Changing the tempo

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I am using Audacity 2.4.2
My operating system is Windows 10.
I would like to slow down the tempo of the click track temporarily to record certain parts of the song. Can someone please tell me how to do that?

2

If you know what tempo you want to record at, then you could just mute the click track and create a new click track at the slower tempo.
If you then want to speed up your recording to match the original, without changing the pitch of your recording, apply the “Change Tempo” effect.

3

Steve, great reply. So if I slow the piece down because I can’t play to the original speed and record the new track at that slow speed will both tracks align when I play back the piece at normal speed?

4

So, what you could do for example, is select the original track (which we will call the click track). Slow it down via Effects > Change Tempo, say by -10%. Now record a second track, using your “click” track as a guide. Now select both tracks, and change the tempo back, for -10%, use +11.11%.

5

A caution that Effect > Change Tempo and Effect > Change Pitch are the two effects most likely to cause sound damage. They have to take the sound apart, only change some characteristics, and then put everything back together when they’re done.

Someone will correct me Pitch and Tempo are not easily reversible (other than UNDO). Keep high quality safety copies of your original work.

Effect > Change Speed is the one that changes everything by the same percent and is much less likely to create audible damage. That’s the one you use to file sync several different people singing into the same song from many different locations.

So if you start to encounter odd sound distortions, this is a good place to look.

Koz

6

Thanks, Koz. I had added this additional post to my original, below, but somehow it got lost in the bulletin board system.

(When changing the tempo back, you may find it easier to specify the target track length.)

(Also, to remove inherent processing distortions, replace the processed “click” track with the original).

7

Thank you, friends. I’m going for it. :slight_smile: