I just recently discovered that with CoolEdit you can slow files down to 50% of normal speed and not change the pitch of the track.

So, I recorded a bunch of seemingly impossible solos by Buddy and Joaquin, essentially a musical blur at normal tempos, and slowed them down to where each note is distinct and discernable. And no backing up the cassette to repeat, just a keystroke. This totally eliminates the variable speed cassette machines with their attendant mechanical problems, etc.

A great learning/teaching tool, IMHO!

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Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Cool, if you have Cool Edit.

George Wixon · From: Waterbury, CT USA

Herb,
SlowBlast also allows you to do the same thing. I got it when I ordered Band in a Box and it allows you to slow the music down to about 16% or speed it up without changing the pitch.

Tom Diemer · From: Defiance, Ohio USA

You also can do it with Winamp. There is a free plug in called Pacemaker, that lets you adjust the pitch without changing the speed, or adjust tempo without changing the pitch. Or adjust speed overall. Is a great learning tool, just like you said.

I'm not sure how Cooledit works in that reguard, but with Winamp you have draw bars so you can make changes while it's playing. Nice.

Tom

Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

This is great. I had not realized that Winamp had so much freeware plugin stuff available. I just installed a different one that I found called 'Slow Me'--don't know why, just being independant & ornery, I guess, but it works just fine. Thanks for pointing out the Winamp plugin options, Tom!
BTW--this works for .wav files as well, not just mp3. Man, what a wondrous age!

Steve Feldman · From: Central MA USA

I bought a Reed Kotler Transcriber a couple of years ago. Slows things down to a snail's pace with little distortion and you can even modify the pitch to bring it in tune with your axe. It's a teriffic unit.

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

Actually, with CE2K you can slow the track down to "almost stopped" speed, but I personally need the notes to have some continuity to them.

Question: What is "Winamp?"

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Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

Herb--it's a freeware music player. It works just fine and as I stated above, I've just dicovered a world of free stuff to make it more versatile. It's here--
http://www.winamp.com

Caveat--like many players, it can have long tentacles into your system if you are not vigilant when installing it (making itself 'default' player and all). If you are just fine with what you've got, I see no reason to bolix up your system messing around with this.
But it's not, like, an evil-doer or anything. Works well and can be set as default or not for whatever file forms you've got, long as you know what you're doing.

Graham · From: Marmora, Ontario, Canada

Herb:
To add to what Jon said, with Winamp, you could record whatever you want at the speed you want it to play back at, save it as an mp3 file then play it in Winamp with the "repeat" function on. Eliminates the "keystroke" as it will just keep on repeating until you shut it off. Used to do that a lot myself when I first started learning to play steel as I couldn't change fast enough on a lot of songs at the original tempo.
Now, I have a lot of them back to almost regular speed!

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Bill Myrick · From: Pea Ridge, Ar. (deceased)

Great information. Question ? Which units will operate on their own and which has to be ran with your computer ?

Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

Bill--I believe that Steve's Reed Kotler is a small non-computer unit, like a small tape deck. If I'm not mistaken, everything else mentioned is computer software.

Bill Myrick · From: Pea Ridge, Ar. (deceased)

Thanks Jon--Steve : For the sake of any of us interested, could you give us the particulars of your unit ? Where purchased ? Approx cost ? will it run freestanding on it's own , etc ? "Thanx" , Bill

Steve Feldman · From: Central MA USA

Reed Kotler makes 2 standalone units: one goes for ~$250 list and has more functionality, including complete pitch control, looping functions, and playback speed. You can record ~120 seconds at high resolution and ~180 seconds at a lesser resolution, but either works for me. The higher res is needed if you want to make the speed really crawl without breaking up. I, too, personally need the notes to have some continuity to them as Herb mentioned above, but there are occassionally times when my inexperienced pea brain can't quite pick out certain passages or notes as well as the pros, and I have to slow things down to a 'stupid' rate - this is particularly true when I can't figure out subtle harmonies or pedal squeezes that I know are going on. Anyway, you can record a passage and then loop sections of it as you require to work through different parts of a song.

The less expensive unit has similar features, but is scaled down in ways that I cannot specifically remember at the present. It went for ~$150 as I recall. Kotler also makes a software program that has all the functionality of the higher-priced unit that goes for considerably less $$.

I bought my TR-1000 for $175 two years ago and it's the single best learning tool I have. This thing's got it way over any other digital transcriber machine that I've tried. You can search the web for your best price.

[This message was edited by Steve Feldman on 25 December 2001 at 08:12 AM.]

Bill Myrick · From: Pea Ridge, Ar. (deceased)

Thanks Steve, for taking the time to respond.
Sounds interesting, I'm going to look into it.

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I bought a TR-1000 about 2 years ago, from Joe Wright.

I use it almost every day. It's patched into my practice stereo system.

It's advantage, over a computer system, is it slows the tracks instantly. The programs mentioned take some time to reprocess the sound. The amount of time depends on the length of the sample, your computer, etc.

I've reccommended this unit to others.

See it at http://www.reedkotler.com/Products/TR-1000/tr-1000.html

We've discussed this before, so do a Forum search on TR-1000 for more info.

-j0ey-

James Bissaillon · From: Omaha, NE, USA

Hey Herb, what's happening?! I'm not a picker myself (as you know) but I use Cool Edit Pro a lot for my live recording projects as well as vinyl and cassette to CD. What a great tool! I didn't have any luck using the clean up tools to get rid of a nasty "pop" on a Los Blues album, but I was able to magnify the offending portion so much that I could see the spike in the wave. I just deleted that spike everywhere it showed up for the next 15 seconds and PRESTO, just like new! Just thought I'd add my $.02. See ya in Dallas!

James

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

Hey James!

Of course, for a studio engineer, this type of stuff is second nature, but are great discoveries for old farts like myself.

Recently I was recording a lesson CD for my Sleepwalk project and completely fumbled over my words, including a mild obscenity

. Rather than stop the recording as I'd usually do, I decided to fix it with Cool Edit. Through the Zoom feature I isolated all the offending and incorrect words, cut and pasted, and the result was a completely imperceptable splice. WAY COOL, DUDE.

It even impressed my wife!

Say hey to your dad and your sister, and I'll be seeing ya in Big D come March.

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