The Steel Guitar Forum

What is the best machine on the market right now to decipher licks...One that slows 'em down but keeps pitch...Thanks for the input in advance!

Pat Smith
Arlington, Texas

Hey Pat!
I don't know if it is the best or not but I have an Akai "Riff-o-Matic", which does everything you would need and has line in and out for easy hook up. It also has a instrument line in and headphone out. I believe it is a 8 bit sampler and there may well be inexpensive 16 bit samplers out now. I've had mine for two years and it works just fine. I believe these are now under $150 mail order or guitar center.


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Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas
Carter D10/Evans

Hey Steve..educate me just a minute on this machine...It will play CD's and slow them down, right?...And you can run a line out to your amp or audio in for a similar device?...I am assuming that the speed is somewhat user variable...Thanks again for your input

Pat Smith
Arlington, Texas

Pat,

I have a Sabine whatevertheycallit. It was about $120 and includes a memory feature so that if you turn it off it keeps the last thing you had entered (doesn't automatically erase). It records about 30 seconds from your source which is much more than I've ever needed to learn a lick. The lick can then be slowed down to 2/3, 1/2 or 1/3 speed while still maintaining the pitch. The slower you go, the noisier the re-play but never so noisy that you can't hear what's going on. It does take a little bit of adjusting and balancing of both input and recording volumes to get the signal as clean as possible. This unit does not have EQ and I think the Akai does, however, you can select channels which helps some in isolating individual instruments. You can save about $20 if you get the model without the memory feature and , to tell you the truth, I don't think you'll need it... I haven't. Bottom line- I love mine and it's worth every penny I've paid for it.

Steve Hitsman

i use the sound recorder on my computer comes with windows 95 and 98 records wav form
and under edit u can slow it down to 1\2 speed and pitch will stay the same.

The answer is..........:

Reed Kotler's TR-400 or TR-1000 digital transcribers. I really don't know of anything that can touch them. I just got a TR-1000, and it is terrific. No distortion, no garble at slow speeds (27 slow speeds to be exact, though who need 'em?), transpose key, pitch control, continually variable playback 'zone'. It's really great - an invaluable tool for me. I've had it less than a week and I'm very impressed.
SF

Hanny, after seeing this I went and downloaded CoolEdit 96 and it works great. It takes a little time to slow something down, but afterwords you can save it at the slow speed. Another trick up its sleeve is being able to modify the pitch of a song without changing its speed. This comes in handy when you need to learn a song in a different key than the recording. You can practice with a song (by the artist) in the key you want to. Not bad for free.

Hi Pat,
It was good to see you at Cowboys Red River!!

I use CoolEdit96 as well. You can't beat it for free. I haven't used it for riffs, but my daughter does vocal performances using karaoke music. I can use it to change the pitch suitable to her vocal and retain the speed. You also keep the pitch and change the speed. I plan to get a CD writer in a few days to store the shifted audio tracks for her performances. You can't beat it for free. It has limited features as shareware, but if audio stretch processing and saving files is what you need, I would try it.

Your friend,
Terry

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Terry Downs
http://nightshift.net
terry@nightshift.net

Hey Terry....Great sound out there in Dallas the other night and it was good to see you...Let me know when you might be there again, and if I'm not tied up, I will try and make it!.......

Thanks for the input from everyone...All the help has been great!

Pat Smith
Arlington, Texas

Pat,
Sorry about the lag. I sometimes forget which things I've posted in.
The Akai machine does not play anything. You have to hook up an input source to it. The speed is variable by the user with three settings. The pitch does not change. The slower you go the noiser the thing is. It works fine but at slowest speed is noisy with crummy fidelity.

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Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas
Carter D10/Evans

Thanks for the input everyone...I think the Reed Kotler model is the way to go....Let's all have a great new year!

Pat Smith

My Akai died today. How fortuitous! I'm going to order the Reed Kottler TR1000 tomorrow.

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Steve Stallings
Bremond, Texas
Carter D10/Evans