Dear all,

I'm pleased to announce that our new practice tool Speedshifter is now available to download from www.abrsm.org/speedshifter.

Speedshifter allows you to vary the speed of audio from CD or MP3 without altering the pitch. Simply load a track and turn the dial to slow it down or speed it up - the pitch remains the same. If you load an ABRSM minus one track Speedshifter will know the starting tempo of the track and position the dial automatically at the correct point on the tempo/BPM ring. Speedshifter will work with any CD or MP3.

Speedshifter is designed to be used whenever a student might benefit from playing along with the accompaniment at a reduced tempo.

The tool is absolutely free - we hope you enjoy it!

Ed

I've just been re-reading about Speedshifter to see if it would be suitable for the purpose of practising accompaniment. On the Sightreading Support thread in Adult Learners, many people have made the point that it's been accompanying others which has enabled their sightreading skills to improve. I don't think Speedshifter was designed with this in mind, and I'm not entirely certain how it works - would it be suitable to be used this way?

For example, if I were to find some very easy clarinet music with an easy-ish piano accompaniment, could I record myself playing the clarinet part (using my normal recording device), and then slow it down using Speedshifter so that the accompaniment was at a tempo which I found manageable?

As far as I can see, Speedshifter has worked on all of the audio files I tried it on. I've been using it to learn to play something by ear. It seems to do what it says on the tin - slow down a piece of music, any piece of music, but keep the pitch. Whether you then use the end result for good or evil is up to you

has anyone got this working with vista? doesn't seem to work on my pc. If I load a track, it successfully loads but doesn't play.

I downloaded it this week on my PC with Vista. It works fine. I'm afraid I can't throw any light on why it didn't for you. You should persevere, though, because it's a great little tool!