Using tempo

[theseus75]

This is somewhat related to this thread:
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... mpo#p27626
but maybe different enough to warrant rehashing.

I have some tracks that are read (I'm doing all vocals) with a little too much speed, and I am about to play around with changing the tempo so that it can be more easily understood/enjoyed.

Any caveats before I begin, such as a certain level that users have found begins to really show the distortion that is rather obvious when you apply some heavy-handed level like -40?

Again, something that - in time - I will "direct" to be fixed on the back-end, during recording, so as not to have to monkey with tempo at all, but any tactics, plug-ins, even other apps on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[steve]

Any caveats before I begin, such as a certain level that users have found begins to really show the distortion that is rather obvious when you apply some heavy-handed level like -40?

On speech the distortion is usually pretty bad if you go beyond -20%.
Generally I prefer not to use this effect. Sometimes it is possible to slow a reading down sufficiently by just splicing in an extra bit of silence between sentences, or other natural pauses. When doing this it is generally better to copy a bit of "background silence" from the original recording and use that rather than absolute silence.

[theseus75]

Yeah, I try to keep about 30 seconds of background "noise" to use as both a noise remover profile (if need be) or to cut and paste. Indeed, a few spaces here and there can seem to slow down the entire track. From what I've played around with, there's no way I'll go as high as -20, so no worries there. Somewhere around -4 or -5 seem to draw it out (this particular reader) to a more pleasant pace. In tandem with some extra spacing, it's probably salvageable.