Changing the tempo

When learning to play or transcribe a song it is often useful to lower the tempo of the song. To do this in Song Master we use the Speed slider in the Tools Panel. 

Numbers to the left slow the song down while numbers to the right speed it up. You can click and drag the slider button or you can click on the line to jump to that value. Clicking below the line (on one of the numbers) positions the slider to that designated number--when clicking above the line you can select values in between the numbers. To quickly set the playback speed to 1.0 just double-click. 

You can also use 1, 2, 3, and 4 to quickly change the tempo to 1.0, 0.75, 0.50, 0.25, respectively. If your keyboard has a numeric keypad, you can use the numeric keys to quickly change the Speed.

Changing the pitch

Adjust Tuning

It's not uncommon for a recording to differ from the traditional A-440Hz tuning. In the old days, this meant that you'd have to tune your instrument to the recording, however, Song Master provides tools that let you adjust the recording to your tuned instrument. The Pitch tools (located below the Speed slider) allow you to adjust the tuning in increments of cents, semitones, and octaves, however, when adjusting tuning you would want to change the pitch in cents.

When Song Master analyzes a song, it computes the amount that the recording differs from 440 Hz and can automatically adjust the recording's pitch for you when you click the Auto Pitch button on the Pitch Tools panel.

Adjust Key 

Some bands tune their guitars down a semitone to Eb. If you want to play along with the recording and you tune your guitar to E, then changing the semitone setting to 1 will raise the recording by one semitone (it's recorded a semitone lower so we raise it a semitone). 

If you change the semitones of a recording, then you may also want to have Song Master transpose all the chords accordingly. If this is the case, check the Pitch Transposes option.

In the following screen-shot, we clicked Auto Pitch which adjusted the tuning to 440 Hz by changing the recorded pitch by 11 cents. Then, since the guitars in this particular recording were tuned down a semitone to Eb we changed semitones to 1. Finally, to have the chords transposed up a semitone we checked Transpose Chords. 

Changing the key of a song by modifying semitones is also useful for vocalists when their vocal range is different than the recording.

Ins trans ("Instrument Transpose") will transpose chords without changing the pitch of the recording as Pitch Transpose does. This is useful if you play a transposing instrument or if you've tuned your guitar a step down to Eb and are playing along to a recording that is tuned a step down but what the chords to be notated as up a step (i.e. display Eb chord as E).