Amazing Slow Downer Product Review

Amazing Slow Downer, created by Roni Music is software that allows musicians to slow down music playback without distortion. Amazing Slow Downer has been available for quite a few years now (it was first released in December 2000), but it wasn't until I'd gotten "serious" about learning the fiddle that I gave Amazing Slow Downer any "serious" consideration.

When you think about old-time fiddling there are several factors that make this software the near perfect addition to your musical toolbox.

• Most learning is still done in the traditional fashion - by ear (aurally) and not from sheet music.
• Many fiddle tunes have a quick tempo and it can be difficult for a beginner to discern the different pitches, notes, tunings, riffs, etc.
• Not many of us are personally acquainted with a really great fiddler who would be willing to play a tune slowly over and over until we get it (unless we have the good fortune of having a great teacher or hooking up with a workshop offering).
• Many of the fiddle tunes we like best are on recordings we already own and many times we want to learn those particular versions.

So let's cut right to the chase. Here is what Amazing Slow Downer can do for you. I've been wanting to learn 'Old Yeller Dog Come Trottin Through the Meetinghouse' for some time and I found that I really like Rayna Gellert's recording of this tune. Rayna plays this tune with an upbeat tempo, so as I stated above, it's not always easy for a beginner, like myself, to pick out each note when listening to a tune played back at full speed.

Amazing Slow Downer allows you to open a music file (either an MP3, AIFF, AAC/MP4 or WAV) and slow it to any speed increment (down to 20% of its original recorded tempo) where you can comfortably figure out the notes. The amazing part is that there is no distortion of sound! When slowed down to the 20% mark, I could even begin to figure out Rayna's bowings on this tune (You can actually hear when the bow grabs the strings to change direction.).

Below are three sound clips from Rayna's 'Old Yeller Dog' to illustrate the capabilities of Amazing Slow Downer (also called Amazing X):

This first clip is an excerpt of the original tune at normal playback speed.

This second clip is the same excerpt reduced to 50% of the original playback speed.

This third clip is the same excerpt reduced to 20% of the original playback speed. (Listen for those bow changes!)

You can also save these reduced speed music files to store on your computer, iPod, iPhone or other media player as practice pieces. I can even plug my Yamaha SV130 Silent Violin into my computer and play along with my slowed recordings! Sweet.

Amazing Slow Downer's user interface is uncluttered and very easy to understand. It features:

• A drop-down arrow box for accessing your files from either a file player or CD player.
• An easy scroll through box for locating your specific music file on the selected device.
• Controls for setting the Start and End points of a loop so that you can isolate one particular section of a tune. Great for learning difficult passages!
• A slider to adjust the playback speed.
• A slider to adjust the playback volume.
• An equalizer for tweaking the sound of the playback. This can help to isolate one instrument if you are listening to a multiple instrument playback (ie, banjo and fiddle together).
• Five different slow-down profiles that use various algorithms (utilizing more or less processing power resulting in better or worse sound quality) as well as bypass mode to hear the tune in its original form.
• Check boxes for enabling/disabling the Equalizer (EQ), karaoke mode (KA) which depending upon how the recording was made may reduce or remove vocals, and stereo (ST) playback mode.
• A mix feature that allows you to listen to either the left or right channel (or anywhere in between) if the recording of the instrument is more prominently heard on one channel over the other.
• A cue slider to get you to where you want to be in the tune.
• Finally, the standard Play, Pause and Stop buttons we expect to find on any audio player.

Amazing Slow Downer's more advanced capabilities include:

• The ability (via a slider tool) to alter the key of the tune by changing the pitch in semi-tones. You can do this while playing back at either full speed or any incrementally reduced speed.
• Fine tuning the playback of the tune to suit your fiddle, rather than vice versa by adjusting the pitch in cents (using the arrow buttons to the right of the Pitch slider). (Cents are 100ths of a semi-tone.) A fine tuner for your computer. lol.

Amazing Slow Downer is available for both Mac and Windows along with a recent release of a version made for iPhone and iPod Touch so there are plenty of ways to get your hands on this "amazing" software. It retails for about $50 and I've got to say that it's worth every penny.

When I hear my significant other, Joe, tell me how he used to learn from cassette taped recordings of festival jams that he attended I realize just how lucky we are to have this type of software at our disposal. Slowing down a cassette was well, shall we say, less than rewarding.