When I did this for transcribing a cappella parts from up-tempo pop songs like Like a Prayer, our solution was to listen to a short section over and over, until we were sure of the rhythm, and then slow it down with our fragile analog brains with the stereo not playing. Mind-numbing, but also accurate, and very helpful when learning the parts.
A MIDI program (something you can type the parts into and hear them reproduced by a “perfect” musician) would help for double-checking. I believe there are some CD-turntables that let you tempo- and pitch-shift CDs, but that’s a hardware solution, and probably more expensive than you want to get into.
You can do this by ripping the track onto mp3 and playing them through Winamp with a plugin. I did this in Winamp 2, using the PaceMaker plugin. Apparently it’s been ported to Winamp 5. Lucky you!
I don’t know what your budget is (I know you want something free) but the 40GB Creative Nomad Zen Xtra (its an MP3 player) comes with this capability. You can speed up or slow down the playback of any song at a rate of .5, .75, 1.25 and 1.5 of normal playback.
Its going to cost a lot more than free but the only way I know of. I have the 40 GB Zen Xtra so I can’t say for sure if this is available on all of Creative’s MP3 products.
You may want to also check Creative’s website to see if the offer something w/o having to buy an MP3 player (like as a software). They might but I don’t know. They may charge you for it though.
The advantage of that Winamp plugin is that you can change the pitch in semitones, not … oh wait, you want to slow it down.
Yeah you can slow it down without changing the pitch, too. And apparently you can adjust the quality, unlike when I used it on my 1998 computer, which sucked.
If you slow it down to half speed or quarter speed, you’ll get pitch shift, but it’ll be by octaves, so you’ll still have the same note names. I often prefer this to slowing down the file and keeping the pitch the same as if you start meddling with half-speed and quarter-speed, the resulting file becomes very “grainy.”
I use Soundforge for that type of thing. All you have to do is decide on the percentage of speed you want to use (faster or slower) and it can completely change the tempo with no pitch change. I did it to remix a song that was originally 112 bpm and I sped the vocals up to match my 120 bpm song. Worked like a charm.
I have used Slow Gold which is available via Musician’s Friend - here is the link to it.
I found it really easy - you put a CD into your PC’s drive and when it gets to the part you want to learn, you create a “loop” in Slow Gold - that loop then, well, loops (duh!), meaning it repeats over and over. You can Transform the loop by slowing it down (no change in pitch) and you can shift pitch, too, so you don’t have to re-tune your guitar. Convenient.
I found it indispensible for figuring out Elliot Easton’s lead in the Cars’ song “Best Friend’s Girl.” That guy is a monster player and for such a little lead, it has some fast sophisticated rockabilly licks in it…
Same feature is on my 20GB Nomad Zen that’s existed for a few years now. So it’s at least on their HD players. And because the classic 20GB Zen has been around for a while, and recently made somewhat outdated by two or three new models, including NYR407’s 40GB Xtra, you can possibly pick it up for a bit cheaper. Don’t know about Creative’s flash players.
I downloaded Winamp (for $14.95) and the PaceMaker plugin, and it does exactly what I need. (btw, It plays directly from my original CD, and I didn’t need to rip it onto mp3). I think someday I’ll buy the Slow Gold software, too.
Here are a couple options. Both are $40 shareware and are available for a wide range of Windows and Mac OSes.
Transcribe is perhaps less elegant and full-featured, but has a fairly liberal shareware implementation: it works full-featured for 30 days, then stops working until you pay.
Amazing Slow-Downer is a nicer, more full-featured program, but has a more restrictive shareware clause: it will only work on the first two tracks of a CD or the first quarter of a file until you pay.
I bought Transcribe and have been pretty happy with it.