Audacity Forum

I just got audacity and everything is basically going great (your program rocks!) but there is one thing I'm having a problem with. I'll get straight to it: I've noticed whenever I slow down the tempo in basically any track the sound gets distorted, like a cellphone call that breaks up. This is the only time I've ever experienced this kind of distortion and there is nothing else I've noticed that's different in this situation like high volume or some such...So here comes a rather obvious question: Can I do anything about this...or is this something that can't be avoided, slowing down tempo just automatically distorts the sound? I know it's kind of weird to be asking this but I don't really like the tempo in most songs, and slowing it down was going to be, well, my way of making music more, uhh, listenable (esp. synth string pieces)...Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

In reply to a similar posting recently stevethefiddle advised that you can sometimes improve this by changing the tempo in smaller stages rather than all at once.

WC

Thanks. Unfortunately though I tried that and it didn't help...

Oh well, I guess I better do that quit while you're ahead thing that that cliche says...

waxcylinder wrote:In reply to a similar posting recently stevethefiddle advised that you can sometimes improve this by changing the tempo in smaller stages rather than all at once.
WC

Although sometimes it sounds worse - it all depends on the kind of music. Generally, sounds that have fast attack/decay (like drums) work better with a single pass, whereas music with slow attack/decay (like synth pad sounds) work better with multiple smaller shifts.
If the music has a mix of both kinds of sounds then you are unlikely to improve on a single pass approach other than by using "Change Speed" which changes both tempo and pitch.