How to Increase/Decrease the TEMPO of an MP3 using Audacity.
I remember once going to listen to a keyboard acquaintance of mine playing at a local pub. He said to me that a lot of players play their pieces much too fast .. almost as if they are in a rush to finish and get home! So he made sure he knew the TEMPO he should play each song at and stuck to it. I suppose on the other side of the coin one could play a piece too slowly .. and then it will 'drag' and people will be saying to 'wind it up'!
I find that I often play songs too slowly, particularly if there are a lot of complicated chord changes. When I was in the Scottish Country Dance Band the Piano Accordionist seemed to have fingers made of rubber. How he managed to play those melodies for Scottish Country Dancing I shall never know! There is no way my fingers will move that fast! So if I want to play one of those Scottish Country Dance numbers, the only way I can do it is to play it very slowly .. and then speed it up afterwards.
Here's an example of me doing this. The tune I wanted to play is a real favourite of mine called The Mason's Apron, and I have incorporated this into a Medley. Mind you, playing that number 'slowly' worked a treat .. but the other two songs in the medley I found almost impossible to play 'slowly' as these are songs I play at normal speed and my brain is not geared up to do that!
First, listen to how this sounds 'played slowly'. Haven't put the whole track up .. just what I have referred to above.
So having recorded this medley at this speed I will load the MP3 into Audacity and speed up the Tempo.
First, we have to select the part of the waveform we want Audacity to work on.
In this case, it's the whole MP3 .. so Select All.
This turns the background to WHITE.
We then need to find Change Tempo..., which is in Effect.
A drop-down box comes up. A bit of experimenting needed here.
Let's try 100%
Have a listen, and see what you think.
Don't think so! Click the UNDO button to go back to where we were before, and set it up again.
This time I'll try 25%.
Reckon that's about right. Have a listen.
By the way, if you want to make a piece run more slowly, you have to put a MINUS number in there. Eg. -10.000.