
Show HN: SlowTube – Learn songs by ear by slowing them down - dkthehuman
https://dkthehuman.com/slowtube
======
aasasd
BTW, slowing down idm and similar busy electronic music, in the manner of
vinyl, is quite solid entertainment. Aphex Twin is known for this, so much so
that RDJ admitted he knows about this and suggested that ‘RDJ Album’ could be
listened at 33 RPM to obtain an album of ‘standard’ 45 minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqf17mUyoQ)

You need to take care to properly slow down the audio, though, with
corresponding pitch shift down. Not ‘stretching’ it keeping the pitch
constant.

Apparently the genre of New Beat stemmed in large part from DJs playing rave
records at wrong tempos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yBvP3616Wc)
(see also
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUipCxjmmw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUipCxjmmw)).

I've also had similarly splendid results with slowing down hard house
(specifically my favorite compilation Insomnia Vol.2 from Tidy Trax). It
turned into proper house with lotsa relaxed steady drive but much more
engaging sound.

On your own machine, both workstation and telephone, VLC can alter the playing
speed with good quality and proper pitch shift (or with no shift!). For batch
converting, `sox` is a good choice—ffmpeg botches the sound for some reason.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Other slow music worth checking out, in some other genres:

Jolene by Dolly Parton slowed down to 33rpm:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=doz1QJ7LwjA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=doz1QJ7LwjA)

And some slow covers:

Vanilla Fudge (they do a few like this):
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6CL8ASLVWPk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6CL8ASLVWPk)

Issac Hayes 18bmin cover of By The Time I get to Pheonix:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r_Kb607VNKM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r_Kb607VNKM)

Dick Slessig Combo doing a 42 minute version of Wichita Lineman:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MorgJwbBhe4)

~~~
aasasd
Ah! Vanilla Fudge reminded me of the extremely fine thing that is songs of
Alvin and chipmunks, slowed down 2x: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-
MYe0SL9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-MYe0SL9Q) and
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpofYybjXgQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpofYybjXgQ)
(these are probably compilations from other vids).

They're much much better with bass boosted somewhat with a browser EQ plugin,
or with VLC—but the higher end must be kept, for the voices.

The original ‘Diamond Dolls’ is gorgeous in this rendition, and some others
like ‘My Sharona,’ ‘Good Girls Don't,’ or ‘How Do I Make You,’ might be the
best ways to play such songs.

After those vids, I had to go through their song collections—and found some
other gems, like ‘I Fought The Law,’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop,’ ‘Whip It,’ the
incredibly cool ‘I'm Too Sexy,’ or also original ‘I Wish I Could Speak
French.’

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TooCreative
This is cool. But the name is a bit misleading. I have the same 0.25x - 2x
speed range on Youtube anyhow. What it adds is the looping capability. So this
is rather LoopTube then SlowTube.

By the way: It would be nice if something like this would be available with
better sound quality for slow speeds. I am now half way through listening to
this at 0.25:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjfSESoC4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjjfSESoC4s)

With better sound quality this would be pretty epic ...

~~~
rozap
I built a similar web thing a while back, except it allowed real-time
arbitrary slowing down, and at high quality. The issue was that it was a
copyright lawsuit waiting to happen, given that it ripped the audio from
youtube. It works well and is all web based, but I'm too scared to release it
to beyond just my friends and myself.

The options that won't make lawyers get involved are limited, which is
possibly why op did it this way.

~~~
lukevp
Why not just make it into a chrome plugin then?

~~~
rozap
Because many people don't use chrome.

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reggieband
Reminds me of a simplified Soundslice[1]. I believe soundslice was started by
Adrian Holovaty, one of the originators of the Django web framework.

For what it is worth, learning by ear is a fantastic way to improve skill as a
musician. Slowing down songs is a great way to assist learning by ear.

1\. [https://www.soundslice.com/](https://www.soundslice.com/)

~~~
adrianh
Your belief is correct. :-) Greetings from Adrian.

Yeah, we started Soundslice as a way to sync guitar tablature with YouTube
videos, and it included a very nice UI for making precise loops (by dragging
across a timeline). That was launched in 2012, but in 2014 we changed our
product considerably, leading to the product we have today.

~~~
reggieband
As an aside - I've been following you on youtube since long before 2012. I
think I found you looking for Django Reinhardt videos and I was surprised when
I realized you were also associated with the Django web framework which I had
been using. You were one of those weird cross-over moments where two seemingly
unrelated interests of mine happened to share a common link. When I first
started watching you I believe you were just learning the guitar. I've watched
as you learned and grew as a musician, then you toured I think with some Gypsy
Jazz group. Heck, you just appeared on Josh Turner's channel doing a duo ...
another surprising cross-over.

I just thought it might be nice for you to hear that someone is quietly
watching what you are up to and that I draw inspiration from the things you
produce.

~~~
adrianh
Thanks for the nice comment! Made my day. :-)

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mb_72
Good, perhaps, in a pinch but I and all musos I know already have their
favourite looping / slow-down / EQ / song segment apps. I use Anytune Pro on
an iPad, myself, and for one thing it has fractional speed adjustment - 0.5 /
0.75 / 1 etc is just too broad a range, especially as I like practicing things
at 0.7 then 0.8 then 0.9 etc if they are particular tricky to get down.

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dekhn
Also fun: paulstretch

I use it to take Gyuto monks chanting and turn it into
cccccchhhhhaaaaaannnnnnttttttiiiiiinnnnnnggggg.

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unlinked_dll
ok this is awesome. I've been doing this manually in reaper for years!

One thing though, the "slow down" algorithm you're using is really wack
sounding. Have you looked at phase-vocoder based approaches, or overlap-save?

~~~
dkthehuman
Yeah, unfortunately, YouTube's algorithm causes a lot of noise so I may try
one of the approaches you mentioned down the road. Thanks for the pointers!

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leni536
I have used mpv for something like this before. '[' and ']' changes playback
speed and 'l' sets the loop-points. Using the --af=rubberband=pitch-
scale=<value> command-line option is also helpful if the melody you want to
transcribe is too low or too high for you to decipher easily.

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dingojohnsons
Sure beats recording to a loop cassette tape and pitching down with vari-
speed. From a convenience standpoint anyway

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mellosouls
FWIW offline alternatives include Riff Studio for Android. I assume there are
alternatives for that and iPhone.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.brazzi64.r...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.brazzi64.riffstudio)

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lightedman
I do this using AIMP2 (AIMP3 has a worse pitch shifter/tempo adjuster) along
with the vocal remover (as most guitar parts you want to know are off to one
side or another so they come through) for learning guitar parts.

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tinyhouse
Very cool! I installed a youtube looper in my browser that allows me to loop
on selected time frames. But it's not very friendly so I will definitely check
this out.

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dekhn
I used to listen to Scott Joplin records at a slower speed (back in the day,
my record player had a switch that ran the record at different speeds). really
liked it.

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cairo_x
To learn something by ear is to simply remember the sound/song and then repeat
it intuitively (as opposed to reading music or copying finger positions).

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1337shadow
This works well, if you want to reproduce a song and get every single note
right, been using mplayer myself so far which also works to slow down songs.

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postit
0.75x please

~~~
lhuser123
This. Also 0.95x and 0.90x. Even better, let user put whatever speed feels
better. That way can also be used for improvement in foreign language accent
reduction.

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schoolunch
A recommendation would be isolating frequency ranges and also selecting
mono/left/right to isolate a single guitar/instrument.

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mtb2718
I developed a web app to slow down music arbitrarily, isolate tracks, set
loops, and sync with video lessons a while back to solve my own needs when
learning to play new songs on guitar. It’s now owned by Hal Leonard (I have no
affiliation anymore), who have added a ton of amazing content. Here’s a
preview (full songs are behind a paywall):

[https://www.guitarinstructor.com/product/g-plus/dire-
straits...](https://www.guitarinstructor.com/product/g-plus/dire-
straits/sultans-of-swing/1000218264)

~~~
adrianh
Ah, you’re the guy who made that? I make Soundslice
([https://www.soundslice.com/](https://www.soundslice.com/)), which is also
about synced sheet music. Kudos from an industry peer.

Did you make it to sell it? I assumed it had always been a Hal Leonard product
and didn’t realize they’d done an acquisition.

~~~
mtb2718
I’m a big fan of Soundslice!

More specifically, the G-Plus lesson interface of Guitar Instructor used to be
Tunessence. It was a labor of love that we definitely did not build with the
intention of selling. We wanted to teach people music through their favorite
songs. Ultimately the licensing required to do that proved to be a hurdle we
couldn’t clear, so we’re very grateful the product is able to live on in a
great home. As the largest publisher of music, Hal Leonard was an obvious and
great fit.

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akdor1154
Damnit I have wanted to make exactly this, you beat me to it. Nice job. :)

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simlevesque
Any DJ Screw fans out here ?

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chasebank
This is perfect for golf! Thanks!

