the SV-150 has a reasonable reputation. at that price you might also look at Bridge - i know quite a few people who use these and like them. however, the sound is still quite different from an acoustic instrument.

but i'm slightly confused about why this would help you slow down music?

i don't understand; surely the speed the music is at depends on how fast you play it.

do you mean you want to slow down pre-recorded music to play along at a slower speed? you can do that on a computer, no need for any boxes or electric instruments.

it also helps you tune, it tells you whether the notes you play are correct ie sharp/flat.

it also helps you tune, it tells you whether the notes you play are correct ie sharp/flat.

ps any tips on how to slow down on a computer? is a application I would download? (Sorry -not very techy)

I agree with those being horrified at tuner usage ! Tuners are based on a tempered scale which assumes that when you want to play an A, for example, you always want to play the same A.

However, in a real musical context this is not the case.

The A in the key of Bb will sound very odd if you play it at precisely the same pitch as the A in the key of D, for example - in the first case it's playing the role of the seventh, in the second case, the dominant - and each harmonic role has a slightly different sound within the scale.

The only way to be truly in tune is to learn to understand the roles of the notes within the scale and make sure they sound appropriately in tune for the scale you're playing in - rather than some fixed value such as a tuner which doesn't know or care what scale you're playing in.

I frequently have this conversation with students who have perfect pitch and sing horribly out of tune because they are sightreading by the note height, rather than by the role the note occupies in the scale. French violinists also look surprised at me sometimes (the lower level ones anyway) when I suggest that if they tune their open strings to the tuner, then the fiddle will be out of tune. They truly believe that 'g is g and ever more shall be so'.

Nope!

Use your ears.

If you're tuning in fifths, incidentally, using your ears and eliminating the beats, then your tuner won't read the strings as being in tune, so you can't use it to confirm what your ears are telling you. If your A is in tune, your D must be slightly flat, the G slightly flatter again and E slightly sharp by the tuner's standards for your fiddle to be truly in tune. Similarly if you play an F sharp in tune in the key of G, your tuner will think it's wildly high. If you play it where the tuner says it's in tune, it will be flat.

I suppose Im interested in one cos 1) it will allow me to practice without being concious that the neighbours can hear (being a newish player im not that confident at the mo)